NCAA Football 2012 Impressions - ddsmith3's Blog

ddsmith3's Blog

NCAA Football 2012 Impressions

Posted on July 13, 2011 at 05:46 AM.

(1)

As I said in my post reviewing NCAA '10, I've been a fan and a player of EA's college football games since 1994 and a yearly buyer of the series since 1997. I'm not one of those who nitpicks about little things like running animations and roster accuracy and I certainly don't get bothered by the occasional texture bug or cheesy celebration. When you've played these games as long as I have, you come to appreciate how far we've advanced and how hard these developers work to put out new iterations every year.

That said, NCAA 2012 is probably my favorite installment of the series to date. 2011 was great, but after a few weeks playing it, I had a wish list with only five items on it:

1. A coaching carousel
2. More fleshed out Road to Glory Mode
3. True coach mode
4. True conference realignment
5. Custom playbooks

I didn't write about last years game anywhere, but it seems like EA heard me anyway. When you're someone who plays the game the way I do, these are the perfect additions. Every since I think 2003, the first thing I always do is start a dynasty and take over the worst possible team in the game. Then I work to build them up and see what job offers I get. I've had fun with this, but it always felt incomplete.

In the early years of playing this way, I always felt a little disingenuous because in order to call all the plays, I also had to play the games and play as the players, typically performing much better than the players would in simulation. In other words, putting up "video game numbers" that weren't realistic to an actual players skill level.

Last year, they added the auto-throw feature that helped quite a bit, but the running game still suffered at All-American or Heisman levels, and was too dominant at Varsity or Freshman levels. I longed for a true coach mode that I enjoyed in earlier versions of Madden and NCAA where I could just call the plays and watch the action from the sidelines.

Then I'd get to the end of the season and get pulled out of the experience completely when I realized that although I might get another job offer, other coaches were stuck where they were. I remember this bothering me last season especially because I went in on the coaches screen of my Dynasty and found that five years in, Western Kentucky had won a total of six games. In five years. And they were stuck with the same coach.

Last year I started my Dynasty with Rice. Rice is a very bad team. I primarily used the Air Raid playbook but every once in a while I'd find myself matched up against a much much stronger opponent and I wouldn't want to open myself up to the possibility of throwing a lot of interceptions, so I'd want a few plays where I could run behind a fullback and set up play-action. In order to do that, I had to completely abandon the plays I love so much in Air Raid and move to something like Pro Style or Multiple. Multiple is fine until you realize that the reason your slot receiver isn't burning any defenders is because he's actually a 250 pound tight end with a speed rating of about 65. This continued to be an issue even when I moved up the ladder and nabbed the head job at USC.

Before I left for USC though, I had an undefeated season with Rice which led to a bid in the Sugar Bowl against Alabama. This was a few years in after the four star QB I'd been lucky to recruit in my first season was a redshirt Junior with and overall rating of 95 and the strong Texas recruiting pool had allowed me to build my defense to a staunch overall rating of 88. After a hard-fought battle my little Owls beat Alabama on a strong goal-line stand in double overtime and I found myself with a post-season dilemma. The Big 12 came calling and wanted Rice to join the conference. But in order to do so, Baylor had to be swapped out to Conference USA. Realistic? I think not.

I won't go in to my complaints about Road to Glory because this post is already long-winded, but I think my point is made. Tuesday afternoon when I started my first Dynasty in NCAA Football 2012, I wanted to take the usual route of humble beginnings. Instead of being forced to take a head coaching job right out the gate, I had the option to start out as a coordinator. I am now the Offensive Coordinator of the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. I'm only four games in but I already love the new coach mode. The running game is much more consistent and helpful and my athletic quarterback actually takes off and runs now and then when he has an opening! Almost too often in fact.

I spent most of the day building my own CUSTOM playbook so now I get all the proper five-wide sets along with the ability to run effectively out of a two back set. At the end of every week I get to see how well I'm doing and how secure my job is, as well as the rest of the coaches. I know that if I do well enough at the end of my two year contract, I won't immediately get offered the head position at a five or six star program like in previous years. I know that since I set my Alma Mater as Kansas State, I'll have an extra in-road when and if that position becomes available.

I�ve heard that if you want conference changes at the end of a season you have to do it yourself. Apparently the computer no longer prompts you to change conferences based on performance. That kind of sucks, but not really. I know it�s early, but so far, this game is amazing. If the coach carousel adds as much replay-ability as I think it will, this game will be absolutely the best college football game � or even the best sports game � I've ever played.