NCAA Football 14 coverage: Ratings, rankings, and more

The breeziest story any college football writer gets to do all year is the set-it-and-forget-it NCAA Football simulation. This is by no means a shot at any writer who might have done such a relaxing thing already this year, since it’ll be done one million times by every website probably up to and including WhiteHouse.gov by August 29. And probably weekly throughout the season at 100 websites each. And that’s great.

But why not try something different? Last year, we attempted to create the worst NCAA Football 13 simulation possible. It was horrific. Colorado State went 11-2.

His likeness is rated a 78 overall, meaning it’ll start for two years in nearly every NCAA Dynasty, then be drafted into exported Madden classes. It will contribute between two and 15 years worth of virtual football on thousands of game consoles, and Vincent will not be compensated for this in any way*.

He can’t be compensated for this by EA Sports, and neither can stars like Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel or South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney, who also appear in the game in every way but by their names. This is due to current NCAA rules, which allow the governing body to legally block player licenses from being sold. Both EA and the NCAA have repeatedly argued over the years that the game’s players are not modeled on real athletes, despite evidence to the contrary and common sense.

He appears as an unlockable player in NCAA Football 14’s Ultimate Team mode, which lets gamers add certain real-life names to their teams by completing challenges in the Skills Trainer mode.

The decision to include the former All-American tight end was surely made well before the investigation into Odin Lloyd’s murder first made news on June 18. And the game’s July 9 release meant the game didn’t have much of a window for removing him. Based on player and team ratings leaks, the game looks to have been finalized before June 11.

College football fans spent much of the last week debating the ratings given to the (digital approximations of the) top players in EA Sports’ NCAA Football 14 video game, following the release of some of those ratings Thursday.

The NCAA and EA have repeatedly denied these claims. June 20, by the way, is a very big legal day for the NCAA and EA.

EA Sports will release the Playstation 3 and XBox 360 demo of NCAA Football 14 June 18. The demo will feature three different matchups in playable games with three-minute quarters, per Owen Good of Kotaku. They include two of the more anticipated games in college football this year and one that we sort of wish would happen.

Here are the six teams you can play as:

Check out the video below to see the top-rated players for your favorite team:

Some observations:

Tradition Sports Online collected team ratings from the build of NCAA Football 14 available for use at the E3 gaming expo. (You should pay special attention to TSO this time of year, as it’s consistently one of the first places to find this info for both NCAA and Madden.) As is custom, teams are rated on a scale between 60 and 99 overall, offensively, and defensively.

As is also custom, onlookers had many complaints. Alabama is perfect, many BCS-conference teams and units appear to be quite overvalued, and some things are just ... interesting.

Ah, summer. It’s the time of the year when college football fans eagerly await the latest release in EA Sports’ NCAA Football franchise to see how the gaming rates their respective teams.

Well, NCAA Football 14 doesn’t come out until July 9, but team ratings are now reportedly available for your judgement. Via Tradition Sports Online, which based its sheet upon the copy of the game available at E3:

Here are the top 15 player-like players from NCAA Football 14, via TSO. To see their full ratings, head over to traditionsportsonline.com:

NCAA Football 14 will be available on July 9.

It feels like a lifetime ago that Texas A&M head football coach Kevin Sumlin stood at SEC Media Days and answered question after question about whether the Aggies were ready for the conference. It felt like an attempt at an initiation, except it was apparent both then and now that the new guy was fully prepared for what he was getting into.

Now, after a win at Alabama, a Heisman, a Cotton Bowl blowout, and a scorching start on a 2014 recruiting class that includes arguably the nation’s top quarterback in Kyle Allen, it’s the rest of the SEC that’s wondering how ready it was for A&M. I had a chance to speak briefly with Coach Sumlin.

With college football’s offseason more than halfway over, we can start thinking about things that mean we can start thinking about college football, like NCAA Football 14. We already know Michigan-quarterback-turned-Jaguars-running-back Denard Robinson will be on the cover, that the game will feature revamped presentation, and that it should have better blocking due to a new gameplay system, but let’s learn more about the new game.

Here’s some of the most recent items in Polygon’s storystream on the game.

The product team for NCAA Football 14 promises a new experience that varies from the “stale” presentation and long delays on menus and in-game action, as they say they’ve revamped many of the packages and sequences that grow tiresome as gameplay goes along.

Let’s say you had a problem with NCAA Football 13 that wasn’t the gameplay itself, which EA Sports says they’re also revamping. Like slow menus, or the random cuts to mascots dancing in the middle of gameplay. Well, EA Tiburon told Polygon that they’re working on the presentation aspects of the game to improve its overall feel:

NCAA Football 14 will be available on May 15, and EA is including an Ultimate Team bonus pack that will vary depending on where you purchase the game.

The Ultimate Team feature will enable players to use past college football greats and put them on the field with the current iteration of their team. Are you a Gators fan that misses Tim Tebow? You’re in luck!

One of the biggest problems with NCAA Football video games is their inability to produce realistic offensive line/running back interactive dynamics. Wide receivers will run the routes, quarterbacks will stand back in the pocket and survey the field, running backs will juke and slip outside but sometimes run square into their own guy and get nowhere in the backfield.

Samit Sarkar of Polygon reports on the improvements made to the way running backs deal with those around them. With the implementation of a new feature called “ball carrier avoidance,” running backs will move intelligently and use the offensive linemen in front of them to generate gaps in which to run through.

Another significant upgrade in the new design is the new Infinity Eugene physics program, which will also be used in the forthcoming Madden NFL 25. It’ll ensure that the running game is more realistic by limiting the momentum generated from some particular motions. It’ll also track a player’s stamina during a play and see it drain during the course of action. The stiff arm will also be utilized in a more realistic manner than before.

Michigan’s Denard Robinson beat Texas A&M’s Ryan Swope in the fan vote to decide who will be on the cover of EA Sports’ NCAA Football 14, it was announced Tuesday morning. From EA:

The voting process was also marred by controversy, not surprisingly, as fans tried to boost their favorite player’s chances with fraudulent votes. EA conducted the vote on Facebook, which prompted folks to create fake accounts in order to pad voting totals. EA was forced to address the issue and did what it could to restore integrity to the contest.