Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

[Hellisan]

NCAA 25 is going to be out (honestly I don't know when). Knowing that people who worked so hard to make NCAA '14 what it is are still on the team makes me incredibly hopeful that it'll be a great comeback. But it's also nearly done.

I'm curious what you all would come up with if we make a list of honest-to-god ideas that we have for the game. They could be obvious. They could be off the wall. I'm just going to start with a couple and I hope that you all will pop in and add your own ideas, whatever they are. Dynasty, gameplay, menus, music, doesn't matter. Everything. Thanks in advance because I could see myself writing up something on this topic and then peddling it to Steve and/or Chase.

1) Way, way, way more uniform options for every detail. EA is known for pushing graphics to the limit at the detriment of the sidelines and things like that. But if I could change anything about the past games it would be the amount of options for things like gloves. With Iowa, I had those weird Nike gloves that were cool 10 years ago but I couldn't put plain white gloves on my guys. Sounds stupid, but I can't tell you how many times it bugged me editing a player. (I know that to some extent the modded version of NCAA 14 that was developed over the past few years improves this, but I never went for that).

2) Rarity levels on celebrations. High fives? common. Flexing? Also, common. Hiding a ring underneath the bench and proposing to your girlfriend to the camera? It would be awesome if there were numerous crazy ones like this that you had a 1% chance or less of EVER seeing in the typical life span of playing the game. And maybe make it impossible for the player to ever see it again, unless they clear their memory or something. Then between flexing and those uber rare ones, have an entire group of celebrations that spanned every rarity level. Also, have players favor a certain celebration, giving them more character. I feel like one could write an entire article about this specific suggestion. That would add some incredible discussion to the game. I saw this crazy celebration where X happened, and YOU CAN'T PROVE IT unless you happened to be streaming or recording your footage. And then just in general, the celebrations would be more varied and fun.

[canes21]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

Create a scheme - As the name says, you create a scheme. You pick what archetypes the scheme prefers, what concepts it relies on the most, what personnel groupings it relies on the most, etc. Along with those customization options, when you're in each different dynasty, you can view a listing of schemes that you want to toggle on or off, this way if you want to create a bunch of schemes to recreate 1980's college football, you can toggle off the modern schemes so that all CPU coaches are generated with only the schemes you want to keep the teams playing how you want through the years.

Create an Archetype - This one is straight forward. You name it and get to choose which ratings are most important to the overall calculation. These custom archetypes can be assigned to any schemes you want to create. If I want to create an OLB Archetype called Boomer and make it so strength and hit power are what make up 90% of the overall, let me have that creative freedom. It would be necessary for EA to give users both macro and micro customization options here, so those that want can literally weigh each individual rating in the overall calculation while those wanting it to be a little quicker/streamlined can just have some preset ratings groupings they want to make more important to the formula.

Decommitments in Recruiting - We don't know yet if this is in or not, but in the event that it is not, it would be nice to see these in the game given how much more common it has become in real life. Of course, if possible, allow users to toggle this on or off in their Dynasties along with the ability to control the frequency at which they happen, preferably allowing us to at a minimum set the frequency for each star rating instead of all recruits in general.

Weekly Schedules - Instead of simply advancing week to week, it would be nice if we could advance day by day and have the micro control to dictate what our practice schedules and focuses are throughout the season and off-season. Like always, please give users the ability to toggle some features on or off as well as giving them the ability to automate as much or as little as they want. Also, the CPU also has to take advantage of the feature.

An example of how it works is looking at College Hoops 2k8 and structuring it similarly to the weekly training system in that game. On the macro level, you can set it to where your entire team follows the same exact training program. That game also gives you the ability to set it up for each player individually. I think CFB would be wise to take it a step further and allow you intermediate control that allows you to setup the training programs for each side of the ball as a whole, or, it can allow you to set it up by position groups so that you have finer control but don't have to literally go player by player.

On top of these training programs for the players, the users should be able to set up what team activities are done on a weekly and daily basis in the season and during the off-season times. Some example choices during the season are Film Review, Walk-Throughs, Half-Pads, and Full-Pads practices. Each having pros and cons to them.

For example, film review increases awareness and play recognition ratings the most but at the cost of developing the more physical attributes the least or not at all. Walk-throughs also increase those mental attributes but to a lesser degree, but they may help increase composure for the week. Half-Pads give you more physical growth, so things like blocking, block shedding, and tackle ratings develop more, but the mental ratings don't develop as much that week. There is a small chance of injury. Full-pads are like half-pad practices except the physical growth is higher but the injury risk is also greater and it also has the chance of disrupting wear and tear recovery for your players. At the same time, while players are more at risk for more wear and tear or even injury, their toughness ratings can slowly go up as their bodies become more adapted to the physicality of the program. You may take over a program and go real physical and have a half-dead roster in the first 2 years, but by years 3 and 4 when your players are in and used to the physicality, they are tougher and may not suffer as much. Still, even when getting tougher, you're still hurting their wear and tear recovery.

For the players that do want these features in the game, but don't want to be playing in the menus forever, they should be able to have some preset practice schedules that they want to select from. So, people like me who want a physical program will take the time to set up each day's tasks while other players that don't want to take the same amount of time can just select a more physical preset and get similar results. The manual control just keeps you more involved and gives you a bit more finer control when needed.

In the off-season, you'd have different options like weighing how much time should be dedicated to conditioning vs strength. If you run an up-tempo offense, you may want your guys to focus more on conditioning in the summer so that their stamina is higher and they can handle the higher snap counts better. Other teams, like my physical team example may focus on strength more as a whole, so they will be some strong dudes, but when my defense faces some faster paced offenses and the snap counts keep going up, my guys will be gassed and have to rotate more often.

[canes21]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

We also just need finer control in all facets of the game. Some examples include:

Splitting the injury slider into an Injury Frequency and Injury Severity slider similar to 2k. What would be a dream scenario is literally having the ability to set each injury's chance of happening, but I never see that being possible.

I think it would also be beneficial to have the same Frequency and Severity sliders separately for practices if those are in the game. Right now Madden has practice injuries, but they are very basic and I don't even think it is possible to have a season-ending injury like an ACL tear in practice. It would be nice for us to have the ability to have those in our dynasties if we wanted.

For practices, it would make sense to have the 4 following settings: Injury Frequency slider, Injury Severity slider, Practice Injury toggle to disable them, Long-term Injury toggle, and a toggle for season-ending injuries. The long-term injury toggle is there to either have it setup to where every injury in practice is a 1-week minor injury that a player can technically play through if the setting is off, or, to have it setup to where guys can break their ribs and be out multiple weeks. If this setting is on, but the season-ending toggle is off, then guys can suffer multi-week injuries like a broken hand in practice, but they can never have an injury like a torn ACL in practice.

These settings allow users to have the experience be as tough and as in-depth as they want. Some guys really like the idea of having long-term practice injuries in dynasty, but don't want it to be to the point where a season ending injury can occur. Settings like this allow that to be possible while others like myself can have season ending injuries be a possibility.

Other example sliders that need to be added are tendency sliders. While the dream is to have the CPU setup in a manner to where they always play exactly how we want them to, odds are that won't be the case. Even if EA does a great job of having all the different schemes and playbooks being accurate to real life, it's likely there will still be some potential issues with certain schemes or playbooks. Having tendency sliders will allow users to have the tools to help counter any potential flaws in the game.

Think Madden 24 and how the CPU play calling is a mess for every playbook except for the Bears. With tendency sliders, we could have it setup to where we increase the run tendency is higher than normal so that teams run the ball at more true to life rates. And, for the playbooks that work properly, we can set the tendency sliders back down so that they aren't running too frequently.

Player tendencies would also be a very very welcome addition. Things that allow us to dictate how often QB's leave the pocket, how often they slider vs taking a hit, how often RB's cut back, how often they look for contact vs go out of bounds on the sideline, how often WR's look for YAC vs go down like Tyler Lockett, etc. This will allow users to get the CPU playing exactly how they think they should play increasing user happiness. And, with the new Wear and Tear system being added to the game, having the ability to have the CPU take less contact could be an important. In the event that the game comes out and we see the CPU is taking hits needlessly, some tendency sliders to fix that would be huge.

Other sliders that I don't ever foresee becoming a reality but would be awesome to see in game are seeing the penalty sliders with much more depth to them. Example being there being multiple Holding Penalty sliders like how often Holds occurred in 3rd and 10+ situations, how often holds occurred in the 2nd half to the trailing team, how often holds occurred in rainy weather, etc.

There are so many different situations that EA could create sliders for that I don't actually think it's feasible to ever expect it in the game, but imagine the amount of user control we could have it we had the ability to set how frequently teams false started on the road, how often teams committed PI on passes 20+ yards downfield vs passes 10 yards or less downfield, and so on.

[TarHeelPhenom]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

AD Mode - Along the lines of Owner/GM Mode in other games, you take control as the Athletic Director of a school. You hire and fire coaches, make decisions on university finances that goes towards money/xp for stadium upgrades, "Team Brand" etc.

Create-A-Stadium - Instead of having preset templates in Teambuilder, have the ability to create a stadium from the ground up like in the older games.

Spring Practice/Spring Game - The early Signing Period is already in the game this year. Add another layer by putting the Spring Game in. Results from Spring Practice and the Spring Game can have an affect on true freshmen as it pertains to composure etc.

Three Broadcast Teams - It appears Madden will have 3 teams this year, might as well add a 3rd team to the college game.

Custom Sounds - Was in the older games, bring it back

[noarmsduck]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

Do we know if there will be a CFB 26 yet? I could have sword a couple months back something came out indicating this would not be a yearly release title, at least not yet. Basically the implication would be a new game would not come out in 2025, but it could come in 2026 and at that point it could become a yearly title if sales were good.

I don't have a source and don't even remember when I read this, so if anyone knows what I am talking about and can provide an article or something to corroborate this I'd be appreciative.

Also even if this was the plan as of several months ago, plans could change if they haven't already. I'm sure they already have a ton of preorders, and they're likely to get good sales even after the game releases. That could be a big factor into EA turning this into a yearly title.

I personally wouldn't mind (and would actually prefer) this series being a bi-yearly title only coming every other year. They could do a major roster update when the new season hits, or if a future game allowed full editing of NIL players due to any developments between now and then, this wouldn't even be an issue.

This would give the team more time to fine tune and introduce more improvements with each title, and would also be nice for ultimate team players. I don't play that mode any more, but it would be nice if they could keep their team for an additional year.

[Hooe]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

Do we know if there will be a CFB 26 yet?

EA Sports described this year’s game as a “foundation” in their gameplay Campus Huddle blog, the NIL deals each opted-in player signed last multiple years, and Matt Brown has alluded to future versions of the game several times in his Extra Points blog.

If there isn’t an EASCFB 26, I would be utterly shocked.

[canes21]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

More Fog of War options. This is influenced by Out of the Park. Instead of the default 0-99 scale being the only way to view ratings, give us a list of different ways they are displayed. A 1-5 scale, 1-10 scalle, letter grades only with or without + and - variants, etc.

Non-exact ratings. As it stands right now, when I look at a player's ratings, they are 100% exact. Give us different accuracy levels of ratings. A Very Low, Low, Normal, High, Very High, and 100% Accurate. The last option there being what we have now, the others all being not exact to varying degrees.

Introduce scouting ratings for coaches and tie those into the options above. Pretty straightforward. The better a scout that coach is, the more accurate their player evals are. CPU teams will operate on the ratings their CPU coaches see, not what they actually are under the hood.

[jerwoods]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

let us edit Fake CPU guys

[thescoop]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

An option in Dynasty for a promotion/relegation system where you have to fight to stay in the top tier and could get relegated to a lower tier. Also you can gain promotion. Would add some layers in our fictional universe. Should be an option as everyone wouldn't want to stray from the real world system.

[Funkycorm]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

I am just saying but shouldn't we wait for College Football 25 to be released before we make a list for 26?

[Playmakers]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

let us edit Fake CPU guys

Your being too conservative 😂

Give us 100% editing control again

What if I don't want to use the NIL players. I should be able to edit the rosters as offline solo player for my dynasty

[Ghost Of The Year]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

I am just saying but shouldn't we wait for College Football 25 to be released before we make a list for 26?

Yeah, I want to give my opinion on what I want to see added to the next game but I can't until I have hands-on experience with 25.

[GoDucks1224]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

Ima wait till the game drops.

[TarHeelPhenom]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

At this point we're just coming up with stuff to talk about to try and pass these last 33 days away lol

[Ghost Of The Year]

Re: Let's make a list of ideas for NCAA '26

Ima wait till the game drops.

And when it does drop, I think I'll start working on my list for NCAA 27

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