This is almost LESS realistic.
How often do you think teams in the SEC, who are all on TV nearly every week, get to pick their kick-off times?
I've said it somewhere on these forums before, but here it goes again.
I
do think that kick-off times should be customizable for non-televised games. My Arkansas Razorbacks always kick-off at 6pm CST when the weather is still warm and 11am CST when the weather gets cooler... for non-televised games.
I go to a lot of games, and this past season, all the games in Fayetteville that I went to were televised... which means not one of them started at either 11am or 6pm (I think it was mostly 11:30 and 2:30 starts).
When a television network is going to put you on TV, you play when they tell you that you're going to play. That's how it works.
Start times for TV games should not be editable. Period. End of story.
But with that said, the game's logic for determining start times for televised games should probably be improved. Weekday start times need to be in the evening only. ESPN is never going to move a team's game from Saturday to Thursday to put them on television at 3:30 EST. All the baseball fans will be changing the channel...
Moreover, without actually naming CBS, NBC, Fox, etc., EA needs to go in and maybe make up some fictional names for networks or something and distinguish between the networks and clarify which regions your game is being broadcast too and make this have an impact on recruit. But back to the main point... CBS is the main broadcaster for SEC games. They have their times they like to broadcast games. So televised SEC matchups should tend to match this.
Here's a look at the REAL week 1 schedule for televised games this coming season. (All times Eastern.)
Thursday, September 1
Murray State at Louisville, 6pm, ESPNU
Villanova at Temple, 7pm, ESPN3.com
North Texas at FIU, 7pm, ESPN3.com
Western Carolina at Georgia Tech, 7:30pm ESPN3.com
UNLV at Wisconsin, 8pm, ESPN
Western Kentucky at Kentucky, 9:15pm, ESPNU
Friday, September 2
TCU at Baylor, 8pm, ESPN
Saturday, September 3
Rice at Texas, TBA, Longhorn Network
Northwestern at Boston College, Noon, ESPNU
Akron at Ohio State, Noon, ESPN
Minnesota at USC, 3:30pm, ABC
UL-Monroe at Florida State, 3:30pm, ESPNU
South Florida at Notre Dame, 3:30pm, NBC
Western Michigan at Michigan, 3:30pm, ABC
Troy at Clemson, 3:30pm, ESPN3.com
BYU at Ole Miss, 4:15pm, ESPN
Liberty at NCSU, 6pm, ESPN3.com
William & Mary at Virginia, 6pm, ESPN3.com
Ball State at Indiana, 7pm, ESPN3.com
Richmond at Duke, 7pm, ESPN3.com
Army at Northern Illinois, 7pm, ESPN3.com
Boise State at Georgia, 8pm, ESPN
Oregon at LSU, 8pm, ABC
Wake Forest at Syracuse, 8pm, ESPN3.com
Colorado at Hawaii, 10:15pm, ESPN2
Sunday, September 4
Marshall at West Virginia, 3:30pm, ESPN
Monday, September 5
Miami (FL) at Maryland, 8pm, ESPN
So yea, weekday games should always be at 7pm or 8pm EST. And weekend games should try to follow a little bit more realistic televised pattern.
A couple things to notice from this list.
First, Texas' kick off time is TBA. They're televising their own game with the school's network, so they start whenever they want to start. Most likely, they're waiting for the major networks to finalize all their start times so that Texas isn't starting at the same time as some other Big 12 school's televised game, etc.
Second, CBS hasn't scheduled, or even picked, any games yet. I can't remember if they really televise a lot in the early part of the season before the SEC starts conference play, and ESPN/ABC already have the big time match-ups involving an SEC school (Oregon/LSU, Boise State/Georgia, BYU/Ole Miss). There are some other decent games involving SEC schools they could pick up in week 1. But basically, the SEC game of the week is at 3:30 on CBS. If there are 2 or 3 good SEC games, CBS also does noon and 8pm kickoffs.
They also have long term deals for the Tennessee-Florida game, Florida-Georgia, Arkansas-LSU, and I believe the Air Force's service academy games. These games all typically start at 2:30 or 3:30.
And the thing is, there are little nuances like this for every team and every conference. It would be nice if these things were fixed for realism, because lots of us love the sim experience of NCAA football.
However... to call this a glitch is inaccurate, and to call it inexcusable is laughable.