For years, the NCAA Football series has sold well and enjoyed great reviews.

But this year, it feels like the tides of public opinion have shifted, and a series that once seemed immune to criticism is now subject to a growing wave of discontent. It doesn’t take more than 5 minutes in the OS forums to see that dedicated sports gamers have a whole laundry list of complaints and suggestions.

In this article, I discuss five things that the NCAA Football 13 team could do to restore gamers’ faith in the series.

Let's just put it this way, NCAA Football 12 -- you won't be looked as a high point of the franchise.

Fix CPU defense

Yes, I’m beating a dead horse here, but there’s a reason that the CPU’s defense is so frequently maligned. Super linebackers and psychic defensive backs absolutely ruin the passing game. When CPU corners and safeties have eyes in the back of their heads, the deep passing game is devoid of any realism. Separation doesn’t really matter, and neither does reading the movements of the CPU DB’s. Instead, you’re stuck running screens, slants, and seam routes, while many of the routes in the game almost never work. Plus, doesn’t it seem like your No. 1 and No. 2 receivers are always blanketed, while your slot receivers are almost always open?

Only compounding the defensive problems is the fact that when you try to fool the CPU, it often won’t work because they know your play. 

Add variety to recruiting

When Madden added sleepers and busts to draft classes, it might have seemed like a subtle change. But to seasoned franchise mode players, sleepers and busts added a level of complexity and realism to the mode that had never before existed. In the world of college football, where three-star recruits can win the Heisman and many five-star recruits never start, it’s a shame that the NCAA series doesn’t include more variety in player ratings. 

There’s no real thought required in recruiting; instead, you can just target the players with the highest star ratings and be relatively certain that you’re getting the best players. In real life, though, we all know that low-rated recruits often blossom into superstar players. That’s not really possible in the NCAA series, as all players improve at roughly the same rate, and their stats appear to have little impact on how quickly they progress.

Adding sleepers and busts would encourage players to stop blindly adding the top-rated players to their boards and instead look closely at their individual ratings, combing through lower-rated players to find overlooked gems.

Recruiting is stale, predictable and bland.

In addition, recruits are even handled poorly post-signing. It’s strange that there is no option to enter practice mode before you have to decide whether or not to redshirt a player, and that using a redshirted player in practice mode during the season burns their redshirt. That’s not how college football works. 

There is a host of other problems with recruiting, including “athletes” that can only really play one position and the incredible difficulty of signing a fullback with a 6-star program. But adding sleepers and busts, as well as an under-the-hood potential ratings would be a massive improvement. 

Finally, why are we still stuck using 70-man rosters? Yes, 70 players is a lot, but a real NCAA team has 85 scholarships to play with and room for walk-ons as well. I don’t like it when a video game has you cutting virtual athletes after a year or two on campus because their ratings aren’t high enough and your roster is too small. Oversigning is a serious problem in college football, and it would be nice if the NCAA series didn’t have an artificially small roster size that basically encourages you to oversign and cut later. 

The atmosphere at college football games doesn't end after the coin toss.

Focus on recreating the college atmosphere

The team-specific entrances that EA introduced for NCAA Football 11 were a nice touch. But that kind of immersion needs to continue past the coin flip. The atmosphere at a big-time college football game is incomparable, so why does the NCAA series feel so flat? A few years ago, these games featured variable crowd noise that had tangible effects on gameplay, including botched audibles, and that little meter on-screen that indicated how crazy the crowd was.

Yes, it was a little gimmicky, but gamers could really feel the energy in notoriously loud stadiums. 

In addition, why not include team-specific chants and in-game traditions? More activity on the sidelines? A less boring crowd? More stat overlays? The return of pre-game predictions? It’s great that gamers can upload their own sounds to play in-game, but that’s a lot of work that most people won’t be willing to do.

EA also needs to do a better job of integrating ESPN-style presentation; they have the license, so why does the game look so different from what we see on television every Saturday? The sights and sounds of college football are amazing, even on television. It’s a shame that so many gamers just put on some music and hit the mute button on NCAA 12.

Improve physics

One of my favorite ways to test a game’s physics is to create a player with extreme ratings and attributes and see how they perform. When you do this in NCAA Football 12, it becomes clear just how poor of a physics engine this game has. If I create a 350-pound halfback with 99 speed, 99 acceleration and 99 strength, I expect him to have enough momentum running with the ball that a 180-pound cornerback can’t just stop him in his tracks.

Watch a college football game – or ANY football game, for that matter, and it’s obvious that weight and strength matter.

But in the NCAA series, they don’t appear to matter much. Using power halfbacks just feels like a waste of time, and 220-pound defensive ends can hold up just fine at the point of attack. Under this physics engine, aside from their speed, most players just feel the same. 

There are still features which we still haven't regained in the NCAA Football franchise.

Be creative and bring back old features

Custom playbooks and the coaching carousel were welcome additions, but not exactly genre-defining features. EA should look to 2K’s example and get creative. Why not bring back classic teams wearing vintage uniforms? One thing the roundly criticized mascot games demonstrate is that EA has the capacity to include a lot of different player models in the game. Why not drop some mascots in favor of old-time players in leather helmets? Also, why are we still unable to make custom plays? The underrated NFL Head Coach 09 had a terrific play editor that allowed for real creativity.

Another great feature in Head Coach 09 was the ability to export a team to use in Madden’s exhibition mode. It’s always frustrating to watch some of your favorite recruits close out their virtual careers, knowing that you’ll never be able to use them again. Imagine, though, being able to export your dynasty mode teams to use in exhibition games, or even take online to play against your friends. This feature would do wonders for the game’s replay value.

Clean up the bugs

Perhaps the most notorious bug in NCAA Football 12 is the “Transfer Failed” issue for online dynasties, which first appeared in the 2011 edition of the game. EA supposedly fixed this – after the college football season ended. Add in the no huddle glitches, problems with custom playbooks, and the extremely annoying player tendency bug, and you’ve got a robust set of glitches that affect core gameplay.

A lot of bugs and issues take some time to detect (like the lack of progression for young scouted players inFIFA 12), but some of the biggest issues with NCAA 12 became apparent after only a few hours with the game. When gamers can identify bugs within a day or two, it creates the impression that the game wasn’t tested enough. Already, many gamers have decided that for them, NCAA 13 won’t be a day one purchase. After last year’s issues, it’s hard to blame them for wanting to wait for a patch.

OS readers, what do you think of these suggestions? What do you want to see in NCAA Football 13?