How to pick a school...

[Catufb85]

I know this thread seems to have different variations of how one may pick a school to start off on the so called "long" journey of creating a dynasty with the selected. Now that we know that NCAA 14 is going to be the last of its kind, I am trying to find more creative ways of making the game more enjoyable. Don't get me wrong I think this is one of the best NCAA's yet. Have thoroughly enjoyed playing this game. But I think I am with so many other NCAA fans, that after about a season or two, that creativity and boredom take over. And you are there night after night deleted your Dynasty and starting over and thinking even harder on which school has all the essentials to either bring them from the bottom to the top, rep your beloved alma mater or just your life-long team. I have come to express this because I am currently in this situation for the millionth time. I can easily just go with being a HC or an OC at my life long favorite team, UNC. But then again I get the enjoyment of starting off as a no name 1 start OC and working my way up the ranks to becoming a College Football Coaching legend. But then the patience of taking it year after year only to see no really interesting offers to follow.

So what I am asking, and sorry for rambling, but please feel free to share how you go about picking the perfect school, the perfect starting point, the perfect scenario that we as creative gamers have developed in our brains to achieve sanctification.

If you do reply, thank you for your feedback and advice.

[Miles Perry]

Re: How to pick a school...

For me it depends. If I want to claw my way to the top as a coach, I'll start at a one star school. But, generally, I'll pick my school based on the stadium. I feel the stadium is the most important aspect because it's the environment you're in, and it's just about the only thing in the dynasty you can't change.

[jbrew2411]

Re: How to pick a school...

I like to put 5-6 schools names on pieces of paper then draw one out of a hat where I will start as a OC/DC. Most of the time I have zero connection to these school which I think helps make it easy to leave for better job options. I set my own house rules to follow to make the game harder. Some examples are limits on who I can recruit (no ATH's or 4* & 5* players must start in two years), must honor 50% of coaching contract unless the HC leaves, and so own. I also at times like to place NCAA sanctions on any program I take over as a head coach if that is my first job. I like to limit scholarship numbers to 55-60 for 5 years. It adds some challenge to the game and makes me want to build that program beyond 5 years. You can do some other recruiting restrictions as well like no out-of-state recruiting.

I have found a few different ways to make my dynasty worth playing beyond a few years. I also recommend posting in the "how's your dynasty going" thread as a way for you to follow your own dynasty. Just a few ideas for you.

[SpartyParty11]

Re: How to pick a school...

I usually try to pick a school where EA hasn't messed up on. Such as un-updated jerseys and stadiums, fights songs etc. I know the crowd noise doesn't affect anything since the crowd noise cuts in and out.

But really, sometimes I pick an awful school in a good conference such as Kentucky or Washington State and try to bring them to the top. Much harder because of the conference they're in.

[Falacer]

Re: How to pick a school...

I stay away from the picking a school in one of the 3 big recruiting states (CA, TX & FL). If I am pipelined to them that's ok but sometimes I even pick one that's not. I always do U of Buffalo because that is where I was born & raised. UB was 2 blocks away from my childhood home, spent many a Saturday's with my dad walking to the stadium to watch some games.

Other than that I always pick a 2* or 3* school to build up to a national powerhouse... dont we all aim for that? My next one I chose Utah State because their playbook in interesting to try a hurry up passing heavy offense.

[Peacefrog]

Re: How to pick a school...

I started off in RTG as a safety (because I sucked usering players on defense). I took him through all four years at my beloved Penn State, and had him graduate. Then I created a dynasty with a coach by the same name and similar build, and put him as the DC of Penn State. I took the first HC offer I got, and built up Old Dominion for a few years. Then I took a job with Oregon State. Now, my ultimate goal is to get back to Penn State, but without winning the National Championship. Just to get there as the dynasty progresses, on its own. Unfortunately, Penn State has since gotten good again, and has been competitively in the hunt for the BCS Bowls every season. I'll probably jump a few more teams before I end up a Nittany Lion again.

[coyotedelmar]

Re: How to pick a school...

Well in fairness still on just the first dynasty I've done, which I tried to go a bit realistic(ish), starting as a coordinator at a school in non-power conference (to steal terms from college basketball). From there tried to wait til moving made sense, and to a mid-major type school, then to a power school and after a few years taking a head coaching job at a lesser school again. I didn't go quite as I planned, in I spent just a year at Marshall before jumping to Texas (I started at South Alabama), which probably isn't realistic, even if the offense had a huge year. I also started head coaching at ASU, because it was in Arizona, though again jumping from Texas to ASU may be going to too big of a job, even if they had been pretty bad the past few years but ehhh.

I may try at some point just having a random number generator pick a team from a list and see what happens. In another video game I'll have a RNG pick the birthdate, favorite club and often first and last name of the coach I'm making, which is kind of fun even if it doesn't make really any difference.

I started off in RTG as a safety (because I sucked usering players on defense). I took him through all four years at my beloved Penn State, and had him graduate. Then I created a dynasty with a coach by the same name and similar build, and put him as the DC of Penn State. I took the first HC offer I got, and built up Old Dominion for a few years. Then I took a job with Oregon State. Now, my ultimate goal is to get back to Penn State, but without winning the National Championship. Just to get there as the dynasty progresses, on its own. Unfortunately, Penn State has since gotten good again, and has been competitively in the hunt for the BCS Bowls every season. I'll probably jump a few more teams before I end up a Nittany Lion again.

I'll have to try this when I do my DC dynasty (Not with Penn State of course but the general idea), sounds pretty interesting and seems a good way to learn the ropes of playing on the defensive side before jumping into the dynasty portion.

[R.Moncrief]

Re: How to pick a school...

The last several editions of NCAAF, I either rolled with Miami (favorite team), California, or Indiana. Indiana was a bit more fun to run before Kevin Wilson.. I have a hard time taking over a program with a created coach when I know the coach in real life is headed toward something special.

With that logic though, California is a great choice. They've been on a downward spiral in recent years and have a new coach IRL, so a new coach in game is feasible. You can completely re-haul the offense/defense to your liking as well.

Another good team is Colorado, a program on the fall from greatness since their 1990 NC championship. They moved to the PAC12 a couple years back so great conference, great history, fun first year with Paul Richardson as one of the best receivers in the PAC12 if not the country (if you use him right).

Texas State is a lot of fun for me as they're the first team I've decided to run a Run and Shoot offense with. I have them in an expanded 12-team Sun Belt conference (added UAB, UTSA, UTEP, North Texas, New Mexico State / removed Western Kentucky). If you actually know how to properly run the Run n Shoot, to the best way possible in a NCAAF game, then Texas State is a lot of fun. I plan on running this one for as long as possible since NCAAF 14 is the final hurrah.

Teams also have new life if you put them in conferences that make more sense than what has actually happened. For instance, put West Virginia in the ACC (swap Maryland for Louisville, then Louisville to BIG12 for West Virginia). This move makes sense as Louisville was believed to be headed to the Big 12 before they decided to go ACC, and West Virginia's three rivals are all in the ACC anyway. Throw BYU in the Big 12 for good measure, as they were also rumored to head there, and you have yourself a big time conference that can easily rival the SEC. And if you set up the Sugar Bowl to be SEC champion v. Big 12 champion, then it's even better!

Indiana demoted to the MAC makes for a fun dynasty. I spent three seasons with that one, two bowl wins and a MAC championship.

Sometimes its fun to use your imagination with conference realignment. Like I mentioned with a Indiana MAC demotion, or WV to the ACC. Try Notre Dame in the B10 for ****s and giggles, or pretend Alabama underwent some major scandal that had them booted from the SEC and got Saban fired ultimately leading to him going on a hiatus from coaching, limit yourself to recruiting 3 star players or less for two seasons, and play in the Big 12 or something. Alabama v. Texas, or v. Oklahoma year in-year out sounds awesome doesn't it?

Eh, hope all this gave you some ideas.

[shopejay]

Re: How to pick a school...

I also am having a difficult time choosing a team... Read through some of these and got some good advice... How many people roll with their alma mater right from the start?? For example, I love Bowling Green and would love to make them my alma mater, but in real life I know in the back of my head that they will never win a national championship.... I know that since this is video game football, you can pretty much do whatever you want.... For me, I wanted to start out as the OC at BG for a few seasons, and then take other offers from other schools and kind of float around the country for a bit (I mean it's a 60 year dynasty so what the hell) before coming back to BG as the Head Coach and Leading them to a National Championship.... I know it will be a hard challenge but that way I can get a couple of trophies for HC at Alma Mater, and then leading them to a Title... Anybody do something similar???

[The JareBear]

Re: How to pick a school...

I really only look at uniforms and stadiums. Gotta have nice stadium and cool alts uniforms to keep it fresh.

[pujolsformvp21]

Re: How to pick a school...

Honestly uniforms are just about the most important thing to me, i.e must have alot of different options, hate those teams that use only white pants for example or one jersey option for home and away. or the teams with literally one helmet design/colorway, has to be a good color combo too. Maryland for example is a dream situation just so many options and weird and different designs although I have never used them actually tbh.

but of course the jersey thing can be trumped by other factors and i will use a school if it fits a certain "theme" for a dynasty. ie taking georgia state to a title, or a weak team in a major conference. I almost always sim 3-4 years to get good recruting classes in and have all my targeted players before I even usually start to actually play games. the fun for me is the fantasy aspect of it, taking fake players and recruits and building something even if it is playing against fake players on other teams. Have no interest in just the season mode for example, i like to let the real college season play out not necessarily re-create or change current history if that makes sense.

I like to pick a "theme" for each and every dynasty to keep things fresh and not just make every dynasty blend together. for example, i just started a new one with florida where the theme is focus HEAVY on defense recruiting to try and get a high school all american at each position with alot of SEC speed and power that the conference is known for. and then for the offensive scheme it is a power run game with heavy heavy carries to a speed back and power back aiming for 30+ carries a game and let the defense win it for us and the offense to not lose it. to keep it more realistic I will recruit lightly on offensive side but when i do i will focus on the HB and OL with low rated qb's and wr's (no fun having 99off/99def teams)

or another one was create a TE heavy offense with 3+ TE's on the field and pass heavy oriented to the TEs. So for that Of course i wanted a great pocket qb and Alot of great TE's (speed guys like vernon davis, big tall power guys like gronk, blocking te's etc. The WR's and Hb's were not important.

doing things like that make for a better dynasty so i reccomend doing so after you get the team you want to be

[Falacer]

Re: How to pick a school...

I dont think fashion comes into play when recruits are picking a school. But to each their own.

[pujolsformvp21]

Re: How to pick a school...

I dont think fashion comes into play when recruits are picking a school. But to each their own.

No im not saying that of course. I mean when i am actually playing the game I like my team to look good visually and stylisticly, I am a big fan of all this new uniform and team "swag" for lack of better term that alot of new teams are doing this days. (baylor, maryland, oregon etc.) It may sound dumb but i would never do a dynasty with alabama because their uniforms and logos and everything are so plain and simple, basically red and white with little else. 1 helmet 1 pant 1 jersey etc. I know that is because alabama is a classic college team and they have kept the old stlye uniforms the whole time and there is a certain history behind teams like that I personally wouldnt even want them to change. but when it comes to the game I am weird like that and I love customizing my team and doing different things with jerseys, accessories,colors, numbers ( huge fan of defensive playmakers with low numbers like Clowney, or a shutdown corner with #1, i dont stick to the classic numbering system.) hell one year I gave every defensive player high white spat tape, and every offensive player with high black tape. or give every player the same helmet brand so they match. first thing i do when i get a new recruit class is spend time editing every players appearance and accessories.

[The JareBear]

Re: How to pick a school...

I dont think fashion comes into play when recruits are picking a school. But to each their own.

Uh, I don't understand the point of this post. This thread is talking about why guys choose to play with whatever school they choose to play with, right? Or did I completely misinterpret the OP?

If I was looking to start a one-star dynasty, I would pick UMass over Tx State because UMass has better/more uniform/alt uniform options. It is more fun for me.

Anything else is arbitrary, I can just self-impose house rules for recruiting or play calling to add anything else I need for a challenge.

[tarek]

Re: How to pick a school...

I have used NCAA Football to improve my knowledge and appreciation of real life college football. Now I am a complete convert to the sport and have started to live and breathe college football.
Unfortunately, my major issue is being Australian, I have no affiliation with any team whatsoever.

Initially, I tried playing to find any tenuous link to a school and select them, but it didn't really stick. Then I went the 1-star school route but I found these was a big disconnect between my gaming school and my ability to enjoy a weak team in real life. Slowly I explored a bunch of schools, both in the game and through watching and following real world storylines.

Finally I settled upon LSU. They are a power house sure, but I've completely accepted them as my team of choice, and have become a big fan of the team. Now, I haven't given up my Syracuse dynasty yet for an LSU one, but I think I might be close.