Switching over

[jarv]

This is going to be long, so bear with me hahaha. This is why I choose NCAA over Madden every single year. And it's also why I went from a huge NFL junkie (watched every single game, played in 3 or 4 fantasy leagues, read nothing but news in the offseason) to becoming a die hard college football fan.

In the NFL (and in Madden) most teams have very similar (if not identical) playbooks. That's not the case in college ball. Go ahead and look up some videos on youtube of offenses like the Flexbone (Georgia Tech), the Pistol (Nevada), the Run and Shoot (SMU) or a spread option offense. They're all very different, and thus it takes time to master them. Hell, just learning how to do a a simple read option will change the way you look at how a defense lines up. And because of this, it also takes a lot more strategy to stop on defense. I remember the first time I ran into a guy online using a flexbone offense...he absolutely crushed me. He was absolutely unstoppable, had 4.5 YPC and scored on every other drive. Because of that I went and looked up how the offense worked...learned how to use it and was then able to stop it. Unfortunately, I never found videos like this series http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eBsp...el_video_title to spell it out for me. Instead I had to actually find articles and coach interviews and read how it worked.

Also, there's 120 teams to choose from, nearly 4 times as many as Madden, and thousands of different uniform combinations in the game. Some teams have so many that you can use a different combo for every game and not wear the same combination after 5 or ten seasons1

Recruiting also takes a hell of a lot more strategy than the draft and free agency does in Madden because of the varying systems you can use. You can't just open up your pocket books and grab the best mercenary you can buy. You have to think about what you need, prioritize it and spend time to convince those players to come to your school. You have to be pretty calculated in choosing what recruits to go after...one bad recruiting class can set your team back for years. In the NFL, 1/3 of your draft class can fail the very season their drafted and it won't have a major impact...in a few short seasons most of your draftees might night even be on your team!

And in Madden, knowing what type of scheme you run does play into what players you go after...but it really doesn't matter. A free agent NFL QB can be plugged into nearly any team and perform to about the same level as he would somewhere else. In NCAA, if you spend a ton of time recruiting that deadly accurate, but slow 4 star pocket passer to your spread option offense, you've set your team back at least a year and have taken up a roster spot that could've been used to plug holes elsewhere. If you're using a pro-style power running game and have nothing but scat backs with good hands out of the backfield on your roster, you're going to see a lot of injuries and you're going to lose games because you can't get the YPC you need up the middle...and you can't just reach out to free agency to get some journeymen to fill in until your players get better.

In last years game I took over a small school and for the life of me couldn't recruit QB's who were accurate and WR with good enough hands. I had to change my strategy around completely the second season in order to keep my job. Since the school was in Texas I started grabbing all those big ol' Texas boys that Texas, A&M, SMU etc didn't want and sticking them on my offenseive line. I loaded up on 2 star power running backs and used a playbook with the Maryland I formation in it. In two years I started to improve. After five I was dominating the conference and was able to recruit the players I needed to run the offense I wanted. A few years later I got an invite to a better conference and eventually got a BCS Bowl Bid and offers to coach at more prestigious schools.

If you're the kind of guy who likes to turn on the game once a week, pick a team with a few of your favorite star players, kick back with a brew and and not have to think a lot..then stick with Madden. If you want a game that has you thinking about strategy, recruits, playbooks and opponents all day when you're away from the game and want to learn a lot more about football...then get NCAA. In my opinion there's no comparison. It's not even close.

And if you're worried about not learning the teams...you'll get to know them very quickly. The first time I bought the game was in '05...and I didn't know any teams outside of the Big Ten. Within a couple of weeks I was able to name the mascot for every school in a BCS conference and then some.