The "why I love NCAA 14 three years later" thread

[young22]

4 years later, still love this game. Started a new teambuilder dynasty that I'm doing a report on in the dynasty forum, has been a lot of fun so far.

Sent from my SM-G386W using Operation Sports mobile app

[TarHeelPhenom]

Funny thing is, I got this game the moment it came out and have had it off and on for the last 4 years and have yet to play a full season, dynasty, have yet to Recruit...all of these things. All of my time has been spent using the editor and watching the CPU vs CPU to see the results from editing. So whenever I start up a dynasty it'll be my first time. So in a sense it'll all be new to me.

[jkits]

Been playing college football video games since Bill Walsh, Gamebreaker 99/2001, and every year of the EA ncaa series. Me & my lil bro have so many stories of blue chip recruited players, and teams we've curated throughout the years.. I played football from age 7 up through college too, so it's been in my blood. And this time each year, as the sun goes down, the grass even starts to smell like football lol..

I keep coming back every year b/c college football has a vast amount of teams, traditions, prestige, fight songs & chants, stadiums, rivalries and lineage of legendary players who've graced the gridiron. Totally different from the NFL, which I love too. But I just love recruiting, the storylines, the amount of players up against awards, and all the possibilities that could happen. 1 loss can blow a National Championship run, but bowl games, conference championships and recruiting classes are worth staying in the fight for as well.

I think I can now consider my NCAA 14 an appreciating asset, along with my house

[nofx94]

I love that. "Appreciating asset." Hopefully some day soon they bring back the game. But until they do it's a rarified commodity. Like, sports games - Madden especially and NCAA to a lesser extent - took a lot of flack for being glorified roster updates, but now that NCAA is frozen in time it's truly shown its value.

I'm glad EA has had the decency/generosity to maintain online support so far past profitability. It allows communities like this one to create and proliferate annual roster updates and so forth.

Pretty cool stuff

[young22]

If they never make another game, NCAA 14 will actually be worth a ton in like 15 years. Bought my copy for 40 bucks off eBay.

Sent from my SM-G386W using Operation Sports mobile app

[Pt81094]

Planning to get a new 360 and NCAA 14 soon...The game has always been such a joy to play and it come across as more "fun" where as the Madden games are more "business" to me...also created playbooks and also formation subs are a godsend

[pietasterp]

Default. Three years later, it remains the only college football game in existence.

[montesixpac]

It has been a year since I last played NCAA '14. A little over a month ago I decided to just pack up the 360 since it has been long sitting idle since being replaced by the Xbox 1 when that first came out. I have still broken out NCAA at the start of every football season but really thought this time that I would be putting the system away for good.

My poor 360 is still one of the original models that takes a screwdriver to help pry the disk drive open if you ever want to switch games and my controller has barely lived through getting thrown on the ground by me and has joysticks that have been chewed up by my little ones getting a hold of it. Speaking of getting thrown, the NCAA series is the only game that I have ever been so intensely involved with that it would make me throw my controller.

Well the bug hit me this weekend, and I quickly set the 360 back up, downloaded updated rosters and went through making my personal tweaks. I still had my old sliders set up so I decided to go ahead and use them for my new dynasty with my Huskers. These sliders were set up when I was consistently playing the game and set up with everything on Heisman and everything bumped up to make the game as difficult as possible to hopefully lose a few games, which back then rarely happened. Although I did play last year it wasn't much and it has been 2-3 years since I played much so I was nervous at how it would go.

I started this to just mention how much fun I had in my first game back, but that turned into a bit of a short story on my first game of my Huskers dynasty and below what I ended up typing up off of my memory of how the game played out. What I noticed is that if I was to go type up how a game went in a CFM in Madden it would have never went like this. I am just able to find myself completely indulged in NCAA, the players, and the whole story as the game and dynasty plays out.

The first game actually turned out about as well as I could hope. I made the schedule as close to the 2017 season as possible changing my OOC games to Ark St, Oregon, and N. Illinois, so game 1 was against the Red Wolves. Ark State should be a team Nebraska can handle, but with a new qb, a new defensive scheme, and a lot of question marks on the Huskers team the Red Wolves could give them a run for their money.

I got the ball first and got nothing going with Tanner Lee and his first career game with the Huskers. We went 3 and out and punted. To my surprise they broke off a 28 yard return that about sprung for a TD and started their opening drive from right around my 40.

The Red Wolves ran all passing plays on their opening drive as they easily moved the ball down to the 1 for 1st and goal after a TD saving tackle.

A well timed safety blitz caught their qb in the backfield on 2nd down and helped stop the drive and force the field goal for a 3-0 Red Wolves lead. I had never ran a 3-4 consistently in NCAA, but chose to go with it to mimic the defensive scheme change with newly hired DC Bob Diaco. The ease in which the picked up a few first downs and moved the ball down to the 1 has me worried at this point.

Tanner Lee got things rolling on his 2nd possession as a Husker completing his first pass to a player getting his first reception, true freshman Tyjon Lindsey. We struggled getting much out of the running game but Lee commanded the offense down the field and down to the 1 yard line leading to a Tre Bryant TD run. (7-3) Huskers.

Jumping ahead it was a sort of back and forth game with the Huskers scoring late in the first half to take a (21-17) lead.

Halftime adjustments were made and now the Huskers get rolling...

The first half was a struggle to run the ball, so we go from out top all around back to our speed back, Mikale Wilbon. Wilbon did not disappoint and took a lot of pressure off of the passing game.

The other adjustment was a big focus on defending the pass defensively which took their offense out of the game for much of the second half.

We ended up scoring 17 more points and taking a 38- 17 lead in the 4th as things were all but locked up. I started feeding Wilbon a lot and running the clock, but I made a mistake and dropped back for a pass, expecting man coverage I threw a quick in route with the corner sitting over the top of the receiver, but they were zone and had a LB sit right were I was throwing and I gave them good field possession which set up a TD to make it a 14 point game midway through the 4th quarter.

Another drive full of runs and the occasional safe pass ran the clock and moved the ball past midfield before stalling and punting. Arkansas St finds a way to hit a few big plays and score to make it a 1 possession game with 1:50 to go. After receiving the onside kick we are able to drain the clock and put this one away after the Red Wolves make it a close 38-31 final with a great push late in the game.

This game was a ton of fun and really if this happened in real life I would not be overly surprised. I could see a slow start by Nebraska that turns into a comfortable lead with the possibility of a late push by Ark St. All in all the game played great and I'm really excited to continue the season.

P.O.G was my user controlled safety, Aaron Williams, who racked up 2 picks, 1 sack, 1 FF, and was the Huskers' tackle leader.

Total yardage was approximately 380 for the Huskers to 320 for the Red Wolves. Tanner Lee had about a 300 yard game 78% completion 2TD/2INT. Wilbon ended up with 20 carries for 88 yards and a TD with his ypc taking a bit of a hit as he got fed a lot trying to run the clock and with the defense expecting the run. Stanley Morgan was the leader in receiving yards while TE Hoppes was highly targeted and led the team in receptions. True freshman Tyjon Lindsey turned in a nice game with 77 yards.

The Huskers defense ended up holding the passing game of Ark State to 51% completion ration and got 3 INTs. With the emphasis on defending the pass, the Red Wolves HB did end up breaking some nice runs and had about an 80 yard game against the 3-4.