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The NCAA Football Offseason Seems So Much Longer


Well, that was easier than I ever expected.

As we enter the college football offseason, we are entering it knowing for a fact that we won’t be greeted on the other end of these dark days with EA’s NCAA Football game heralding the Autumn Saturday’s back into our living rooms next July.

NCAA Football always stood as the marker of Summer’s peak and the slow wane to Autumn. NCAA was a marker that the glory days of College Football season were fast approaching, despite the fact it went on sale nearly a full two months before the kickoff of the season.

I think the fact it was so easy to let this season of college football go is that I didn't fully recognize that the wait is going to be longer this time around. There is a lot of change coming to the sport, one of those is that there won't be a video game representing it on store shelves in July.

The July release, of course, always led to some embarrassing roster gaffes of those players who weren’t (but really were) their real-life counterparts.

It was no problem though, because NCAA Football fans were the crazy sort who would sit up all night and input names onto rosters so that they and their fellow man could enjoy a more authentic experience within the game. You could say NCAA brought out the best in people, but then again there was always a bit of background drama behind the rosters throughout the history of the series as well.

Then there were the numerous online dynasties which started up year after year. If EA provides server support for NCAA, one could theorize those could last for quite some time. However, it’s just as likely that the plug will be pulled on the NCAA Football servers at the first possible instant.

Which really brings home the question of how long do we really have left with a fully functioning NCAA Football?

Roster editors could update the game heading into 2014’s season no problem, but with no playoff option in the post-season — the game is and will always be a relic of an era now passed on. It wasn’t long ago when we had college basketball and college football represented digitally — now college sports have zero video game support and no real leads into the future to return to gaming platforms.

The advent of the power-5 conferences gaining more autonomy will help us move towards a move back towards having college sports games into the future, but it’s also entirely possible only the Power Five conferences will be represented in any future college sports games if their conferences are the only one’s with more lax rules on athlete representation and compensation.

Sorry East Caronlina. Louisana-Monroe. Tulsa. New Mexico.

Really, we just don’t have a clue what the future holds just yet because we don’t know what the future holds with the NCAA and its governance structure. Change is coming, but to what and to what extent are both questions we still do not know.

We could see the likelihood of college sports being represented in video games higher than ever, or we could see that possibility snuffed out forever. Both are equally possible heading into the future.

What we do know is that after the final whistle sounded at the BCS National Championship and after the crystal football was raised, we entered the college football offseason. Recruiting news and star ratings will give way to silence and patience — this time until August instead of July, when Fall practice starts back up and not when we fire up the NCAA Football series.

I have a feeling that extra month is probably going to be a lot harder to deal with than we think.


NCAA Football 14 Videos
Member Comments
# 1 BurghFan @ 01/20/14 01:09 PM
Nice article. Definitely gonna suck not having an NCAA Football game next year.
 
# 2 canesfins @ 01/20/14 02:09 PM
On the bright side, the community will continue to make updated rosters until the servers go down.
 
# 3 Reed1417 @ 01/20/14 02:12 PM
It's going to suck not having a college football game next year. At least I can still play 14 so there's that.
 
# 4 malky @ 01/20/14 03:44 PM
I'm shocked that people are still shocked that this went down like this, signs after signs started to show that this game was headed for a shutdown, around about this time last year. Which is why me and a few others were begging for them to include a playoff.......... but luckily 14 is not a bad game at all, if you are ok playing the BCS model, 14 could hold for a good 3-4 years IMHO
 
# 5 asu666 @ 01/20/14 04:16 PM
My only connection to NCAA football is the game and some random ESPN highlights. I suspect the NCAA loses a lot of young casual fans to the lack of a game over the coming years.
 
# 6 Dez @ 01/20/14 04:28 PM
Great piece. Yea it's going to be a long and empty offseason without this game.
 
# 7 dso122783 @ 01/20/14 06:39 PM
Whoever wrote this hit the nail right on the head as far as I'm concerned. The NCAA release in July was always a great sign for me ( well since I've been playing it) and now that is all over. And by the way I never payed much attention to college football until I got into the video game and now I love it. Heck, I even go to Pitt games if they are playing an interesting enough opponent ( ND and Miami this year). I hate Pitt. Anyways, I'm a college football nut because of the video game.


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# 8 cream6 @ 01/20/14 07:01 PM
Well I'm still playing NCAA 14 and Madden 25 together. My draft classes will keep me going for a few years. Without a NCAA football on current Gen, I don't have to buy a PS4. I will play it until the wheels fall off. I better go into the the uniform store and purchase the uniform packs before the servers shut down.
 
# 9 PatriciaJenkinsaon @ 01/20/14 08:40 PM
my Aunty Piper recently got a fantastic silver Audi A3 Wagon from only workin part time on a computer. see this site......... http://tiny.cc/qhh09w
 
# 10 Phillyboy57 @ 01/20/14 09:03 PM
What a shame. Another worst company of the year for EA
 
# 11 txturfcare.com @ 01/20/14 09:31 PM
its hard to go back to ps3 ncaa or madden 25 once you have played the ps4 next gen madden, its just too bad were not at least gonna have ncaa 14 on the next gen system? I will miss ncaa no more draft class import, plus I really thought ncaa 14 was an awesome game
 
# 12 $NevaBroke$ @ 01/21/14 02:13 AM
I have faith 2K, THQ or SCEA will step up and bring this game to next-gen. I can only imagine the jaw-dropping possibilities if the makers of The Show put their hands on ncaa football. We do have good soup to reheat as of now, if we choose to.
 
# 13 barsoffury @ 01/21/14 08:34 AM
[quote=dso122783;2045878226]Whoever wrote this hit the nail right on the head as far as I'm concerned. The NCAA release in July was always a great sign for me ( well since I've been playing it) and now that is all over. And by the way I never payed much attention to college football until I got into the video game and now I love it. Heck, I even go to Pitt games if they are playing an interesting enough opponent ( ND and Miami this year). I hate Pitt. Anyways, I'm a college football nut because of the video game.


I thought I was the only one.. lol. I was always a casual college football fan until about 6-7 years ago when I couldn't wait for the next madden edition to come out, and was i dire need of football so I picked up NCAA to hold me over. Then I got to know more of the teams, especially the fringe ones. Thanks to custom roster I got to learn more of the players.Then I found myself watching more College ball than NFL. Then noticed how cool it was how many different styles are out there being played in the NCAA. You've got the spread, pro-style, wishbone, pistol, triple-option, read-option etc. etc.. Ever since then I've been hooked. This game got me addicted to real life college football.... It's a shame to see it go.
 
# 14 R1zzo23 @ 01/21/14 10:22 AM
The past two years, I have waited to buy NCAA until the price was lowered on Amazon and all the kinks were worked out. The way I see it now, I don't have to wait and already have a game I can play and be happy with. We know the rosters will be fully edited and updated year in and year out especially with the editors floating around here making it that much easier. It is disappointing that we won't have any new games for college football any time soon, but I will be playing the crap out of this one for a long, long time.
 
# 15 ODogg @ 01/21/14 05:05 PM
I can only hope we get a new game next year or I'm going to be very disappointed...
 
# 16 kingsofthevalley @ 01/21/14 09:58 PM
Did they ever release anymore uniform items besides the last few after the game shutdown? I remember there being a few surprise uni packs as of a few months ago. I haven't seen anymore promoted on this site, were more that weren't advertised here that I should look for?
 
# 17 omega412930 @ 01/21/14 11:25 PM
if the servers stay up i already have a roster file about to go up right now it hav all players leaving removed, newcoaching changes and soon recruits once theyve signed if anyone needs their fix for ncaa ball this year
 
# 18 LastExit @ 01/22/14 03:44 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by omega412930
if the servers stay up i already have a roster file about to go up right now it hav all players leaving removed, newcoaching changes and soon recruits once theyve signed if anyone needs their fix for ncaa ball this year
Great news....thanks!

As long as we can update the rosters and coaches and so on, I'll be playing '14 for another few years.

The whole thing with the super-conferences and autonomy will take a few years to solidify so I wouldn't expect a new game anytime in the near future.

I just wish EA would have made a patch available (paid for, if they wanted) that introduced the playoff system. They still could, but with the whole team disbanded that seems hily unlikely.
 
# 19 Sheba2011 @ 01/22/14 04:25 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by $NevaBroke$
I have faith 2K, THQ or SCEA will step up and bring this game to next-gen. I can only imagine the jaw-dropping possibilities if the makers of The Show put their hands on ncaa football. We do have good soup to reheat as of now, if we choose to.
I wouldn't hold your breath on that happening anytime soon. The entire reason EA stopped is because of the massive lawsuits they are facing and the reality that to pay everyone involved there would be zero room for profit. Why would Sony or 2K invest millions into a game that will ultimately lose money? And fyi THQ is no longer a company.
 
# 20 khaliib @ 01/22/14 11:02 AM
With Xanathol's Editor's, we basically have the ability to create/altar the game to make it seem fresh and new.

I'm still surprised that such a large number of gamer's still don't know/use this life saver for both NCAA and Madden.
Along with Tdawg and his Excel Workbooks, editing is a snap now.

I've always wondered how much more of the game's would be opened up to us if "MORE" of the community was in on tinkering and giving feedback utilizing the Editor's.

And there's still yet so much more at our front door to find out with manipulating these football games as the Installed Game on the CG HDD has yet to be really tapped into.

Once we get a working script for BGFA file headers, all of the visual stuff we clamor to edit (personal Uni's etc...) will become available (I have all the .png files used by EA for Uniform Parts)

Simply playing these games from Camera angles that are locked to the gamer makes these games play entirely different (still trying to find the combination to make them fixed/user defined)
--- (PM me if you want to help tinker in this area)

So we still could have a NCAA 15 by/before July for CG.
 

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