EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

[simgamer0005]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

Nothing but a coincidence.


And it isn't like the format the NCAA will be using now is a huge mystery.

All we know is there will now be a committee to select who will be in the two semi-finals. This is different then letting two specific polls largely determine who plays in the national championship. Now, those week to week polls might not mean as much, does this new committee have to put in the teams that are ranked #1-#4 in the polls in? I am interested in the new system of determining other major bowl games. Hopefully it'll be better than the BCS, but we won't know until we see a season play out.

One thing I hear is that now the two semi-finals (Rose and Sugar next season) will be both played on New Year's Day. Which is pretty cool, and apparently the other major bowls like Fiesta and Cotton will be played on either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. (New Year's Eve major bowls is a huge change) From what it sounds like, there won't be major bowls being played on Jan 2nd through January 4th anymore. I think a lot of stuff is still being decided, like where the Championship Final played on Jan 12th 2015 (apparently) will be held. (I am reading it will probably be in Arlington, TX)

The format of deciding who plays in the two semi-finals is a bit of a mystery. You have a small group of people making a decision, rather than the harris and coaches poll and computer rating that changed throughout the BCS era. I think overall it will be better, but it is a huge change. Had the EA NCAA series license been renewed, I think it would be hard from them to design dynasty mode. How would you program the game to evaluate teams in close proximity in Dynasty Mode? It's kind of amazing that the first year there is a playoff there is no college football game.

[mestevo]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

I am sure there are massive threads in the appropriate forum for most of that post. Otherwise I don't see the issue, they could do as little as take the top 4 and there's your playoff teams. I don't see how you could attach that development. Remove the emotion and human element and consider the raw mechanics. They already determine top teams, just needs to be reinterpreted and messaged in a different format.

[simgamer0005]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

Take the Top 4 of what though? The BCS ranking determined the Top 2 teams automatically. Now a committee actually has to make a decision after a long season on who are the 4 best or most deserving teams are. Really what I'm asking is if there was an NCAA 15 game, how would they determine who the 4 teams that make the semi-finals are? You can't just say "Top 4" because now there's no BCS ranking. Would it be the Top 4 of the harris or Top 4 of the coaches? Who the top 4 are after a long season is hugely debatable.

Here's where I think that it's not just a coincidence. I don't think they'd be able to release a game with a Dynasty mode. If there was an NCAA 15, likely they'd just program the game to make a "random" decision as to which teams get into the semi-finals without giving any information or criteria as to how those teams was chosen. It's much different in college basketball where you have half the field getting automatic bids. In the 4 team college football playoffs, there's no auto bids like in march madness. I think the role of conference championship weekend needs to be evaluated.

Obviously it will be assumed that the winner of the SEC championship game will be one of the teams in the play-off, but everything else is kind of an unknown. Who would have made a 4 team playoff this year? Auburn, Florida State, and who would be the 3rd and 4th? How would the committee determine who is more deserving for semi-final spots after that? In the BCS, after #1 and #2, it didn't really matter, as the bowls selected who they wanted in an order. But now this committee will have to evaluate more than just the Top 2, but #3 and #4. It won't be an average of polls and computer ratings, it'll just be a selection, so shouldn't we as fans know more about the criteria of what will be used?

I think it's relevant to this thread because if there is no new game this summer, won't people request updates to NCAA 14 with the 4 team playoff?

[mestevo]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

They will, but that's naive since there's nobody working on the title.

Strip away all the current branding for BCS, call it power rankings, top 4 are your playoff, done.

Put a little more effort into prettying it up or something, but that's where they'd start. No coincidence, no conspiracy, you're massively over thinking this. There's no game this year due to ROI and liability, probably not in that order.

[simgamer0005]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

The BCS was a formula, 1/3 harris poll, 1/3 coaches poll, 1/3 average computer rating. That calculation isn't what will determine the semi-finalists in the upcoming season of college football. You're saying all they would do is strip away the branding and call it a power ranking, but power rankings generally consist of an agreed upon average of statistics from games in a season, which is very different than the Top 4 BCS standings. Imagine if "power rankings" determined who made the playoffs in the NFL. Imagine how controversial that would be. Playoffs in the NFL are by winning your division, records and tie-breakers. (not by committee)

The larger question of criteria used by the committee can be discussed further in a another thread, but whether or not EA will patch NCAA 14 is something many gamers want to know. With the new college football playoff, I think we have an opportunity to really start looking more closely into evaluating teams. The BCS kinda guided the whole season, and now we don't have that anymore, so I think this offseason should be used to understand how bowl selection will change and how teams will be evaluated moving forward.

[kehlis]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

Sim.

Not at home so I can't reply in depth and will do so later but the thing that jumps out to me about your argument is that the game sucked at determining this stuff already despite the fact the BCS has been in place for years.

I doubt the fact that a new system is in place would have prevented them from releasing a game.

[RedSoxFox7]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

That isn't what windfall means as they aren't going to receive a large sum of money in some judgement from this case, I don't think anyone disagrees with your point really though... just usage of that word and maybe your expectations of how much money NCAA FB games actually make.

Sent from my VZW Note 3

You're joking, right?

It's exactly what windfall means. They don't need to be getting an some huge lump sum payment for damages for it to be a windfall - just knowing that they'll be getting back one of their top earners unexpectedly, and the guaranteed money that follows qualifies as a windfall.

Oh, and by the way, it absolutely is one of their top earners. NCAA was regularly a top 5-10 earner for EA every year. Over the past 4 years posted, it was EA's #5 earning property. It might not be FIFA, but it's certainly one of their most significant properties.

[RedSoxFox7]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

The BCS was a formula, 1/3 harris poll, 1/3 coaches poll, 1/3 average computer rating. That calculation isn't what will determine the semi-finalists in the upcoming season of college football. You're saying all they would do is strip away the branding and call it a power ranking, but power rankings generally consist of an agreed upon average of statistics from games in a season, which is very different than the Top 4 BCS standings. Imagine if "power rankings" determined who made the playoffs in the NFL. Imagine how controversial that would be. Playoffs in the NFL are by winning your division, records and tie-breakers. (not by committee)

The larger question of criteria used by the committee can be discussed further in a another thread, but whether or not EA will patch NCAA 14 is something many gamers want to know. With the new college football playoff, I think we have an opportunity to really start looking more closely into evaluating teams. The BCS kinda guided the whole season, and now we don't have that anymore, so I think this offseason should be used to understand how bowl selection will change and how teams will be evaluated moving forward.

You're making things WAY more complicated than they need to be or likely will be next year.

There's nothing special about the phrase "power ranking." The committee of 13 is going to have their own power rankings. The BCS in and of itself was nothing more than a power ranking, made up of 2 subjective human polls and an averaged objective computer ranking. All 5 computer models, the AP/Harris Polls, and Coaches' poll were also power rankings.

Power rankings have determined who plays for the FBS/DI-A championship for as long as it has existed, and they will continue to play a role because there are simply too many teams and unbalanced schedules to use record alone. Even with an 8 team playoff, and 5 guaranteed spots to Power 5 conference champs, you'd be using power rankings to fill out the rest of the bracket.

What the NFL does is irrelevant. There are only 32 teams, they play a 16 game schedule, 12 of them make the playoffs, and schedules are far more balanced across the board. The NFL doesn't need a power ranking to determine playoff worthy teams.

As far as NCAA14 is concerned, just putting the top 4 BCS teams in would be fine. As far as the real world is concerned, keeping the BCS in play would probably do a better job than a bunch of ADs who can't possibly watch every game to come up with objective rankings and aren't required to consider any computer polls or even human polls with larger sample sizes.

[simgamer0005]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

You're making things WAY more complicated than they need to be or likely will be next year.

There's nothing special about the phrase "power ranking." The committee of 13 is going to have their own power rankings. The BCS in and of itself was nothing more than a power ranking, made up of 2 subjective human polls and an averaged objective computer ranking. All 5 computer models, the AP/Harris Polls, and Coaches' poll were also power rankings.

The criteria of this new power ranking remains largely unknown. I get the feeling that we are going to get to the end of the 2014 regular season, and no one will know who the semi-final teams will be. Maybe we'll be able to predict 1 or 2 of those teams, but probably 1 or 2 of those teams will be a pick-em type "surprise". It's not that much different from the BCS in that respect, but there's just more teams and more potential for controversy. Will the committee of 13 be releasing their week-to-week power rankings like the BCS did?

Oh and when you say that the computer ratings in the BCS was objective, in theory they were but you have to realize that they were changed and tweaked again and again, even during the 2014 season, with no explanation on how or why. It was very subjective when you really study it. And it wasn't even a true "average" since the first and last ranking were dropped. I don't agree that the BCS itself was a power ranking, it was a combination of polls and a very shady computer ranking that never really was vetted properly.

Power rankings have determined who plays for the FBS/DI-A championship for as long as it has existed, and they will continue to play a role because there are simply too many teams and unbalanced schedules to use record alone. Even with an 8 team playoff, and 5 guaranteed spots to Power 5 conference champs, you'd be using power rankings to fill out the rest of the bracket.

I agree about the unbalanced schedules and all that and the impracticality of an NFL type standings system with that many teams. But power rankings have not determined who plays for the "FBS/DI-A championship for as long as it has existed". Before the BCS, the bowl coalition determined who played in the bowl games, and it was not driven directly by who was ranked #1 and #2. It was driven by traditional bowl match ups and bowl choice. If the #1 team was BigTen or Pac10, and the #2 team was SEC, #1 vs #2 would not happen. The whole point of the BCS was supposed to fix this problem, however when compared to the BCS, it really wasn't that bad, in fact it was better in a lot of ways. The major bowls weren't determined directly by power rankings. The national champion was determined after the bowls, and sometimes 2 or 3 bowl games played a role in determining that. And before you say "but that system sucked because we never saw #1 vs #2", it was better in a lot of ways than the BCS, and a plus-one system after a traditional pre-BCS type New Year's Day bowl system would have been better than anything we've seen since.

As far as NCAA14 is concerned, just putting the top 4 BCS teams in would be fine. As far as the real world is concerned, keeping the BCS in play would probably do a better job than a bunch of ADs who can't possibly watch every game to come up with objective rankings and aren't required to consider any computer polls or even human polls with larger sample sizes.

But the BCS isn't in play anymore. They can't use that branding or that calculation to "guide" the season any more. Rankings in it of itself (power or not) are subjective. I agree though that how this committee will decide who is the best 4 teams most deserving of the playoff is largely unknown. It's a significant change to how college football teams are judged, and I think fans deserve to know more about the criteria and who is really eligible for the playoff.

[Ballgame59]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

They could have kept the BCS ranking to determine the top 4.

[coogrfan]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

I'm asking if you think there's a correlation between the two. Or is it just a coincidence? For the last 15 years or so, we've had the BCS every season and we had a new CFB video game every summer. This year, now all of a sudden we have neither.

Lets say they could make a video game this year. How would they design the Season / Dynasty mode in NCAA 15 if there was a new game coming out? No one really knows what college football will be like next season without the BCS standings, you know? The Dynasty mode in the NCAA games (on PS2 and PS3) has always revolved around the BCS standings. Isn't it interesting that the BCS system ran out the same year that EA's NCAA license ran out?

Dude, come on. You are seriously overthinking this.

The idea that EA might have bailed on the NCAA series to avoid having to incorporate the playoff is incredibly far-fetched.

There will still be coaches and writers polls. It's probable that there will be a strong correlation between the top 4 of those polls and the temas that get invited to the playoff, so adding it to the game would have presented little problem.

[RedSoxFox7]

Re: EA Sports Will Not Publish College Football Game Next Year, Future Plans in Doubt

The criteria of this new power ranking remains largely unknown. I get the feeling that we are going to get to the end of the 2014 regular season, and no one will know who the semi-final teams will be. Maybe we'll be able to predict 1 or 2 of those teams, but probably 1 or 2 of those teams will be a pick-em type "surprise". It's not that much different from the BCS in that respect, but there's just more teams and more potential for controversy. Will the committee of 13 be releasing their week-to-week power rankings like the BCS did?

There is no criteria. It's a human poll, just like the Coaches', AP, and Harris polls. Unlike those polls, this one only has 13 people, and is inherently subject to more "error." They'll be releasing their own poll results a few times each season, but supposedly not every week like every other poll.

Oh and when you say that the computer ratings in the BCS was objective, in theory they were but you have to realize that they were changed and tweaked again and again, even during the 2014 season, with no explanation on how or why. It was very subjective when you really study it. And it wasn't even a true "average" since the first and last ranking were dropped. I don't agree that the BCS itself was a power ranking, it was a combination of polls and a very shady computer ranking that never really was vetted properly.

In theory and in practice the computer polls were necessarily objective. When you really study it, you realize the only problem with the computer polls was that they weren't allowed to use Margin of Victory in their rankings for most of the existence of the BCS. Dropping the outlier computer rankings doesn't make the results any less of an average or any more "shady." Dropping the outliers is just good math.

There was absolutely nothing shady about the computer rankings. If anything, they're a hell of a lot more trustworthy than either of the human polls. The only sense "shadiness" involved comes from homer fans who don't understand the basic algebra that underpins all the computer models.

I agree about the unbalanced schedules and all that and the impracticality of an NFL type standings system with that many teams. But power rankings have not determined who plays for the "FBS/DI-A championship for as long as it has existed". Before the BCS, the bowl coalition determined who played in the bowl games, and it was not driven directly by who was ranked #1 and #2. It was driven by traditional bowl match ups and bowl choice. If the #1 team was BigTen or Pac10, and the #2 team was SEC, #1 vs #2 would not happen. The whole point of the BCS was supposed to fix this problem, however when compared to the BCS, it really wasn't that bad, in fact it was better in a lot of ways. The major bowls weren't determined directly by power rankings. The national champion was determined after the bowls, and sometimes 2 or 3 bowl games played a role in determining that. And before you say "but that system sucked because we never saw #1 vs #2", it was better in a lot of ways than the BCS, and a plus-one system after a traditional pre-BCS type New Year's Day bowl system would have been better than anything we've seen since.

No. Entirely wrong.

The Bowl Coalition existed for 3 seasons, and sought to accomplish the same as the BCS that replaced it, to end the split national championships by guaranteeing #1 vs. #2. Agreements were in place to release the #1 and #2 teams from their conference affiliated games to play in the Bowl Coalition National Championship. The problem that arose was that the Bowl Coalition did not include the Pac-8 and Big Ten at all. Two of the three Bowl Coalition championships were AP#1 vs. AP#2, the third was AP#1 vs. AP#3 because Penn State was #2 and in the Rose Bowl.

For as long as there has been a unified national championship, the competitors have been determined by polls, by power rankings.

But the BCS isn't in play anymore. They can't use that branding or that calculation to "guide" the season any more. Rankings in it of itself (power or not) are subjective. I agree though that how this committee will decide who is the best 4 teams most deserving of the playoff is largely unknown. It's a significant change to how college football teams are judged, and I think fans deserve to know more about the criteria and who is really eligible for the playoff.

Whether or not the BCS exists in the real world is wholly irrelevant here. EA already has it licensed for the game, and the calculation is literally just an average.

If they're going to patch in a playoff, they sure as hell can use that average to determine the playoff seeding. Whether or not they can use the licensed BCS assets along with a playoff is another story, but you can be damn sure they can use an average regardless of what happens.