I am a big fan of EA's NCAA series. I have not been told to do a review of the game. I have not been told to say something nice about an SBN sponsor. But I am a big fan of the NCAA series. We moved into a new home last fall. A couple weeks after moving in and after getting a little bit settled it was time for me to break out NCAA-12 to play for a while, but I couldn't find it. I dug through every box or cabinet where it should have been. I found 07, 08, 09, 10 and 11 but of course I couldn't find what was the latest and the greatest. I really enjoy this game and it is basically the only XBox game I play. There are other great games out there but after family, work, blogging and house stuff I don't get a ton of time to play. So when I do, I'm playing season after season of Gopher football.
I love this game, I love playing the Dynasty Mode season after season until the Gophers are finally Big Ten and national contenders. As difficult as it is to beat good teams with the NCAA-13 roster and as difficult as it is to build up the talent on this roster through recruiting, it isn't even close to the challenge that Kill and staff are facing to try and do the same in real life.
This roster is not full of All-Big Ten talent and overall it is ranked with a C grade in the game. Personally I think they have not given some players the credit they deserve but the overall notion that we need more talent and we need the current roster to get better is still very true. Winning early in the game is tough. Getting some traction in recruiting is tough.
Obviously it is lame to try and compare managing a Big Ten football team in real life to playing a video game. I recognize that these are different universes and the fact that I can't beat Wisconsin or bring in any 3-star recruits is nothing like Coach Kill getting his team ready to play a Big Ten game while working on filling out his recruiting class. This is meant to be a high-level look at how challenging itt is to not only catch the teams ahead of you in the Big Ten but pass them and then catch the next level of teams.
It is tough in a video game, it is tougher in real life. I hope we, as gopher fans, don't get too carried away with expectations. I hope we don't expect too much, too soon. I think Coach Kill is doing things the right way and he is building something here. Be patient Gopher fans.
This post was sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 13. Check out the video for the game below.
EA SPORTS NCAA Football 13 TV: "Son" (via EASPORTS)