Today is National Signing Day (NSD), the first day that high school seniors can sign a letter of intent indicating where they plan to play college football. Sure, most top recruits have already chosen their schools, but NSD always offers last-minute drama and surprises. To celebrate the occasion, let’s take a look at some ideas for recruiting and Dynasty Mode in the NCAA Football series.

National Signing Day

In real life, NSD is a big event; in NCAA Football, it’s nothing. FIFA 12 includes special presentation for transfer deadline days (soccer’s equivalent of the trading deadline) during career mode. In NCAA Football 13, why not include something similar to represent NSD? In the real world of recruiting, a verbal commitment is non-binding; it’s not until recruits fax in their signed letters of intent that coaches can be certain that they have their guys. In the NCAA Football series, though, once a player commits, they’re yours.

What if any commitments you received during the season remained uncertain until you reached an in-game version of NSD? Imagine the tension of waiting to see if your commits actually send in their letters of intent. The game could include an on-screen ticker of high-profile commitments, as well as some bonus recruiting time to make a last-minute push for your remaining targets. In the NCAA games, recruiting can become very boring after you’ve already signed 20 players and filled your needs for the next year. But adding NSD and its uncertainty would breathe fresh life into Dynasty Mode.

Adjust Scholarship Limits and Roster Sizes

I discussed these ideas in Monday's article, but I think they bear repeating. Simply put, the college game is different from the pro game, and an 85-man roster is a big contributor. One of the reasons that spread offenses can flourish in college is that large rosters allow for frequent substitutions. Proportionally, the 70-man roster is the equivalent of Madden having 44-man rosters. But another problem with the 70-man roster is that the game allows you to sign 25 players every year. Even if you never redshirt a player, 25 signings a year makes 100 players in four years – which means you need to make 30 cuts to fit the game’s limits. I know these aren’t real athletes, but oversigning is a huge, huge problem in college football, and the NCAA series encourages you to oversign. If the NFL won’t allow late hits in the newest iteration of Blitz, why is the NCAA silent when the biggest game bearing their stamp encourages gamers to sign and cut at will?

I believe the game needs to move to 85-man rosters, and maybe even some non-scholarship walk-ons similar to the rookie free agents in Madden 12. But if 70 players is the limit, then the number of scholarships that a player can give out each year should be dynamic – perhaps the number of seniors on the team plus five, to account for transfers and early entries into the NFL draft. Plus, as far as I can tell, any players you cut disappears from the game. Talented players that should be trickling down to lower-prestige programs can just end up signed and cut by the major powers instead, which makes it harder for a lower-prestige team to build a quality roster.

Increase Attrition, Decommitments, Sleepers and Busts

Everyone wants sleepers and busts added to recruiting. Every year, 5-star recruits turn into nothing and 2-star recruits become All-Americans. But not in the NCAA series, where you can look at a freshman recruit and know what their overall rating will be as a senior with frightening accuracy. Simply put, that needs to change.

Players should also decommit with greater frequency. One needs only to look at the ongoing saga of Indiana ... no, LSU ... excuse me, Notre Dame quarterback Gunner Kiel to know that players change their minds. Sometimes it’s because a school isn’t a good fit, and sometimes it’s because that school signs a highly-rated player at the same position. It’s also frustrating that once a player becomes a hard commit to your school, you’re stuck giving them a scholarship, putting players in a tough spot when they reach their 25-scholarship limit and have interest from 5-star players that they can’t possibly sign. Schools rarely pull scholarship offers from their commitments, but it’s common practice for coaches to talk with lower-rated recruits and let them know that they might never see the field if they maintain their commitment. Wouldn’t it be an interesting wrinkle if you could try to persuade a low-rated player to decommit from your school so you could pursue a more coveted player instead?

In addition, if EA is going to maintain 70-man rosters, then the game should include a much higher level of attrition on your roster. It’s not uncommon for a team to lose five players each season for a variety of reasons. Some transfer, some fail out of school and some violate team rules. The later last-gen NCAA games included a feature where players would violate rules and you could decide how much they should be punished, or even let them off the hook at the risk of attracting NCAA attention. This was a great idea that added a lot of life to the mode and I’m not sure why it’s gone.

A predictable Dynasty Mode is a boring Dynasty Mode. Let’s get some more variety.