Tommy Gschwend, from The Gaming Tailgate, has posted his NCAA Football 13 hands-on impressions, along with a nice Q&A session, right here. Make sure you check it out, it has a lot of great information.
Speaking of receivers not seeing the ball, that is based on the new receiver route awareness. I believe this has largely been explained but for anyone that still doesn't quite understand it, at the start of the snap, all receivers icons will be dimmed. They will remain dimmed until a receiver in real life would be looking for the ball. So, on a slant, a receiver is going to begin looking for the ball right around the time they make their cut whereas on a streak route, the receiver won't begin looking for the ball until they're 15-20 yards down field. You'll still be able to throw the ball whenever you like but if the receiver isn't looking for the ball, he won't make a play for it. This will eliminate the guys who rock & fire right at the snap to the TE that's running a streak... he won't be looking for the ball so it will either hit him the back of the helmet, hit the dirt, or worse get picked. That said, you'll still be able to throw routes based on timing; so long as the receiver is looking for the ball by the time it gets there, he'll still be able to catch it. On top of that, while it hasn't been stated out-right, I definitely feel that true route-based passing is finally in the NCAA Football series. That is, you can throw the ball before the receiver is actually cutting and it will throw to where he should be going and not just lead him in the direction he's currently running. This has been a complaint for years and feels as though as it has been addressed.
To coincide with the receivers having to look for the ball, so do the defenders. No longer are they mirroring or running a receiver's route before him; they have to play the receiver's route by reacting to what he does. The perfect example of this is on curls and comeback routes. If as a QB, you throw the ball before the WR actually makes his cut to get there when he turns around, he'll be able to turn and catch it while the defender might continue running 2-3 steps further down field. It all comes down to timing because if you get your timing wrong and throw the pass too late, that DB will have time to recover only to be able to catch that ball on the run as he returns it for the pick-six.
To coincide with the receivers having to look for the ball, so do the defenders. No longer are they mirroring or running a receiver's route before him; they have to play the receiver's route by reacting to what he does. The perfect example of this is on curls and comeback routes. If as a QB, you throw the ball before the WR actually makes his cut to get there when he turns around, he'll be able to turn and catch it while the defender might continue running 2-3 steps further down field. It all comes down to timing because if you get your timing wrong and throw the pass too late, that DB will have time to recover only to be able to catch that ball on the run as he returns it for the pick-six.
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