After posting my thoughts on changing players around to get the most out of you fullbacks, it dawned on me that we should be doing this more often.
In the last post I moved two HBs over to FB and after training, their ratings stayed the same.
If that is how NCAA 06 treats such changes then it only makes sense to do this yourself without the help from the game.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with taking a player you know would be suited at another position and moving him over.
Coaches do this all the time and there is no reason why you shouldn’t do the same in 06. Here are some of my thoughts and tips for doing so in this game.
The Easiest Way to Go About This
The best way I would change players around is to simply jot down their original ratings, move them over to the desired position, and then readjust their ratings to their original state.
You can do this before you even start a dynasty by going to the Rosters section and do this.
During dynasty you do all of this like normal during the “position change” phase.
Who knows? You might get lucky like I did with those two HBs and the game done the adjustments for me.
The three biggest changes in ratings initially will be Speed and Strength, thus automatically leading to a lower Awareness rating.
As long as you readjust to their original ratings, you should be fine. Anything extra rating bumps the game adds are just a bonus.
Just be mindful that NCAA 06 will not let you move players over if it results in too few players for the original position.
For example, in a Spread Offense you have to have 2 TEs minimum on the roster or walk-ons will be put there instead which is the last think you want since you can’t get rid of these players.
If you only have 2 TEs you can’t move either one until you find a 3rd TE.
New Possibilities
Changing players around will actually be more beneficial for you before you start your dynasty.
Since you can’t switch players around before your first season, there is no reason why you shouldn’t do this yourself before you start your dynasty.
This will also open your eyes to some teams you never thought you would use.
Perhaps you always wanted to run the Flexbone but just a few teams have a FB that can carry the ball.
Now you can just look for teams with bigger stronger HBs, move them over to FB, and readjust their ratings to their original state.
Maybe you have always wanted to have great speed at OLB but was never pleased with the overall speed of that position when recruiting them.
Now you can convert SSs to OLB and get that speed you’ve always wanted. Jimmy Johnson done this for years while he was the Coach at Miami.
Why can’t you do the same?
The possibilities are endless here if you think hard enough.
If you plan on taking this thing to the max, I highly recommend you write all of these original ratings down, just in case you want to move these guys back over to their original position.
You never know when you want to use a different scheme and you need that one guy to play back at his original position.
Common Position Changes
Now let’s look at some possible and realistic changes you can make to your squad.
QB: The only thing you can do here is recruit athletes who have Throwing Power and Throwing Accuracy with their attributes. Yes you can move a WR or any other speedster to QB if you use a run heavy offense but there is no point in this since these guys can’t throw, period. Speedy QBs are easy to find and recruit in 06 so there is no reason to go crazy here.
HB: There are plenty of HBs, both big and small, powerful and fast in this game so there is no real reason to convert another player to this position.
However, there is one option that I believe can be very useful. If you are an Air Raid, Run & Shoot, or any other pass happy gamer, I think you should convert a receiving TE to FB and use the FB sub packages for all of your spread formations. Now you have a SuperBack! He will be big, can catch, and can pass block. He is the perfect HB for your offense. Good luck finding HBs who can catch and pass block as well as any receiving TE. His Carry rating will be sub par at best, but if 95% of the time all he’ll be doing is blocking or catching passes, then it is a no brainer to convert these guys. This conversion alone was the inspiration for this post!
FB: Power HBs run the ball better than FBs and TEs are better at receiving and sometimes blocking than any fullback you will recruit. Outside of my SuperBack scenario, there is no point in recruiting FBs when there are better options out there.
WR:Â Natural WRs in 06 are really great. They come in all sizes and flavors. So there is very little reason to convert a player to WR. However, if you are a run heavy team, there is no reason why you can’t convert a receiving TE to WR. Yes they will never have the speed but if their main job is to block, move them over since their blocking skills will be better than any behemoth WR you can recruit.
TE: If you never throw the ball to your TE, maybe you can find an offensive lineman to move over for extra beef up front. Other than that, TEs are pretty great themselves, both receiving and blocking, that you will probably never need have to convert someone here.
OL: This doesn’t work well here and you don’t need to really. Besides, you can move around your tackles, guards, and centers to the other line positions and you won’t skip a beat.
DE: Big, strong LBs work well here. I actually never recruit DEs. I always convert big LBs since they give me the speed I need. If you are a 3-4 guy, you could mover smaller DTs over but there are probably enough really big DE anyways, but it won’t hurt to experiment with this though.
DT: The hardest position to convert to. 06 creates DTs that range in weight from 250s to 320s. No reason to convert anyone here. I would love to move huge OL over to DT but their tackle ratings would be terrible. If you are a 3-4 guy, maybe you experiment with this since there are plenty of 6’2 350 OL in this game. Surprisingly though, there are several huge “athletes” that work well here so be on the lookout for those guys. I once recruited a 6’10 340lb athlete and moved him to DT. He was a beast. He probably would have played even better in a 3-4 defense instead of my 4-3.
OLB:Â You can convert SS to OLB for your speed-minded 4-3. Outside of that, the weight and size range of natural OLBs work just fine for the position.
MLB: These guys are designed really well in 06 so I have never felt the need to convert someone over to this position.
CB: WRs are a possibility here. Other than that, you need speed at the position, regardless of which defense you use. On average, the fastest players in the game are CBs so I doubt you will ever have to convert someone to CB.
FS/SS: Another set of positions in which I doubt you will ever need to switch anyone over to these. Besides, you should never have trouble finding quality safeties anyways.
K/P: I think these guys are interchangeable and I often have the same guy handling both duties anyways.
Athletes: You have no choice but to move these guys to other positions but don’t forget about these players 2-3 seasons down the road. You might have a 3rd string Athlete turned QB that you know will not see the field anytime soon. He maybe be better suites somewhere else.
The best player I ever recruited was a JUCO Athlete who was equally good at QB, HB, WR, OLB, FS, and SS. Just because you have him at one position doesn’t mean he might need to play somewhere else before he leaves your school.
Conclusion
Hopefully all of this will inspire you to look at the rosters more deeply and discover some hidden gems.
Maybe this will motivate to try a new offense. Always experiment and never stop thinking about new possibilities. Head Coaches always do this so you should too.
This is not cheating. You are just moving guys over to other positions while not amplifying their original ratings.
Part of your job is to put your players in the best positions to win.
Now excuse me while I convert my TE to SuperBack and light up scoreboards with my Run & Raid Offense!
This part of the game is really intriguing. I was waiting for you to do a section on this. I’m thinking about trying to do a dynasty where I just recruit my immediate needs and fill the rest in with athletes. Have you ever thought about doing that?
Not really but I think you might be on to something. Maybe you can use in-season recruiting for most of your needs and the off-season loading up on athletes. While I mentioned that there are really big players listed as athletes but 90% of the athlete pool are geared toward your skill players. According to Evil Dave’s Recruiting guide I referred to in my in-season recruiting post, he mentioned of finding 1 and 2 star athletes who turn out to be studs.
I think it all depends on what your offense and defensive schemes are but I can see the possibility of loading up on those guys and see what happens. The only problem is you don’t know which positions these guys are best at until recruiting ends. So as long as you have locked up your needs than it won’t hurt you grab a bunch of athletes and see what happens.
I don’t have an operation sports account but I saw sometime back that you would put rosters on a memory card if someone sent it to you. Do you still have the rosters? I only have like the top 25 players at the skill positions and Carolina Clemson LSU and Georgia done
Email me at al@ncaa06revival.com and we will go from there.
I’d like to add a note to this that I didn’t see mentioned. If you change a guy’s position to something he truly isn’t suited for, offseason training will not boost his ratings for the new position. Like if you move a WR to QB and his THP and THA are both 59, they will stay 59 after training even with his position being QB. At least in my experience that’s been the case. If the WR started out as an ATH and say he has 70/70, I’m not sure if it will go up in that case.
I think athletes are treated differently. There attributes will change, for better or worse. But you’re right, non suited players will not do any better at an ill fated position.
Ok. I’ll have to revisit that. I could have sworn I’d tried putting an ATH at QB with 59/59 and they never improved.
The only athletes that will work at QB are ones who have QBA and QBP on their info sheet in recruiting.
Yeah you can’t take any athlete and put him at QB. Thankfully dynasty mode tells simplifies it for you.
Ah, ok. There you go. Love the blog, by the way. I am only about halfway through it. I saw it on the OS board.
Bookmark the site. I’m no longer posting updates on OS not through the newsletter. Maybe once a month I will update on OS just to keep people aware but not for every post.
If there is anything in particular you need regarding 06 just let me know.
For sure. I don’t need anything in particular, but I appreciate it. I share a similar level of enthusiasm for the 07 version. I was thinking about playing a dynasty and uploading it to youtube with in depth analysis of plays, etc. as I play. Including recruiting and all dynasty stuff.
I wish I could post videos of me playing on my ps2. I think you guys would enjoy those. Most people are visual learners anyway.
The LB to DE switch is no joke. I resisted doing it unitl recently because I didn’t think it would make a big difference, but I was wrong. The extra speed kills and often the tackle ratings are better.
I had one converted MLB rack up well over 80 sacks in four years with one year over 30 sacks. He even had seven in one game and while I did scheme to get him isolated on the outside, I did not control him once.
Thanks, Al, for this article and this website.
Thanks and those are crazy numbers. May I ask what difficulty you are playing on? What schemes are you using?
I only play on Heisman level. I use mostly 4-3 and Nickel defenses with a little 4-4 thrown in.. While I do use some zone (thanks for turning me onto Cover 3 Cloud), I mostly run Cover 2 and Cover 1 man defenses, esp. if they have a power back. Most of my blitzs are out of Cover 1 man or Zone with the line shifted towards the blitz.
Also, I like to blitz and shift towards the TE side rather than away from it. It tends to stuff run plays better and the TE usually goes goes out for a pass on plassing plays.
Also, those sack numbers are not normal, I just finished a season where my DE’s had 16 and 12 sacks respectively.
I may have asked you this before but what are doing offensively?
My offense varies depending on my players. I prefer a passing offense out of shotgun or Ace formations. I used to use a lot more PA Read, but am starting to love being under center in the Ace formations. However if I have a good line and back, I will run it more.
On both sides of the ball, you and I like to do the same things. I live passing, especially under center. I love attacking coverages and love the feeling of running a West coast offense. Being under center is tougher but it forces you to have more pocket discipline.
I am still trying to learn good pocket discipline. It is always tempting to run back and then throw, but this can lead to huge losses on a sack.
Like you, I enjoy being in the Ace formations than anything else. It’s a greater challenge but you feel like you’re running a sophisticated system. I’ve actually been working with the Ace formations a lot in practice this week.
I am trying to learn more of them. Ace Normal, Ace Slot and Ace Spread work great. I am currently working on learning Ace Big Twins and Ace Big WR. The offset lines are great for mismatches in the running game and the passing concepts create mismatches too.
Those five sets are the best Ace sets and it’s not close. Ace 4 WR Trips is pretty good too. But the five main sets have more concepts than anyone would ever need to run a potent offense, regardless of your favorite style.
Also, if you need help with these let me know, a bunch of good concepts in those sets.
What are your favorite pass plays from those two formations?
Do you use the Ace Big Twins Ace Arrow play? If so, any advice?
Arrow is a great play that I need to use more but forget to for whatever reason. It’s a right hash play as is (left if you flip the formation). It’s a simple two-man concept. The arrow slant (X receiver) is your man beater, the TE to the flat is your zone beater. L1 (Z receiver) actually does a wheel route so it is excellent against 0 coverage. Don’t worry about the flag route by the other TE as his main job is to distract the CB from covering the flat. The big reason I don’t use this one as much is because sometimes there will be a lingering LB in the middle who can pick off your arrow route leaving you little to no options against Man.
As for the two formations, we’ll start with Ace Big Twins. I will list the pass plays first that I like and then briefly talk about the running plays. I will go over Ace Big Twins WR in a comment below this one.
(Note that with play action plays, some work with righty QBs so if you have a lefty and the play action motion itself takes foreverm then simply flip the play and run the concept from the other hash.)
Post Cross: Right hash. A great Cover 2 Zone beater to the flag route, just roll out with him and he’ll be open (watch for blitzing/pressure though). Man beaters: Post against Cover 2 Man, TE angle route, and TE flat route.
PA Rollout: Right hash. Crossing route is you man beater, flat route is your zone beater, post route is your Cover 0 beater.
Ace Arrow: See above
Cross: simple two-man concept with the curl/flat. Left hash. Curl is your man beater, the flat is your zone beater. You can ignore your TEs. Oddly enough, the play is the only curl/flat concept where it involves your top two receivers. Every other curl flat in the game would require formation subs to get your two studs involved.
PA Seam: Right hash. Against Zone, motion Z (your slot receiver) to the right as he is your Cover 2 beater. TE flat is your Cover 3/4 beater. Against Man, motion is not needed. Both the slot and TE Go route are your Cover 0 beaters. X (Dig route) is your man beater if anything one or both safeties stay back. TE flat is decent against man as well.
PA Flat Choice: Similar to Post Cross. Only downside to this play is that it isn’t perfect against Man. Right Hash. Corner route is your Cover 2 Zone beater, might need to roll out with him some to force him open. TE Flat is your other zone beater or if you’re feeling pressure. Z is your Cover 0 beater.
TE Dump: Note that there is a slight delay when the ball is snapped, making this play not effective as it can be but still good regardless. Left Hash. Z (and Zig out routes to the short side in general) is great against Man and Zone but for this play it’s best against Zone. TE out-route is your man beater. Throw it to your HB if the pressure is too hot.
Run Plays: Stick with Slam, Dive, and HB Option (My Toss Play). Just don’t abuse the speed button and you’ll be fine.
Ace Big Twins WR:
TE Read: Another simple two-man concept. Right hash. X’s Zig Out is your man beater, TE out route is your zone beater. The other two in routes are good man beaters but watch for lingering LBs who can and will pick these off.
PA TE Flat Choice: the exact same play as PA Flat Choice from Big Twins except Z is on the right side. Motion him over to distract the FS against Cover 2 Zone to get your X Corner route open.
FL Quick Screen: A great screen plays that can actually work from either hash or the middle. Quickly throw to Z unless you see 0 coverage where you can lob it up to X on the Go route.
PA Rollout: Right Hash or left hash (one of the PA plays where the PA motion is quick regardless of your QB). Z’s go route is your Cover 2 Zone beater and 0 coverage beater. Throw to the TE Zig against everything else.
Curl Flat: This might be the best quick passing play in the game due to so many option and that the curl route is super deadly against zone when patient enough. Right hash. Against Man – X out route, TE post against Cover 0, HB angle, and the Z curl. Against Zone, TE flat against any zone (except for DE spy), Angle if the middle is wide open, TE post against cover 2 if you have time to throw, and Z curl against any Zone. I will talk about this curl route in either a post or a video soon.
Run Plays: Slam, Dive, and HB Option (Toss).
To Sum up both formations, the biggest thing to play with is the play action motion to get a feel for which ones work best for which QBs, some work great for both while other will require you to flip the play and use it on the other hash.
Between both fomrations, you have enough there to have a killer offense. Throw in Slot, Normal, Spread, and 4WR Trips, anyone can dominate from Ace.
Hope this helps.
Thanks. this helps alot and I appreciate the detail.
Thanks agian for the info. I have been using it alot, especially the Ace Big Twins WR. I was reviewing your comments again today when I noticed that you did not include Ace Big Twins WR PA Seam in your write-up. Do you use it?
I have found it very effective against zone and man. I use it on the left hash.
If man, the TE Go is your cover-0 beater. if not cover 0, all of the routes work, but I like to hit X right after he breaks towards the post.
Zone took some practice to figure out. Against cover 2, I throw it fairly hard to the TE Go route right after the QB is done with the play action motion and he usually splits the safeties easily, Against cover 3, I again will hit X right after he breaks towards the post and he is almost always open. If things get bogged down, there is always the TE drag when he gets under the corner or the dig if there is a hole in the middle.
I haven’t used it much because I struggled with it against zone but after your comments I’ll have to rep it out on the left hash more so thanks for that.
Some really good ideas here, on my current dynasty I am experimenting with a TE converted to fullback “Superback” and I have a RS frosh DE who I recruited as an OLB who is already looking like a stud.
One I didn’t see mentioned was the WR to TE conversion. When I got to Temple in my current dynasty there was a slower, 6’2 WR with below average hands who was buried on the depth chart. I had good WRs but I was really thin at TE so I put him on the depth chart and lo and behold he rated as a starting quality TE.
Next offseason I changed his position to TE and made him the starter (again– I had just arrived, was doing a rebuild, and TE was one of my thinnest positions) and started reaping the rewards almost immediately. The player, Tommy Ramsey, was a slower more powerful WR but as a TE he was a matchup nightmare. He never got rated higher than a 70 in the Catch rating but I won TE of the year with him junior and senior year. He dropped a few balls due to the low Catch but was getting so wide open that he caught more than enough. Ramsey even saved me from one surefire by catching a deflected Hail Mary and scoring as time expired.
I wouldn’t do this all the time because I enjoy running out of 2 TE sets and converted WRs are pretty bad inline blockers. However if you are deep at receiver, look to see if you have any bigger bodies with solid strength numbers and below average catch rating. They will make incredibly swift receivers and draw those juicy matches with slow LBs. Plus you can always use packages to move them back out wide or into the slot, and use your second string TE on running plays. Enjoy!
Awesome stuff, thanks for sharing. I’ll have to test some of this out myself.