How to Make the Perfect NCAA Football Game

NCAA 14 was near perfect, keep it mostly the same and make a few changes and it will be the GOAT video game

To call NCAA 14 a masterpiece would be an understatement. To this day, I battle as the Akron Zips in an Online Dynasty with my friends that’s filled with drama. Perhaps we idolize the game because of how absolutely pathetic Madden has become. Or maybe its just because the people who made the game were always fellow college football fanatics. Regardless, EA has announced there will be a new NCAA video game and we need to make sure they get it right.

They are going to face pressure to copy and paste the last Madden game to cut costs. Instead, they should use the exact same engine as NCAA 14. As a game, it flows amazingly well and feels very natural. 90% of things need to stay the same. Let me keep playing as a Safety in Road to Glory. Keep the custom playbook option. And for the love of God do NOT touch Mascot Mode.

In this article, I want to address the 10% of changes that could be made to make the game perfect. Please comment your own thoughts as well and lets pray someone at EA Sports sees this. I’ve played a lot more dynasty mode than anything else so some comments on making Road to Glory better would be great. I won’t touch on some things that I’m sure will change. I think its safe to assume that there will be new graphics, more uniform options, new plays, and new/more stadiums. I also sincerely hope every player in the game receives some portion of the profits for their likeness being represented, its well past due that players do. As someone who spent years working for an FCS football team (yes Villanova has a football team), I pray that they also add the FCS into the game. Without further ado, here are the changes I would make organized by category.

Positions/Ratings

Lets be honest we need to keep these iconic throws in the game

• Add a longsnapping rating and longsnapper as an actual position (they could still just be a walk on, read further about a walk on system); as a former specialist its long past due

• Change LOLB to Weak Side Linebacker (WLB) or Will and ROLB to Strong Side Linebacker or Sam; makes it much easier to have one guy be run support and another be coverage instead of using a ton of formation subs

• Add several new ratings (but not too many and maybe not all of these), Throw on the Run, Kickoff rating, Differentiate Punting and Kicking, Lead Block rating, Different ratings for catching/throwing short or deep, Specific ratings for D-Line moves (e.g. swim, bull rush, etc.)

• Add a way to easily designate who is the 4th linebacker/3rd safety without it just choosing the backup to a position

Quick Fixes and Glitches

• Once formation subs are put in, practice mode often stops working entirely unless they are removed

• The intro takes FOREVER to load, if that’s inherently a part of the engine I will live with it though

• The aforementioned (see the first picture) impossible throws that sometimes happen are entertaining until you lose on one

• Get rid of One Button Mode, its dumb

• Add new catching and tackling animations, add more throwing styles as well

• Add an injury frequency slider like Madden

• I could live without Ultimate Team but I doubt it goes away since its a money maker

• Add school’s fight songs and some new songs (you can keep some of the old ones too)

Transfers

All hail the mighty portal

• First things first, we need a transfer portal; it could either have its own separate recruiting system or just use recruiting points; these points could also possibly be used on your own players you are afraid will transfer

• Currently, only true freshman seem to transfer at all; college football has changed a lot in the last decade and an increased number of transfers need to reflect this (at all stages of their career)

• Make grad transfers be a specific thing and make sure they can play right away

• Create more scenarios for which a player would transfer, if their ability to start looks threatened they need to be more likely to leave

• Some positions should transfer at a higher rate than others/be more sensitive to losing a position battle (e.g. a QB will leave if they are #2 but a CB probably won’t)

Dynasty Mode (General)

• Include the ability to hire your own coordinators, being a top tier program and having to get a bottom tier coordinator has never made much sense to me

• Add in some position coaches as well with their own bonuses that either help game performance, development, or recruiting

• Bring back walk-ons, I can recall in an old NCAA basketball game having walk-ons; they could be recruited, could transfer to get a scholarship, and could be elevated to a scholarship player

• Teams can have 85 scholarship players not 70, walk-ons would not count towards this (e.g. you could have a PWO longsnapper)

• Use the new 4 game redshirt rule and introduce medical redshirts for players who are hurt before playing 4 games (or play less than 2 games in the season due to injury even if they’ve already redshirted)

• Allow more formation subs or make it easier to shift two people’s positions without it taking a sub (e.g. moving a receiver to the slot from the outside)

• The development system is mostly fine but it should probably be less uniform, there should be a little more variability especially players who are busts developing slower/gems developing faster

Stats and Awards

Who doesn’t love college football’s ridiculous trophies?

• For defensive awards (except at LB), tackles need to be less important; my corner having 50 tackles is not an accomplishment it is an indictment

• User played games have almost no recorded Assisted Tackles even though they clearly occur; likewise broken tackles are rarely recorded

• Add QB Hurries as a stat (this may not be feasible in a video game) and 2 Pt conversions as an individual player stat

• Implement a PFF style rating for a player’s performance in a game (like the QBR shown), would show DB and OL performance much more accurately (and maybe should only be added for them)

• An injury should not automatically remove a player from the Heisman race (as someone whose had a guy go down at the end of the last game and go from #1 to not in the race)

In Game Play

• Linemen need to learn how to pick up the most dangerous man while blocking downfield, awareness should dictate how often they make the right choice

• The AI needs to play smarter when the clock is running out, implement some real analytics that teams use; there needs to be a calculation of when to start hurrying up based on the score not just automatically at 2 minutes

• Similarly, use analytics for teams about when they go for it and based on the coach’s tendencies, move the likely outcome more in one direction or the other

• Teams need to mix in hurry up and huddling, not be all in on one all the time

• Players that don’t touch the ball should be able to get injured, only people carrying the ball or tackling get hurt currently

• The AI needs to stop calling HB Screen a kajillion times in a row

• Clipping needs to be called less and Holding needs to be called instead

• Make it possible but rare to block a kick or punt; also make the occasional bad longsnap if the longsnapping rating is low

• Add some new plays, RPO’s especially, but keep all the old plays; fix the draw plays to not be automatic losses as well (don’t make them overpowered though)

Recruiting

This exploit makes it a little too easy

• Players who do not commit anywhere either need to be a JUCO next season or they need to walk on somewhere (perhaps there could be an opportunity in the post-season recruiting to compete for the remaining walk-ons)

• Some players do fall through the cracks, but its unrealistic to see top 50 players not get recruited by anyone at all

• Coordinators could have one pipeline state attached to them (perhaps 2 if they are elite) or a bonus for recruiting certain kinds of players; this would make the hiring process more interesting and if position coaches are added then they could also have some sort of recruiting bonus as well

• Add a lot more names (maybe even let fans enter their names to be randomly included, could even charge for it if y’all are desperate for money) and make some be rare

• Just google ‘recruiting hacks’ and fix some

NFL Draft

• Currently the draft system is utterly broken, read this analysis to see what goes into getting drafted (e.g. in this system #1 overall pick Kyler Murray would go undrafted every season); its imperative that it is revamped to sync up with Madden

• A players draft criteria should work on a point scale that we cannot see and here is a nascent idea of how it should go (for most positions, maybe not for kickers)

  
  0-30 points for measurables; this includes height and weight but also would include some selected ratings that NFL teams see as natural things to build on such as speed, strength, and throw power

  0-30 points for production; weight more recent seasons more heavily, its frustrating to see the top players not even get sniffed in the draft just because they aren’t big enough

  0-30 for overall ratings; weight their overall abilities at the position (e.g. zone coverage, pass blocking, etc.)

  0-3 points for age; give a slight bonus to a younger guy

  0-4 points for each accolade and award; 1 point for all conference, 4 for a Heisman, let these add up

  Use the points to rank players and then have some sort of modifier based on position that affects where they are drafted, for example a 70 QB will still probably go 1st round while a 70 DT might go in the 2nd or 3rd

  There should also be a range of how many players at each position get drafted, it should be slightly random from year to year and should be affected by how good the group of players are at the position as well

  A set number of players who were close to getting drafted but didn’t could get an UDFA status that could give the coach points too

Road to Glory

• Allow us to transfer teams in RTG

• The performance of a starter above you should matter, should either make it easier or more difficult to challenge them for the starting spot

• While in high school, a bad game should take from your recruiting ranking so its more difficult to become a 5 star; possibly add the option to start junior year of high school if its very difficult to become a 5 star

• Create decisions; Example: Study for the Test or Hang out with teammates, each would have a positive benefit and consequence of not doing

• Decisions like that could play into being eligible to play, GPA, etc. and there could be some form of chemistry with your teammates (should be kept very simple though)

Wackier Ideas (Not sold on all of these)

I wonder why this image was chosen

• Have practice mode mean something, have potential bonuses come out of it for the game and maybe have injuries potentially occur during it (not to quarterbacks though)

• An investment system where you can put points either towards facilities, recruiting, transfers, or other things; maybe could be part of an AD mode

• Historical teams, give us Lamar’s Louisville; licensing is already tough so this may not be realistic

• Stadium Builder and Team Builder (already exists to some extent but I’d like an expanded version)

• Straight up allow recruiting violations with the risk of scholarship losses and a bowl ban, good luck getting the NCAA to okay that

These are just a few ideas I have. Please add your own in the comments or debate my proposals. The goal is to get EA to see this and consider some of the things to add to make the game perfect. As long as they keep it nearly identical to NCAA 14 and improve upon a few simple issues, it truly could be the greatest sports game in history.