Do the people at EA even watch college football?

[DonkeyJote]

Quote: Originally Posted by BlastX21

Costa's pretty good. I watched him in the spring game and he made decisions quickly and efficiently. Being a 5th year senior also speaks for itself.

I like Costa as well. He's accurate, smart, has a pretty good arm, and while he's no Mike Vick out there, he's no Peyton Manning either. He can run a bit. He's smart and experienced. I think he should be the starter for at least the first two games, but I'd be shocked if him and Thomas didn't split time at QB, at least for a bit, since they both add important dimensions to the offense.

[cbuhl79]

To answer your original question...yes, we watch college football. A lot of it.

In fact, every Friday night during the college football season I program my DVR to record as many Saturday games as I can. It can record 3 games simultaneously, so I usually get 7-9 games in a day. I then spend all day Saturday watching these games (with liberal use of the skip forward button), except when my UCF Knights have a home game, in which case I spend my Saturday tailgating and at the game, and then watch the rest of the games on Sunday.

A few years ago, one of our designers took a week off to go watch home games at Boise State, Idaho, BYU, and Utah - not because he's a fan of any of these teams, but because those were the four games he found that he could all see within a span of 5 days.

So yes, we do watch college football. A lot of it.

[TripleCrown9]

And if you look really closely, you can see that the NCAA 11 Top 25 CLOSELY resembles a combination of real life polls. EA didn't just come up with their own Top 25, they used ESPN, AP, Coaches, etc. A variety of polls.

[UnderRatedCoast]

Quote: Originally Posted by DonkeyJote

Look at his junior year. He was terrible. 12 td, 14 int. He did a much better job in his senior year, when they changed to the spread. The offense is predicated on a lot of screens and quick passes, which is going to inflate a QB's completion %. The offense can be adapted to be more of a passing offense pretty easily because of that - it's a balanced offense that has turned into a run offense because Oregon has had QB's that were better runners than passers. Costa runs well enough to keep the defense honest on the Read, though he's not going to hurt them. Thomas makes some dumb decisions sometimes, but I do believe he has a strong arm, and after watching the spring game, he's a lot more accurate than I expected. If you provide a link to spring practice 40 times, I'll gladly look at them. I couldn't find any. What I found said that Thomas ran about a 4.5 40. Costa is around a 4.7, which isn't too bad for a QB.

First off, oregon ran the spread Dixon's senior year under Crowton. Crowtons playcalling was horrendous and predictable, which led to the offense playing like doo doo, yet Dixon still completed his highest percentage of his career that year. Yes, higher than his senior season. He was ridiculously accurate. Thomas is not in the same stratosphere yet. Ill gladly find your links once I am not posting from a phone, but believe me when I say neither are impressive.

[jmik58]

If this is going to turn into another Oregon thread then it might as well be closed.

I think there's actually a legitimate point behind the OP and I have questions as well about the logic behind many of the things in NCAA and other EA Sports games.

[dreezymac]

Quote: Originally Posted by cbuhl79

To answer your original question...yes, we watch college football. A lot of it. In fact, every Friday night during the college football season I program my DVR to record as many Saturday games as I can. It can record 3 games simultaneously, so I usually get 7-9 games in a day. I then spend all day Saturday watching these games (with liberal use of the skip forward button), except when my UCF Knights have a home game, in which case I spend my Saturday tailgating and at the game, and then watch the rest of the games on Sunday. A few years ago, one of our designers took a week off to go watch home games at Boise State, Idaho, BYU, and Utah - not because he's a fan of any of these teams, but because those were the four games he found that he could all see within a span of 5 days. So yes, we do watch college football. A lot of it.

Are you suuuuuure you guys dont just progress the more commonly known teams/players and just advance through a year to get a reference point for the rest? Doesnt really matter either way...my game supercedes ratings.

[FedExPope]

Quote: Originally Posted by cbuhl79

To answer your original question...yes, we watch college football. A lot of it. In fact, every Friday night during the college football season I program my DVR to record as many Saturday games as I can. It can record 3 games simultaneously, so I usually get 7-9 games in a day. I then spend all day Saturday watching these games (with liberal use of the skip forward button), except when my UCF Knights have a home game, in which case I spend my Saturday tailgating and at the game, and then watch the rest of the games on Sunday. A few years ago, one of our designers took a week off to go watch home games at Boise State, Idaho, BYU, and Utah - not because he's a fan of any of these teams, but because those were the four games he found that he could all see within a span of 5 days. So yes, we do watch college football. A lot of it.

You'd think an EA person would have a little more, erm...forum indication of his job? I thought all EA people were marked as such here.

[LucianoJJ]

I can remember being mad at the Div 1-AA rosters being goofed up a few years ago on the original Xbox. It seems like the slant for this game is offense first, defense second. Arcade trumps sim. Rosters can be tweaked, edited, shaken, and stirred. Expecting rosters with sim-like accuracy is tough to do in the spring time. So many teams make so many changes. Cuts, transfers, INJURIES, freshmen coming out of nowhere to make contributions, experienced players choking when becoming starters. There is so much room for error. To update the rosters in-season, to reflect real life performance, risks crossing into the Sam Keller suit territory.

IMO all EA really needs to do is make a game with authentic stadia, uniforms, that plays like college football.