[mattynokes]

For me, it all starts with Program Prestige. It'd be nice if you'd actually have to work your way up if you're a G5 program, instead of simply getting 10-win seasons against podunk schools improves your prestige. For example, if I emulated Ohio U's success with Frank Solich from 2009 to 2012 (4 straight winning and bowl bid seasons), my prestige would be much higher than a 2-star program that OU still was on NCAA 14. If Conference Prestige was tied into/capped Program Prestige, it'd go a long way to adding realism.

I liked recruiting better when there were a lot of unknowns with either less information or letter grades. Like back on NCAA 06, you could scout players and figure out their Speed, Strength, Awareness (range), Jumping, Squat, and maybe a position specific attribute. There was still a lot left unknown. Maybe the HB had great straight line Speed, but without knowing Agility or Acceleration, it might not be as appealing as it looks.

On NCAA 14, scout 'em and you'll know right where every important attribute lies. Sure, you could have some house rules to limit your information on a recruit, but if you see a Possession WR with A Speed and D Catching, it doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to know that it's VERY likely that his Speed will go down and his Catching will go up.

I also think Player Progression goes hand-in-hand with recruiting. Going back to NCAA 06, it was nice to see (I think because of Potential) that some players would hardly progress, while you could have a ho-hum 3-star recruit that you thought was just going to be depth have Breakthrough after Breakthrough and become a starter. This would also allow for freshman phenoms to emerge and become Day 1 Starters.

On NCAA 14, it felt like every player was destined for +4/5 progression every year. It was easily predictable for how your future depth chart would look and freshman instant starters were rare and seemingly only happened when you had a player leave early at a position that was already thin. With the amount of freshman/sophomore stars in today's college game, I'm hopeful that young players jettisoning atop the depth chart will be more prevalent.