There were a lot of improvements with NCAA Football 11 and Madden 11 this year. But I think we can all agree that their dynasty and franchise modes did not necessarily follow that trend.

Madden gave us literally the same Franchise mode we have seen on current-gen consoles for the past few years -- even the NCAA imported draft classes are broken.

NCAA Football seemed like it was going to make huge strides with its Dynasty mode, giving us the option to play everything online and save all stats and replays for 30 seasons. That has not panned out since it can take too long to advance through the offseasons and weeks online. Plus, you can’t receive conference invites either.

So which mode wins out this year? Well, here’s a breakdown of which mode I think is the best this year.

The Regular Season

We all like to talk about the NFL offseason or college recruiting, but we can’t forget about what it’s like to play the regular season. While it seems like something that should be simple, past games have found ways to mess up playing the regular season before.

NCAA Football immediately has an advantage over Madden in this department simply because of the in-season recruiting. I am always a little more into the regular season in a college game because each game means more and there’s more than just playing each week’s game.

However, I don’t think NCAA Football runs away with this because the recruiting can become pretty meticulous, and some have even complained of it being pointless at times. I would not be surprised if 10 years down the road in my dynasty I find myself turning on the CPU-assist options for recruiting instead of spinning the wheel of conversation topics with 35 recruits each week for about an hour.

I also find the level of gameplay for each game pretty comparable. They are different, and each has their flaws, but overall I have enjoyed them both about the same.

A Madden patch could change this ranking, but for now NCAA Football has the edge when it comes to the regular season.

Progression

I’m giving progression its own category here because it’s very important for extended modes, and both titles have a history of screwing it up.

Progression was a huge problem in NCAA Football when it was first released, but patches since then have helped calm down the problem somewhat. Nevertheless, for now in my dynasty I am redshirting almost all of my recruits, and I’m not seeing them get much better down the road. I’m pretty sure I will be relying on the freshmen that I had at the start of my dynasty to carry my team for four or five years since my new recruits won’t be near their true talent level for whatever reason.

Madden seems to be all right so far with progression. It was pretty bad in the past when players' overall ratings would not go down as they aged.

Madden's progression is basically saving the poor NCAA draft classes for now. Even the quarterbacks that come in rated in the 60s will eventually progress into the 80s if you play them enough. I can live with that.

Madden has the edge for me when it comes to progression, if only because of the low-rated recruits in NCAA Football's Dynasty mode.

The Offseason

NCAA Football has always been pretty good in the offseason department. Unfortunately, the recruiting does get old by the time the offseason roles around, and I usually have signed a lot of my recruits during the actual season.

Other than recruiting, there’s not much more to do in the offseason of NCAA Football since there is no spring game or anything like that.

There’s a little more going on with Madden. The contract negotiations and scouting for the NFL Draft are similar in function to previous Maddens, but all that can still be fun.

On top of that, the actual Draft is always fun, especially if you’re reporting your franchise and writing down every pick as it happens -- even if the CPU is clueless when making a selection.

The offseasons in each game are relatively stale, but overall I have to take Madden here because there is more to do than in NCAA Football.

Verdict

Trying not to take into account the real differences between NFL football and college football, I think both modes are passable this year and are not buzz killers over a long period of time. The jury is still out for me in terms of which game I will be playing once I get 10 years deep and beyond into one mode or the other, but for now I am going with NCAA Football.

The draft classes are really hurting Madden for me, even if it’s not killing it yet, and I’m able to deal with the hand NCAA Football dealt us this year in terms of some of the progression issues.

For the first time in three years, I also was not invited into the ACC with UCF after my first season of Dynasty mode so there is a lot out there for me to accomplish.

It’s too easy to get good fast in Madden this year, and once you win that first Super Bowl, the interest level in a franchise really plummets.

This is not yet set in stone for me though, and I look forward to seeing which mode I get the most out of as the year progresses.


Andrew Kennedy is a staff writer for OS. He lives in Orlando and is really good at watching sports and playing video games a lot. You can follow him on Twitter @akennedy41, on OS as crusaderhoops10 or at his sports blog akennedy13.wordpress.com.