• NCAA Football 11: No-Huddle Offense

    The NCAA Football 11 website has posted a blog from Associate Designer Larry Richart discussing the No-Huddle Offense in the game. The blog is filled with info, videos and more, so click Read More to view the entire entire.

    Hey there NCAA fans, we're back again with some more gameplay info for NCAA Football 11. We've had some very positive feedback from the demo as well as at E3 and can't wait for the game to hit the shelves in a few weeks. It's been a crazy world in college football as Nebraska and Colorado have left the Big 12 for the Big 10 and Pac-10 respectively. Now after all the dust has settled it looks like the Big 12 will remain intact for the most part and remain a strong conference with 10 teams. Despite these losses, the current Big 12 Conference will still have some of the most exciting offenses in the college game today. Some of that success can be directly attributed to the use of the No Huddle Offense. Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Baylor, and Iowa State all utilize the No Huddle offense and have put up huge offensive numbers over the past few seasons.



    The No Huddle offense has become an instrumental part of the college game as many teams base their entire offensive strategy around controlling the tempo. Instead of trotting back to the huddle after a play is over, teams will simply line up in a formation and either snap it quickly to catch the defense off guard, or switch to a new play based on what the defense is showing them.

    One of the benefits of using a No Huddle attack is that a team has the opportunity to run more plays during a game, since they are using less time in between plays. The No Huddle strategy is just one of the ways that you can try and run your offense in NCAA Football 11.

    In NCAA Football 11, you will have the opportunity to run a No Huddle offense at any point after a normal play is over where there is not a change of possession, time out, penalty, injury, or any other stoppage of play. At the end of a play, you'll have about 4 seconds to press the "No Huddle" option. This will redirect your players to skip the huddle and get set in their previous formation positions. As they're lining up, a modified play call screen will appear so you can call a new play. From here you will even be able to change your formation. However, you won't be able to sub or use packages at this point. The same is true for the defense as they will be stuck in the personnel that they currently have on the field. With that in mind, it will be important for you to call formations and plays that are best suited for your current personnel package. For example, if you start a drive and the first play you call is from a 5WR personnel package, you will probably want to stick to mostly 4 and 5 WR sets when running No Huddle. If you were to no huddle and switch to a base I-Formation with this personnel package, you would have receivers playing positions they are not accustomed to (TE/FB/HB). This will make things more difficult, especially if the receivers are trying to block inside against bigger defenders.

    In these video clips Oklahoma uses the No Huddle at the beginning of the drive and then later on in the Red Zone to score a TD.





    Some teams also like to run their No Huddle attack with a more aggressive tempo to keep the defense on their heels and limit their preplay adjustments. To set a faster Tempo in NCAA Football 11, you can go into your Gameplan options from playcall and select Aggressive under the Tempo section. When using a faster tempo, your players will line up faster in both no huddle and regular huddle-break situations. It's a great way to change up the pace of the game, but you have to be careful. If you keep running a fast tempo and always snap the ball right away, your players will get fatigued more quickly since they never have an opportunity to rest. You might be better off mixing in a huddle every so often just to give your players a little more rest, especially after incomplete passes when the clock is stopped.

    Oregon No Huddle Offense in action:



    Another new addition to the No Huddle feature in NCAA Football 11 is a brand new set of animations where the offense looks to the sideline. Many teams that use a No Huddle offense have their skilled players look to the sidelines to determine what play to run. In NCAA Football 11, you will see these animations when teams change their play after lining up. The QB also has specific under center and shotgun animations. To have your players look to the sideline, simply call a formation audible once your players are set and they will look to the sidelines. You will also notice the CPU doing these animations when they change their play at the line. Of course this is team dependant - not all teams do this.

    In this video clip you will seen an example of the QB looking at the sideline and then his wrist to get the play before getting back in his stance.



    In this next clip, you can see the WR, QB, and HB look towards the sideline before the snap.



    Spike ball has also been improved to work with the new No Huddle system. In NCAA Football 11 it's more effective to hurry up and spike the ball following a temporary stop in the clock for a first down. The most time you will lose off the game clock in this situation is a second or two, as opposed to previous versions of the game where the clock would start while you were lining up to spike it. In the old system you could lose 5 to 10 seconds of valuable clock time in critical moments!

    Another advantage of using the No Huddle is how it works with the game clock. In previous versions, it's actually been quicker to call a play from the huddle/playcall. That's definitely not the case anymore. Using No Huddle disables the accelerated gameplay clock which is an 8 to 10 second runoff during the huddle/play call in normal gameplay situations. I think you'll find this to be a very nice improvement when trying to put together a drive in late game situations and you're low on timeouts.

    The No Huddle offense can be utilized in a variety of offenses but most commonly is seen with teams using the Spread Offense. Here is a list of teams that use the No Huddle Offense as well as if they are Aggressive Tempo teams or not in NCAA Football 11:


    Well, that's about it for the No Huddle - just another new way to play in NCAA Football 11. Thanks for reading this and I hope you're as excited as we are for the release of NCAA Football 11 in just a few short weeks! Have a good one.
    Comments 28 Comments
    1. CLW's Avatar
      CLW -
      Wow I didn't realize that many teams were running the No Huddle.
    1. beartide06's Avatar
      beartide06 -
      Well I am pretty excited about the additions to no huddle. It is going to run a lot more smoothly then past iterations and will change the game up significantly.

      I think for my other OD I am going to use Baylor and try to build them up. Good news!
    1. steelerfan's Avatar
      steelerfan -
      It's good to see a list of the No-Huddle Types. I hope this will be easy to find/readily available in the team select screen.
    1. champ195797's Avatar
      champ195797 -
      in the Oregon video at 01:37 watch what the defense does after the audibale and also watch WR#10 (X) runs down field alone I'm not downing EA cause i love there games but please tell me this video is not from the retail version that the fixed
    1. AustinWolv's Avatar
      AustinWolv -
      CPU brought a CB blitz on that play. Offense was in verticals with more than just #10 open as a result.
    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt -
      Quote Originally Posted by champ195797 View Post
      in the Oregon video at 01:37 watch what the defense does after the audibale and also watch WR#10 (X) runs down field alone I'm not downing EA cause i love there games but please tell me this video is not from the retail version that the fixed
      Quote Originally Posted by AustinWolv View Post
      CPU brought a CB blitz on that play. Offense was in verticals with more than just #10 open as a result.
      Yeah, looks like the defense was in a zone blitz. The outside CBs blitzed, the slot CBs and MLB were in hook zones. The primary problem with that play was that the FS didn't cover deep like he was presumably supposed to. Hopefully that's already been addressed in the changes that were referenced from the demo.
    1. AustinWolv's Avatar
      AustinWolv -
      FS didn't cover deep like he was presumably supposed to. Hopefully that's already been addressed in the changes that were referenced from the demo
      Assuming he was assigned to.........you would assume it was a Cover2 as the CBs blitzed, but the way he crept up and had a short zone, not sure what was going on there........
      Would have to see if it was a habitual thing or if that was a case of poor awareness rating or a lucky playcall.
    1. morsdraconis's Avatar
      morsdraconis -
      Quote Originally Posted by AustinWolv View Post
      Assuming he was assigned to.........you would assume it was a Cover2 as the CBs blitzed, but the way he crept up and had a short zone, not sure what was going on there........
      Would have to see if it was a habitual thing or if that was a case of poor awareness rating or a lucky playcall.
      Looks like a REALLY broken audible by the CPU. Definitely playing Cover 2 Zone but then they did a blitz where the CB on the right side blitzed and the FS switched to some weird middle zone thing. I don't know what the hell play that was but it's definitely the CPU making individual changes to the player's coverage assignments.

      I've seen the CPU do that in '10 as well where they'd play man coverage on the outside and switch one of the LBs to a hook zone or QB spy because I had been tearing them up inside with slants and stuff and they are trying to bait you into throwing an INT. Definitely looks like that was what that was as well. Probably in response to them running to the outside a bunch to the right or something.
    1. AustinWolv's Avatar
      AustinWolv -
      Yep, good observation.

      Just my opinion, but I don't think EA got enough credit from the community for hot-routing defensive players in '10. Brought the heat sometimes.
    1. beartide06's Avatar
      beartide06 -
      Ok last year when I was playing on NCAA 10 I found a glitch that happened frequently if you audibled to four verticals the CB's would blitz EVERY time... that is what this appears to be, unless it was just coincidence.
    1. Moostache's Avatar
      Moostache -
      Ok...that looks better than the constant hurry up of the demo...not 100% convinced, but I do applaud EA for showing videos...now get some before and after videos just like that which detail the changes from the list of fixes from demo to retail and I shall issue a most sincere mea culpa!
    1. cdj's Avatar
      cdj -
      If you guys have played (or will) with the no-huddle in the demo, what did you think - especially as it related to fatigue?

      We had some pretty long and intense chats at the Community Event with the devs on no-hudde/hurry-up and fatigue to 1) try and stay true to the concept of it and 2) to make sure it wouldn't become the default style (read: cheese) for every online player.
    1. AustinWolv's Avatar
      AustinWolv -
      I noticed guys getting tired in the demo which was a good thing, but need to play with it more and on aggressive to see more.
    1. JeffHCross's Avatar
      JeffHCross -
      I saw a lot of players getting exhausted in the demo from the No-Huddle. It seemed a little over done, though I believe that was mainly against Oklahoma, and they were probably going Aggressive.
    1. JBHuskers's Avatar
      JBHuskers -
      Quote Originally Posted by JeffHCross View Post
      I saw a lot of players getting exhausted in the demo from the No-Huddle. It seemed a little over done, though I believe that was mainly against Oklahoma, and they were probably going Aggressive.
      Yeah it was a tough balance. At community day, it seemed like they weren't getting fatigued enough. That was one of the things they worked hard to balance out.
    1. cdj's Avatar
      cdj -
      Quote Originally Posted by JeffHCross View Post
      I saw a lot of players getting exhausted in the demo from the No-Huddle. It seemed a little over done, though I believe that was mainly against Oklahoma, and they were probably going Aggressive.
      One thing about it is how quickly you hike the ball at the line. If you sit at the line for a bit, they won't get nearly as fatigued. If you hike it as soon as you get to the line, fatigue will kick in. Basically, this should give the D a chance to make some adjustments if need be; a nice balance. There was some talk of changing it up late in the 4th, but they were very interested in our thoughts on making sure those who run no-huddle all game do not do so as a form of abuse, but rather as a legit play style.
    1. Deuce's Avatar
      Deuce -
      It really is hard to know for sure since its only 2 minute qtrs but from what I saw I thought it was well done.
    1. rhombic21's Avatar
      rhombic21 -
      It would help if they would add some kind of visual cues to tell you how tired your players are. Could be as simple as an energy bar, or could be as subtle as animations that show players grabbing their knees and sucking wind. Not just for your own players, but also for the other team. If I'm wearing the defense down, there should be some way to see that and pick up on it, rather than just noting when substitutes enter the game. And on defense, it would be nice if I could see how much energy my players have so that I would know if I need to call timeout, and if I could tell when the offense was getting tired itself so I would know when they are going to have to slow things down a little bit.

      On the demo it did seem overdone, but that's probably because I was using it very aggressively. One thing I noticed though is that it seemed like the CPU was bringing in players out of position even when there were plenty of players on the bench at the position who were available. Particularly at WR, the game kept bringing in 3 and 4 CBs rather than subbing in one of the 8 or 9 WRs who were on the roster.
    1. jaymo76's Avatar
      jaymo76 -
      I'm curious to see how Aggressive no-huddle will impact the injury system. If I am running my players ragged I should expect to be prone to higher injuries.
    1. AustinWolv's Avatar
      AustinWolv -
      In the playcall screen, the players were showing up yellow or whatever when they were getting tired.