Reply #1: I assume this is your first NCAA Football game?

[realisticphish]

The gameplay is generally the same as the other games, but it can be insanely complicated if you've never played it before.

After years of playing these games, I've learned that sometimes, the game just wants you to fucking lose. You can have a knock-out, drag-out fight with some pissant Sun Belt Conference team, then open up a can of whoop-ass on the number 1 team the next week.

Options can be a bitch... you need to have a fast, skilled quarterback, and a good RB to do it right. The trick is to do it RIGHT before the D player hits you, so he can't jump in the way and grab it.

For defense, it depends on you. I always play as the DT on the left side of the line, sometimes as the DE if they don't have a TE or something blocking the edge, so I can go for a sack. But a good friend of mine ALWAYS plays MLB. You just need to find the spot that fits you best. Also, 3-4 is useless, but that's just me.

As for deciding which RBs you want... kind of a crap shoot. You don't have access to their full, real stats, so you have to look at whether they're "balanced" "power" or "speed." And unfortunately, that's pretty much all you get. :shrug: With recruiting, always use all your phone time. Don't forget, that LB who seems extraneous now may be desperately needed in a couple of years. Make sure you look at the school year for your players; you don't want a ton in one class, and none below them, because you will be SCREWED when they graduate or go to the NFL. And be ready in case that player you expected to be there leaves for the NFL (even if he's not that "good" in game). You want to be sure you have a back-up.

Yeah, the unrealistic red-shirt stuff blows. They should at least allow medical redshirts during the season.

Super Sim also sucks... when I'm smashing a team, though, I don't mind giving up all those garbage points.

The Season Showdown thing is indeed bullshit. I started ignoring it pretty quickly. Not only do they have dumbass definitions of "poor sportsmanship," but half the time (at least when the game came out) it wouldn't connect to the servers properly, and wouldn't save the points. And it was all for what is basically a big scoreboard online which has nothing to do with anything, AFAIK.