NCAA Football 12 News Post

NCAA Football 12 Blog - Custom Conferences

05:22 PM - May 26, 2011 by mr janny

NCAA Football 12 developer Ben Haumiller talks at great length about the addition of custom conferences in today's blog at EA.com.

This addition ties in with what seems to be the team's overarching goal of providing users with more customization options throughout the Dynasty mode this year.

Quote:


	This is without a doubt one of the deepest features added to the game in years. With conference membership movements, conference rule changes, and editing BCS bowl tie-ins the combinations you can make in your Dynasty are almost endless. Plus, you can make updates in future years of the Dynasty, which not only allows you to make updates based on changes in the real world, but also allows you to make whatever changes you prefer to see in your Dynasty.

Check out the rest of the blog to get all the details.

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Member Comments

# 1 HoundsOfHowl @ 05/26/11 05:31 PM

College football is a sport overflowing with tradition, and there's not shortcoming of traditions when it comes to the schedule. From the Third Saturday in October to Thanksgiving weekend you can set your watch to certain games kicking off on the same week every year. Protecting those traditions were very important when determining how schedules would be created when conferences changed membership and attempting to keep those rivalry games alive and scheduled on the correct date even when the schools have been moved to different conferences were also greatly considered when determining the new schedule logic
Ok that is from the blog : Now what I am hoping is during pre-season on normal scheduling if you can pick the time and dates? That would be pretty sweet. Now it says you can for custom conferences, so surely you can without custom conf.

# 2 DorianDonP @ 05/26/11 05:33 PM

Everything sounds good except only being able to edit the BCS bowl tie-ins. I hope everyone realizes that before they start going crazy with the custom conferences.

# 3 Deegeezy @ 05/26/11 05:33 PM

For someone that plans to keep playing NCAA '11 and not buy '12, this is definitely the one feature I hate to have to miss out on.

# 4 DorianDonP @ 05/26/11 05:34 PM

On a related note, I wonder if you take away all of the BCS tie-ins, how will they pick the teams?

Will it be 1vs 2, 3vs 4, 5 vs 6, 7vs 8?

# 5 mr janny @ 05/26/11 05:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iBleedOrange247


	College football is a sport overflowing with tradition, and there's not shortcoming of traditions when it comes to the schedule. From the Third Saturday in October to Thanksgiving weekend you can set your watch to certain games kicking off on the same week every year. Protecting those traditions were very important when determining how schedules would be created when conferences changed membership and attempting to keep those rivalry games alive and scheduled on the correct date even when the schools have been moved to different conferences were also greatly considered when determining the new schedule logic Ok that is from the blog : Now what I am hoping is during pre-season on normal scheduling if you can pick the time and dates? That would be pretty sweet. Now it says you can for custom conferences, so surely you can without custom conf.

doesn't sound like it. You can choose options like whether the conference will play on weekdays, or if they will play november games at night, but those are just general guidelines. I don't think you can specifically choose the time and date of individual games.

# 6 DorianDonP @ 05/26/11 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnZapp


	I still dont get the protected rivals. can you have a protected rival outside of a conference? for instance clemson and auburn, or syracuse and boston college

I'm pretty confident it only goes for conference opponents. That's how it has always read at least. But now that I think of it...it would suck if somehow the game didn't schedule FSU and UF annually, after a series of conference changes.

# 7 Ziza9Noles94 @ 05/26/11 05:43 PM

"Here you will be able to set where that game is played. You can select any stadium in the game, any bowl game, any school's home stadium, even the high school stadium and practice fields."

Perfect for a conference full of the worst scrubs in the game. haha

# 8 jpdavis82 @ 05/26/11 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DorianDonP


	On a related note, I wonder if you take away all of the BCS tie-ins, how will they pick the teams? Will it be 1vs 2, 3vs 4, 5 vs 6, 7vs 8?

If you take away all BCS bowl tie-ins will that help fix the issue you are concerned with Dorian? Because that way all the teams with the best records in the BCS standings would be in the BCS games regardless of what conference they are in.

# 9 Drocks @ 05/26/11 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnZapp


	I still dont get the protected rivals. can you have a protected rival outside of a conference? for instance clemson and auburn, or syracuse and boston college

The protected rivalry thing comes from rival programs within the same conference who may get paired up in separate divisions, hence, wouldn't normally be guaranteed to play one another every season. But with protected rivals, those two teams will be guaranteed to play their conference match-up every season, despite being in separate divisions.

Outside of your conference, it's just a matter of non-conference scheduling, something that can be changed, whereas your conference schedule is locked in and you can't force a rival matchup with someone in the other division without the protected rivalry thing.

# 10 DorianDonP @ 05/26/11 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpdavis82


	If you take away all BCS bowl tie-ins will that help fix the issue you are concerned with Dorian? Because that way all the teams with the best records in the BCS standings would be in the BCS games regardless of what conference they are in.

Nah, it wouldn't. The issue wouldn't be that the conference winners wouldn't get in good bowls, it would be that the runner ups and 3rd, 4th place teams, etc would play in crappy bowls (i.e. I could put 16 six star teams in the Sun Belt and a 11-1 or 10-2 team in the conference would play in the Toilet Bowl instead of a New Years Day bowl like the Capital One or Cotton).

But I'm not even worried about it anymore. I've already brainstormed enough ways around the issue. I just hope everyone else understands that their post-season could be bad if they don't plan ahead for the way they do their conferences.

# 11 Ziza9Noles94 @ 05/26/11 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DorianDonP


	I'm pretty confident it only goes for conference opponents. That's how it has always read at least. But now that I think of it...it would suck if somehow the game didn't schedule FSU and UF annually, after a series of conference changes.

He addressed that: "Non-conference games are the last games to get filled when the schedules are created. If Auburn goes the Independent route but Alabama stays in the SEC, the game will still try and schedule the Iron Bowl for the last week of the season. If it can't get scheduled that week it will try to find another week to schedule the game."

# 12 huskeraddict @ 05/26/11 05:49 PM

Changing the location B1G Title Game to the the team with the best record sounds pretty cool. Probably going to try that.

# 13 doom41 @ 05/26/11 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnZapp


	I still dont get the protected rivals. can you have a protected rival outside of a conference? for instance clemson and auburn, or syracuse and boston college

The way I understand it, No. Protected Rivals have to be in the same conference. It is just a way to make sure that two teams play each other every year, even if the conference is so big that you can't lay all of the teams every year. It is what the SEC does now. They play all of their division oppenets, then each team has one "Protected Rivalry" from the other division that they play every year, and then they rotate throught the rest of the teams.

# 14 DorianDonP @ 05/26/11 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drocks


	The protected rivalry thing comes from rival programs within the same conference who may get paired up in separate divisions, hence, wouldn't normally be guaranteed to play one another every season. But with protected rivals, those two teams will be guaranteed to play their conference match-up every season, despite being in separate divisions. Outside of your conference, it's just a matter of non-conference scheduling, something that can be changed, whereas your conference schedule is locked in and you can't force a rival matchup with someone in the other division without the protected rivalry thing.

Only possible concern is that the CPU might not schedule a conference rival that it should schedule. If I move UCLA out of the Pac 10, will the CPU still always schedule USC? As long as they have that, then I have to give them a A+ effort for the logic of the scheduling. They really did a good job on paper.

# 15 DorianDonP @ 05/26/11 05:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ziza9Noles94


	He addressed that: "Non-conference games are the last games to get filled when the schedules are created. If Auburn goes the Independent route but Alabama stays in the SEC, the game will still try and schedule the Iron Bowl for the last week of the season. If it can't get scheduled that week it will try to find another week to schedule the game."

Word. I forgot that I even read that part. Good looking.

# 16 dixiebum18 @ 05/26/11 05:55 PM

No more conference invites... Now you get to decide when you should switch conferences and which one.

"Since the old conference invite/demote logic had a lot of issues and only involved human controlled teams, we decided to give you the power to adjust conference membership, rules, and BCS tie-ins during future years of the Dynasty so that you can make the moves that you see fit."

# 17 jpdavis82 @ 05/26/11 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DorianDonP


	Nah, it wouldn't. The issue wouldn't be that the conference winners wouldn't get in good bowls, it would be that the runner ups and 3rd, 4th place teams, etc would play in crappy bowls (i.e. I could put 16 six star teams in the Sun Belt and a 11-1 or 10-2 team in the conference would play in the Toilet Bowl instead of a New Years Day bowl like the Capital One or Cotton). But I'm not even worried about it anymore. I've already brainstormed enough ways around the issue. I just hope everyone else understands that their post-season could be bad if they don't plan ahead for the way they do their conferences.

Yeah and besides I don't think most people are going to move all the top teams into small conferences. If I remake the SWC I can just replace it with the big 12 or something and that way a Team like Texas would still be in a decent bowl.

# 18 jeremym480 @ 05/26/11 06:02 PM

This is the new feature that I'm the least excited about because I'm a traditionalist at heart. Although, it is comforting to know that if a team changes conferences in real life that we can mirror that in the game. Also, I know that this has been requested for years so, it's really nice to know that the NCAA team actually listens to their fan base.

# 19 Microsoft_Works @ 05/26/11 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DorianDonP


	Nah, it wouldn't. The issue wouldn't be that the conference winners wouldn't get in good bowls, it would be that the runner ups and 3rd, 4th place teams, etc would play in crappy bowls (i.e. I could put 16 six star teams in the Sun Belt and a 11-1 or 10-2 team in the conference would play in the Toilet Bowl instead of a New Years Day bowl like the Capital One or Cotton). But I'm not even worried about it anymore. I've already brainstormed enough ways around the issue. I just hope everyone else understands that their post-season could be bad if they don't plan ahead for the way they do their conferences.

Yeah I guess I'm going to run into this problem as well when I put the old SWC in the MWC. The conference champion will get a nice BCS berth but the rest will be stuck with the default MWC tie-ins. Kind of crappy, but better than nothing.

# 20 PaperBoyx703 @ 05/26/11 06:06 PM

I dont see myself changing anything unless it changes in real life. Which seems like conferences are all on the move to becoming super conferences. So im glad this feature in the game.

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