Category: NCAA Football 14

After a week or so of good news coming out of EA Sports (outside of the company laying off over 10% of it’s workforce) we received word that the new college football playoff system will not be in NCAA Football 14.

Upon first glance, this makes perfect sense because we know the new playoff system won’t be implemented until 2014.  However, despite EA Sports’ strongest efforts to turn us all into ultimate team addicts, the vast majority of people who buy the game play it for dynasty mode in some form either offline or online.

In dynasty mode, you take control of a team for 5, 10, 20, or more years.  Given that we know there will be a playoff system in 2014 and beyond, a game that calls itself “sim” should in fact take that into account and implement it into the game.  The proper way to have handled this would be to have a BCS title game for the first year followed by a playoff system, like the one announced a few days ago, for every year after.

An EA Sports representative had this defense when questioned on the move, “We don’t yet have all the info about how the playoff system will work, including who will make up the selection committee and what their criteria will be for picking the playoff teams.”  Upon first read the quote seems reasonable but when you dive in further, it reads as a steaming pile of horse crap.  In the current system, does anyone really believe that they run the exact BCS calculations each year of your individual dynasty to determine rankings?  The answer is no.  They may have some algorithm that is generally fairly accurate but it is not nearly the same as what the BCS uses.  It can’t be unless they run each online dynasty by real life college coaches and media members.  Obviously, that notion is ridiculous.

The current ranking system used in NCAA Football games isn’t 100% accurate but it is close enough to the BCS that no one complains.  It would not be that hard to do something similar with the new college football playoff system.

This seems like nothing more than a poorly veiled gimmick to persuade people to buy this year’s NCAA Football 14 game and then be forced to buy next year’s NCAA Football 15 game if they want to use the new playoff system.  You have disappointed us again EA Sports.  If you don’t include the ability to export draft classes to Madden 25 this year you will absolutely see the lowest sales figures for the NCAA Franchise in more than a decade.

H/T Gamezone

In a YouTube video, seen below, EA Sports has revealed a few additional details on presentation in this year’s college football video game, NCAA Football 14.  Yesterday, we found out that we can expect neutral site games as well as a new pre-game and halftime show.  Those points have been expanded upon today.

There will be a total of 10 neutral site games including Cowboy’s Stadium, the Georgia Dome, Solider Field, MetLife Stadium, and M&T Bank Stadium.

The trailer video also includes a sample of the pre-game and halftime shows with some banter between Rece Davis and David Pollack, in the studio.

Other notable highlights include what appears to be trash talking after a play and some all new celebrations.

Despite repeated attempts, we still have no indication from anyone at EA Sports when the NCAA Football 14 cover will be released or if there will be the ability to import draft classes to Madden NFL 25.

NCAA Football 14 is still set to be released on July 9th on the XBOX 360 and the PlayStation 3.

Although most of the recent talk around the sports gaming community has been about the first gameplay trailer, there was another tidbit of information coming that was largely overlooked.

The release schedule for what EA Sports is calling, “Playbooks” was posted.  The title, “Playbooks” is just a fancy title for news or information.  It looks like every few weeks from now until July 9th (the release date) we will be getting information piece by piece.  The full schedule is below.

1. Presentation (to be released 4/18) – NCAA Football 14 gets you closer to the action than ever before and tells the story of every game. Feel the drama of college football from a whole-new perspective.
2. Ultimate Team (to be released 5/15) – The much-beloved mode comes to the college game, allowing you to build up an unstoppable team.
3. Dynasty (to be released 5/28) – There’s no single path to success in college football, so build up your program into a powerhouse to fit your strengths and style of play by utilizing the brand-new Coach Skills.
4. Play a Season (to be released 6/17) – Focus purely on the on-field action and take your favorite team to a bowl game.

Which playbook are you most excited for?  Let us know in the comments section below or in our NCAA 14 forum.