College Football 15 Roster/Depth Chart Wishlist

[oldgoldnblue767]

Rosters/Depth Charts Need a complete overhaul. It's time to increase the roster capacity. Schools are alotted 85 scholarships, so why don't we increase to that number? I'm tired of picking which guys to leave off my roster each year. It's time to allow duplicate numbers already, it is not illegal. Team Specific Depth Charts (or at least some kind of upgrade). There is one WR spot on the depth chart with 6 slots. Some teams start 4 WR's. This doesn't even allow for a two deep. If my school lists 3 or 4 WR's on the depth chart, give me that many spots on the game's depth chart. Defensively, maybe there could just be 3 depth chart options, and users could select one for their school (i.e. 4-3, 3-4, 3-3-5). This can change recruiting as well if a recruit knows there are 3 starting safety spots or 4 starting linebacker spots. Let's just get a depth chart spot for every spot on the field. Rosters and depth charts haven't been touched on the current gen, this is way past due. Come on, EA!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ds29]

Anyone who has ever played this game wants the roster expanded to 85. I like your idea about the roster. Have a X,Y,Z, slot for receivers and allow for up to 3-4 deep in each slot would be a great idea. They do it with the LB's but again teams that run a 4-4,3-4 should have Sam, Mike, Will, slots instead of ROLB,LOLB,MLB. That would automatically move your Sam backer to the strong side pre-snap and so on. Sadly a lot of people who play this game don't know enough about football to actually set up a realistic depth chart so we get a bland format.

[Humperdink]

I'm tired of excuses about limited capacity on roster issues in particular. The next gen systems are going to be goosed with all sorts of hardware capabilities. If the game itself has to be two discs, or there's some kind of optional DLC to get in order to REALLY treat the rosters right, then do it already. The standard NCAA limit for a football roster is 105 players, which gives you room for about 20 preferred walk-ons in addition to the scholarship players. This puts you four deep at every position and gives you a couple extra spots for a younger/emergency kicker AND a proper slot for a long-snapper.

This seems extreme, but think of the dynasty possibilities this capacity allows for. Player turnover at many programs (especially among the have-nots of college football) is massive. Say you graduate between 15 and 20 players a season. Then you throw in career-ending injuries, which every program gets (usually between 0 and 3 per year would be my off the cuff guess), transfers due to playing time or clashing with the coaches or wanting to be closer to home or whatever, assorted behavior issues, criminal and otherwise (which if the NCAA no longer licenses maybe suddenly we get room for again), and academic wash-outs.

With this larger reserve of players, all those crazy variables come alive in recruiting. Do you take the chance on the 4 star grade risk, or do you stick with your underrated 2 star sure thing? Do you leave open the option of grayshirts for physically underdeveloped prospects? I'm a WSU guy, Mike Price made a living on taking grade risks and kids with a troubled past and giving them a stable, quiet environment. Many more of those kids panned out than didn't, but there were always a few in every recruiting class that simply never made it to campus. This crazy amount of turnover is the reason schools sign 25 guys a year. The way NCAA works cramps the proper class size down to about 15 players, but they still let you sign 25. Mess.

Then consider that group of walk-ons you get. Every team has a couple guys that end up becoming prominent roleplayers because they wanted to play for the local big-time school rather than the FCS or D2 school that offered them a ride. Most schools don't spend scholarships on a fullback or an unproven kicker or punter, and with some tweaking to the God-awful special teams gameplay, maybe having a decent longsnapper would matter. And every once in a while, a guy like Mike Hass comes along and goes from walk-on to superstar, and nobody saw it coming. Maybe there's some 2 star or 1 star local kids that are totally in love with your program but you don't have a schollie for them. Now you can solve that problem, give yourself some emergency depth, and lots of extra storylines for a dynasty. Nebraska had young bulky locals lining up to play fullback or cover kickoffs, it adds some color to the game.

And that's before we get to my most likely futile demand for the addition of the FCS schools, who have a scholarship limit in the 60s I believe. I just wish the lawsuit thing would sort itself out already so the players can have their little post-graduation cut (it really wouldn't amount to much money) and us roster junkies can have our fun.

I'm totally with you on customizable depth charts based on schemes. Those should be an option for those of us that want to make proper use of them. The game in a next gen console should be able to distinguish between strong side and weak side (rather than just right and left, with strong side always being left for the defense), or a field corner and a boundary corner, or a BUCK linebacker from any other, or slotbacks, XYZ and H receivers, H-backs, A and B backs, and so on. Some teams even like to have strong and weak side offensive linemen. We should have the ability to do that.

The last thing I'd like to have is a teambuilder feature that doesn't require us to delete a team in order to use it. For the love of all that's holy, just find a way to let us add as many of those as we like (all-time teams, past national champs or school greats, D2 schools, whatever).

Sorry, rant over.