EA....put this in the game!

I wrote a blog on how I would improve NCAA Football a while ago – and wouldn’t ya know, some of the stuff was in there.  The starting off a dynasty as a coordinator rather than a head coach.  Really like this.  One it makes it so you can play games really quick. 

I like how the incorporated it that in the coaching carousel you have can’t just pick where you want to go either, you have to be chosen by them.  So in my dynasty I started out as the OC at Eastern Michigan, after a year I was offered the same gig at San Diego State, a year later the OC at Iowa State, then finally after a 10-3 season with Iowa State I was offered the head coaching job at Washington State, a team that went 1-11 the year before.  Not really jumping from lil fish to big fish in the pond, moving the way up the coaching ladder.

So kudos to you EA for putting this in the game, love it…how I would improve the game for NCAA 13.

Expand on the Coaching Carousel. 

-          Go deeper and add in doing a position first rather than cordinator and be able to move up

-          Add in FCS teams and be able to start as a cordinator there, and move up to HC there or position/cordinator coaches at a FBS level

-          Be able to negotiate years/goals somewhat instead of just getting a 2 year or 3 year contract given to you.

-          Make it harder to move up.  I moved up to a BCS cordinator in 3 years, maybe make it harder to earn prestige

-          Make it so recruiting is done by the HC.  If you’re a cordinator, you only go and do your side of the ball, or position wise, do your side of the position.

-          As in NFL Coach where you got attributes, have your performance earn you points toward certain statuses or attributes
-          If a school is just going to extend a coach, don’t have that in the carousel.  It will speed that process up.  Just go through the open ones.

Love the options of Conference Realignment but expand on that too.

-          Be able to remove a league completely, not just having to have minimum of 4 teams in a league. 

-          Be able to rename the conference, not just the divisions

-          When choosing a champioship game location, say if I choose Las Vegas (UNLV’s home field) incorporate the league logo at midfield and put the team names in the endzones

-          Be able to reapply/redo all bowl bids.  We have the option of giving the league champs a BCS bowl spot, but expand so we can assign all bowl bids or make them at larges

-          Encorporate a Playoff option and have the team slotting customizable as to size and conf champions/rankings.  EA Had this in the game in the 90s and then it was gone.

A few other things and maybe a few that have been mentioned

-          Downloaded pack of custom uniforms – which I’m sure is there.

-          More custom coach.  Give us a few more options that are similar to Madden

-          Have our coach be able to be exported to Madden.  Maybe to have a career similar to Jim Harabaugh

-          Add in all the FCS Schools so we aren’t playing FCS Southwest or FCS Midwest, gives us Northern Iowa and Youngstown State

-          Have the band at the beginning, if its not already custom for some, code in that the spell out the school name or nickname or something

-          If the school is obtaining success that your coaching, and has poor facilities when you get there, obviously upgrading the stadium isn’t prob happening, but maybe behind the scenes something coded that facilities after winning do upgrade. 
-          Speed up recruiting, it is cool to go in depth as it does now, but speed it up too

-          Custom plays added to playbook…please bring this back

Above all else improving game play and graphics, EA put this in the game!

NCAA12 Online Dynasty for XBOX360

We’ve got 5 spots in the dynasty going into Season 2.

If you are interested please sign up on the forum at the following LINK and comment under NCAA 12 Online Dynasty – Season 2:Teams. Please let us know the following:

     Your Xbox Live gamertag:
     What 2 star team you’d be interested in, we will let you know if they are available.

Our commish online is mancavehawkeye on xbox live. My tag is hawkeyemkn7. Feel free to add us as friends on live.

We advance 2 times a week.

You need to sign on with a 2 star or less team, play 1-2 human games a year.

With the coaches contracts we obviously can’t control the length you sign for when you select a school…so this is set up.

     If they have a 1 year deal and are looking to move on, then you can only move up 1 star in prestige.
     If they stay 2-3 years, they can move up 2 stars in prestige.
     If they stay 4-5 years they can move up 3 Stars in prestige.
     If you stay 6 years, you can go to any school that offers you.

NCAA 2012 Online Dynasty

With it being a month or so till NCAA 2012 comes out on 360, we are looking for people who want to be in on an online dynasty.  We are going to try to play 2-3 games per 2 weeks as I know in the summer people have very busy schedules.  The dynasty will be set up as followed.

You need to select a 1 or 2 Star team.  To see team ratings click here.

You need to stay with that team for at least 3 seasons.  After 3 seasons you can move up to a school 2 stars above your current school prestige.

You need to schedule 2-3 games vs other humans per year.

You need to schedule a top 10 preseason team as an out of conference team.

Games will be at 6 minute quarters. 

We will start year 1 on All-American difficulty and then year 2 jump up to Heisman.

Please post on this thread your XBOX Live Id and the team you'd like.  Also if you are on twitter post your handle.  After I get the game I will set up the dynasty and send out the invites.

Matt - @garwin7 - hawkeyemkn7 - Baylor

Ryan - @rwednt40 - rwendt40 - Vanderbilt

Matt - @mattkizer - mattkizer - Minnesota
Steve - @balvanz - jawbreaker7 - UCLA
Alex - no twitter - HELLAB26 - Mizzou <<--needs to pick a new team-->>
J'Waan Smith - @JWaan_Smith x - DarkPhoenyx x - Colorado Buffaloes

If you have questions, email me.

Online Dynasty

Oh what technology brings us.  Remember in the days of playing video games you had to be in the same room, with in about 5 feet from the person your playing?  Not so anymore with XBox live and the crashed PS3 network.  No, you can be in Iowa (like me) and play someone in Ohio or Texas.

With that, games such as NCAA football and Madden have made it so you can have an online dynasty or franchise with others.  Right now you get your own little site on the EA Sports website.  It keeps track of stats, recruiting and basically anything in the game.  It lets you edit stories and upload highlights to make your own Big Peach!

This year is my first online dynasty I've done on the website.  Back in the day with the MWCgamers group I tried to do it online/offline but that became too much.  So I was really excited when this feature was created by EA.

I joined a league already in its 5th year, chose Iowa.  Big Surprise.  But the Hawks were a bit bare on talent.  I had a few good players, but nothing really stellar.  The OL wasn't a strength.  The QB couldn't throw on the run and I really only had 3-4 decent defensive players.  Hello recruiting?  What I usually like to do in the game is throw and play D the first few years and then recruit good OL and a back and be a good ole fashioned Hawkeye team.  But a nice fast running back is great too!

My first year included a scare vs Rutgers, a beat down of Iowa State, an upset to Central Michigan and then shoot outs and close calls all Big Ten season long.  And yes, Iowa still owns Penn State!  Beat the #17 Nittany Lions by 3, 20-17.  In my games vs other humans, I lost to Cedarville (a made up team that was imported) and Texas.  Both blow outs, both team had superior talent to me.

I finished 7-5/5-3 and earned an Outback Bowl bid where I won my 2nd bowl, beating Tennessee.  I'm now on to offseason recruiting for the 2nd time.

Like I said earlier, this is a great feature in video games now, your not just playing 1 player, your playing multi-player everywhere!  What's next?  We'll see in NCAA '12.

Hey EA Sports! This isn't in the game!

My generation has grown up with video games, started with Mario jumping around on an 8 bit Nintendo, to what we have now in Call of Duty:Black Ops and playing games online vs. someone across the world.  And the classics we have grown up on aren’t just one timers, they are franchises.  Mario, Call of Duty, and Madden.  And with each installment you get something new, new storylines, maps, villains, weapons, rosters and add-ons and graphic up grades. 

Mario's Evolution



Super Mario Brothers on NES




Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Wii



And football games have evolved too.

Ten Yard Fight on NES



NCAA Football '10 on Xbox 360





I’ve owned every version of EA Sports College Football, but 1, on many platforms, and also about 70% of the Madden’s.  Most of them include little upgrades year and year that add on to what it previously had.  Plus little graphic upgrades.  Along the way we got the dynasty, the online dynasty, and Superstar modes.  Now a few years ago on I think MySpace or some blog I had I posted how I would improve NCAA Football, we’ll I’m going try to recreate it here….and it will go for Madden also.

First off, on NCAA, get rid of the all mascot teams and the historical teams.  No one plays with a team full of Cy’s vs. a team full of Bevo’s.  It’s stupid.  Waste of memory.  The historical teams are cool but really, takes up space.  Madden has the historical teams, and yea keep it there, it’s cool to be the 85 Bears and roll everyone.

So EA added the super star mode where you get to go from HS player to being recruited and then work your way up the depth chart.  It’s a little too easy but hey, it works.  Now why not do that with coaching your dynasty? 

After your superstar you can either export to go to the NFL/Madden, or why not sign on with the school you just were at (or somewhere else) as a grad asst or a positions coach?  In the dynasty feature you jump right in and are a head coach, don’t have to work your way up.  Is that in the game?  No.  I would think it would be easy to code and create too. 

So your dynasty is over.  You go into coaching instead of the NFL.  You take over a position such as DL coach.  You control just your DL during the game play.  You schedule them game planning, practicing, film watching or so forth during the week.  When it comes to game time the D-Coordinator calls the plays, and like super star mode where you only control 1 player, you control that set of players, so typically like 4 DL. 

For recruiting purposes, a recruiting coordinator would need to be created that would help the complex and time consuming task that is recruiting, but when it would come to a position such as DL that is being recruited, you could decide what area’s to emphasize. 

Throughout the year, how your position performs, you would then get points(to be determined).  One would be for performance to move up to other coordinator positions, the other to buy roles similar to what were used in the brief NFL Coach game.  Help you at what you can coach up the most.  Strength, speed, and so forth.

To move up to the coordinator spot you would need to reach certain levels.  At the school your currently at would be the easiest to move up to.  Schools with a lesser star rating would have a slightly higher threshold and then schools with higher star rankings would require a higher point total.  The only way to move from position coach to head coach is to amass an extremely high amount of performance points and then move down to a lower ranked school.  For example, no being the DL coach at Arkansas State and then moving to the Head Coach at Alabama.  Not gonna happen.

Once you get the coordinator gig, you control that whole side of the ball.  You game plan during the week (or skip – but earn less points).  Help the recruiting coordinator out on all position players on your side of the ball.  You role has expanded, like it happens “IN THE GAME.” 

Again to move up to a head coach you need to amass a certain number of points, and to move up to a head coach to a big time BCS school ala what happens, IN THE GAME.  Urban Meyer just didn’t show up at Florida.  He had to work to get there from Bowling Green to Utah and then Florida. 

A 2K basketball game had a similar feel to it, I believe ESPN NCAA Hoops 2K5, when you had to coach at small schools and get offered jobs to move up.  Why hasn’t EA thought of this yet?  And if anyone from EA reads this, I can help with development of this!  (Shameless plug.)  I think this feature in the EA Sports games would be a great addition and it would tie in what they had in the short lived NFL Coach series that wasn’t given much of a chance.  And would breathe some fresh life into the football games at EA that have had little by little feature upgrades and graphic upgrades over the past decade. 





Future of the NFL on TV?

This year you saw the end of the BCS Bowl games on broadcast television. In 2010 the Sugar, Fiesta, Orange and BCS Title Game will be moving to ESPN. The Rose Bowl, on ABC - ESPN's parent network, negotiates their own contract. ESPN is the "Home of College Football" and broadcasts hundreds of college games on the family of networks. With what ESPN can do and who they have, one can think that ESPN will hold on to this contract longer than FOX. Maybe even with ESPN & Barack Obama's help, there would be a playoff.

Then you have the NCAA talking about putting the tournament from broadcast to cable Who would be there? ESPN. The mother ship broadcasts championship week on the family of networks already, ESPN has the power to do it. And instead of only broadcasting one game to homes, with ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN Classic, four pod sites could all be broadcast on the air.

Now to the NFL. Right now games are broadcast on NBC, CBS, FOX, NFL and ESPN. The NFL is America's game. We can't get enough football! Check out the ratings. ESPN and NBC have the premiere contracts (Sunday & Monday Night) but ESPN can't get a Super Bowl broadcast.

The NFL Network was born and has the late season Thursday Night and Sunday Night Broadcasts, and with it being their network, and no chance of a Super Bowl Broadcast, wouldn't you think that somewhere down the line it is coming?

The one issue with the NFL Network is it's not on all cable providers and its in a lot less homes, but this maybe a calling card to get the network on all cable providers.

So when the next contract comes up, what will happen? Will companies losing money on broadcast television want to anti up even more money in the economy? NBC was just sold to Comcast, and also has a big Notre Dame contract to mess with. Other sports are creating their own channels (Golf, Speed, BIG TEN Network), and succeeding also.

I think you will see ESPN get more than just Monday Night. I think they will take both the NFC and AFC contracts. They have the best morning show with Berman, Ditka, TJ and the receivers. They have the 2 networks (ESPN/ESPN2) to broadcast AFC and NFC games. They can rope in Classic also to broadcast games. I think you'd see broadcast teams from the 2 networks move to ESPN too and build a great relationship with the NFL.

I think you will see Comcast keep NBC in the fray and continue with NBC Sunday Night Football. Michaels and Collinsworth and that broadcast team are great!

Finally the NFL Network will keep the late season Thursday games and Saturday Night games, but will also have something written into their contract to get more games later in the contract and then also a Super Bowl.

ESPN is the world wide leader in sports, they have the BCS, they will get the NCAA tourney and they will get more NFL.

You read it here first.