[mercalnd]

The reasons you listed are pretty much why I used to like college football games better than NFL games but lately I've been leaning in the opposite direction and have chosen to go NFL only this year so I'll offer an opposite viewpoint to your arguments:

-Different styles: While the different styles of NCAA teams do indeed provide some nice variety, they are hardly well represented in the game when the teams are controlled by the AI. On top of that, they tend to make finding consistently good competitive settings next to impossible since no set of settings will work well with every type of team from Navy to USC to Texas Tech. The similarity in style of NFL teams facilitates finding a consistently good set of sliders/settings adapted to one's skill level.

-Big games: While you are right that the big college rivalries are much bigger than anything found in the NFL, those games are few and far between. The typical college season for any given big team consists of 2 or 3 big games, 2 or 3 "trap" games and 6 or so games against much weaker teams that should be a W most of the time barring a very bad showing. In the NFL you're facing a competent team every week.

People rave about the pressure to win every game in college to get a chance at a championship but this very aspect of the college game also tends to make games meaningless after a loss or two since you no longer have a shot at a NC barring a collapse by every other big team. In the NFL, you can hover around .500 and fight tooth and nail throughout the year to get a 9-7 or 10-6 record and make the playoffs. My best memories in football games have been these kinds of seasons.

-Recruiting: I used to love recruiting much more that free agency, trades and the draft. I also used to hope for a more involving system. Low and behold now that it's here I find it tedious and time consuming. I find myself wanting to play the games rather than have to spend 30 or so minutes recruiting between each game. And they haven't really made it harder, just more time consuming.

-Scheduling OOC games: Another aspect I used to love. However, it's a choice between a total departure from realism and stacking up the OOC schedule with big teams in hopes of shooting up the rankings (or even get a loss or two overlooked beacuse of a strong schedule) or keeping it realistic and making most of your OOC games meaningless games against pushover teams.

-The fact that Madden comes out a month after NCAA tends to make its gameplay a bit better. The points you mentioned are the reasons why some people always prefer the NCAA series for its overall package but the on-the-field product is generally better in Madden.

I've come to realize that what I love about college football is following the developments, upsets, rivalries and big games across the nation. Following one team through it's week to week games (which is basically what you do in a video game) is not so interesting to me. No disrespect to hardcore fans and alumni of all these great schools of course.