It's not a matter of being predictable.
Perhaps you didn't notice but Alabama did a pretty good job last year running it directly at teams. They knew it was coming. They even knew the side it was most likely coming to. You know how successful they were at stopping it? Not very.
Alabama, along with all good running teams, function on imposing their will on the defense.
Run commits ruin the concept of execution. Knowing it's coming is completely different than stopping it.
In all my years of playing football, I never heard a coach say:
"Go for the strip, even if it means facemask the guy to the ground."
On defense, the goal is always to get the ball back. Individual players tend to make individual decisions. But, usually, no -- there is no global call from the coach to abandon fundamental football and go for turnovers.
The penalties and downsides of being aggressive are not outweighed by being conservative. I get nothing for being conservative.
The risk reward is WAY out of whack here.
Plus, it's not strategy. It's hilarious that I get strategy points for causing a fumble by being aggressive, but I don't get them by avoiding them by being conservative.
Basically, even in the way they set up Season Showdown shows how they imagined the impact of the "strategy". You get points for being aggressive ... not for being strategic.
The devs also have said they've run out of space on a DVD. I don't believe them for the most part.
Besides, kids are not the primary audience of NCAA. I'll wager there are more kids under the age of 10 playing Madden than there are playing NCAA.
Oh, really? Thanks for informing me about this one, Captain Obvious. All this time, I just thought I was being "strategic" by putting myself in a 5 yard hole 4-8 times a game by false starting (and never once getting the defense to jump).
Thanks for this. Really. It's opened up a whole new door of gaming for me.
Where's the downside to this setting? If I'm getting more false starts than they are getting encrouchments ... AND they still jump the snap regardless ... where's the downside?
It's a cheesy feature loved and lauded by cheesy players.
120, sure. The top 25? Not so much.
You think that the band, even if they had every school in the game, would count one iota towards atmosphere? If you do, then you just don't get it at all.