NCAA 2005: The Passion of TCU

Jun 7, 2004

In July, EA will release NCAA Football 2005 and as with the past two years, I'll have devoted a good six weeks to my Dynasty before the game ever hits store shelves. However, this year I figured to give you, the reader, a little insight into my Dynasty habits, along with some of the cool new things you can expect. Since you don't have a copy of the game yet and I do, it seemed only fair. Plus, it helps justify playing the game for half the day in the office.

A Purple Year
Normally I play my Dynasty as either the San Diego State Aztecs or as a created team. This year I've decided to switch things up a bit, however, and selected the TCU Horned Frogs. I'm not a TCU fan, I don't -- nor would I ever -- live in Texas and, quite oddly, I'm Jewish. Picking to play as Texas Christian University, then, is a strange choice, but I gave TCU a go simply because my sister and brother-in-law live in Fort Worth and worship TCU. Plus, purple always did look good on me.

The Horned Frogs made some waves last year, but are overall a middle-tier football program with a chance to take a step up to the next level. And that's the job of created coach Papa Joe, to get the program to be spoken in the same breath as the true greats in the NCAA. Not an easy task considering many of the role players on the team are, at best, average players. But I'm an experienced NCAA player, no worries there.

What's in a Name?
Preparation for the season is the same as it's been the past few years. In fact, not too much has changed in the Dynasty Mode over last season. There's still the weekly issue of Sports Illustrated, which spotlights Heisman hopefuls, the top 25 teams, player of the week honors, and now the top 25 toughest places to play. Preseason offers the chance to redshirt players and adjust your schedule. I plopped in a couple of ranked opponents to increase TCU's strength of schedule, but it's still at only a B-, so getting a shot at the National Championship game this year will be tough. I could have gone for a more difficult schedule, but I do want to win some games. It's a balance.

Within five minutes you can be off playing the first game of your Dynasty. Not me, however. I cannot stand having my team filled with numbers instead of names. Unfortunately, there is no option to randomly generate names (come on EA, if Sega can do it with College Hoops you can do it with NCAA Football). Once again I have to name my players one at a time. Now, I could go with real names, but I could give a rats ass about the real TCU players (sorry guys, you're great and all, but I'm no TCU fan). Without using real names or resorting to a phonebook, each season I give my player names a theme. Last year it was action movie characters (Indiana Jones was one hell of a linebacker) and the year before was alcoholic beverages (Sam Adams was a great center and Captain Morgan was the king of QBs). This season I chose to dig a bit in my past and go with comic book characters.

Defense was all DC comics, with Bruce Wayne at middle linebacker and Clark Kent my star corner (and also Captain of the defense). Meanwhile, the offense went the way of Marvel, with Norman Osborn calling the shots in the offensive huddle and Victor Von Doom running over d-lineman -- the solid halfback is my primary offensive weapon. It really doesn't take too long to name everyone with a theme in mind. Heck, my four main wideouts are the Fantastic Four (with the boy named Sue Storm as the fourth option). Why do this? It helps to easily recognize who is a quality player and lets me think "Oh yeah, Peter Parker had a terrible game yesterday, gotta give him some bench time in favor of Flash Thompson." Weird, but it works.

The Disciplinarian
The only significant change to Dynasty this year, at least during the course of a regular season, is the inclusion of player discipline and composure. Player composure, which affects confidence and performance on the field, doesn't reset from game to game. Instead, it's an ongoing, season-long process that can even affect the decision to go pro early or to transfer to another school. This helps a lot when determining how to play the hot hand.

Discipline is a bit different. Each week you can check if any players have caused any infractions. An infraction isn't just an NCAA violation -- don't expect anyone to be caught getting money from boosters -- but instead is more about breaking team rules. The team has an overall discipline rating, which increases the likelihood of infractions (if it's low). Every player also has their own discipline rating, but even a kid rated an A+ can slip sometimes. Usually one or two kids have infractions each week. You can ignore them if you want or you can bench them for a quarter, a half, a game, or even an entire season.

If you let them slide, you will appear like the totally cool coach -- heck, maybe they will take you out drinking with some sorority girls -- but it will also draw the attention of the NCAA. That's right, the NCAA is in the game now, like a scrutinizing parent. The more infractions, the less discipline shown, the more likely it is the NCAA will step in and punish your team. You are limited to 70 "demerits" if you will. That's actually 70 quarters you can bench players throughout the season. That means that if some kid is skipping class, you may want to merely offer a 1 quarter benching. However, a kid that skips practice might merit a full game suspension. Whatever you choose, save some demerits in case one of your kids does something truly stupid. Fortunately, none of my kids have done anything too dumb. When they do, I'll letcha know all about it.

Half A Season
Over the weekend I played six games, going 6-0. Halfway through the season, there's not too much to add regarding the gameplay and features than has already been written. However, I did come across a really interesting and unexpected result with user-controlled celebrations.

In case you're not in the know, following any big play (meaning a touchdown, a significant defensive play, or an offensive play for a good chunk of yardage) you can hold the trigger and press one of the face buttons to trigger a player, mascot, or fan celebration. If you are the visiting team and you choose a fan celebration, the cut-scene doesn't show fans jumping for joy (after all, they are rooting against you), but instead you see the home crowd having a defeated and negative reaction to whatever's happened. It's pretty cool.

Some of the extreme celebrations also lead to fights. Remember that extreme celebrations have the chance of leading to a penalty. One celebration has one of your players shoving around an opponent and earning an unsportsmanlike conduct penality. D'oh. Actually, it sucks to get hit for 15 yards, but it is one of the sweeter cut-scenes.

The Season Continues
TCU is off to a great start. Ranked #15 in the country, with one of the top defenses in the NCAA, the true challenge for the Horned Frogs begins with the next few games, as tougher opponents are on the horizon. Will purple make it to the National Title game? Will Von Doom leave early for the NFL? What changes have been made to recruiting and how will discipline and composure factor in? These are questions I'll answer in my next update. And think, when that build of Madden finally comes in, I'll be able to import some of comic bookdom's finest into the NFL 2005 rookie class.