I stopped playing the game after winning 4 straight natties on heisman with the fcs east astronauts. I forgot how easy that game was.
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Defense is a little tougher at first, but Iāve settled in well. Year 5, 4 straight national titles and heisman awards. Still havenāt gotten a top 5 recruiting class though, itās kind of hard when you donāt have as many hours as the top CPU coaches get.
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lol. First, play offense only. The games go much faster and if you need more than 1 stop a game you are basically a clown. Second, DM me for recruiting advice I know all the secrets.
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Nah I enjoy the defensive side. Kam was best LB on the game his fourth year.
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Just finished the end of my second regular season, and I agree on defense being fun to play once you learn it (and once you have a set of sliders youāre happy with). Iām on a set that makes downfield passing harder for both me and the CPU, which has felt good. Had wins against FSU and VT where the opposing QBs were right around 50% completion percentage because they refused to take the underneath that I was giving them, and kept challenging my secondary deep. Undefeated regular season set me up for an ACC championship game with #5 SMU (lol), with the rights to the first round bye on the line.
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Made it through my first Dynasty regular season on All-American (not Heisman ready) and went 6-6 with a Holiday Bowl bid to play UCLA.
Ironically my path to 6-6 might be very similar to what the actual team could do, if they get there. Wins over Richmond, Wake, Coastal, Pitt, UNC & SMU.
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I ended year 2 by losing to SMU in the ACC championship game after going for the win down 3 at the buzzer and then to Tennessee in the first round of the CFP on a shambolic Colandrea pick-6 late in the 4th quarter. I imagine the UVA fans in my digital universe are torching each other on message boards about whether the season was successful or not, given how it ended.
Reeled in the #15 recruiting class and pulled in Tennesseeās #2 receiver out of the portal somehow. Kameron Courtney shifted to RB has developed into a star-in-the-making, heās super fast and is now a 91 overall as a redshirt sophomore, making him the highest rated player on the roster along with Kam Robinson.
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Love the chatter here.
Iām in Week 10 of Season 5 here. 1 National Championship, 3 CFP playoff appearances and a ton of bone headed plays in the playoffs.
I opened year 2 at the Vols with AC and he was awful. Fed up with his general AC play I swapped him out for my 5star 1st yr outta Mississippi and have been rolling with him since. The highlight of my dynasty so far was having 3 defensive linemen finish in the top 5 Heisman voting with one winning it last season.
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Only won 4 games my first season with the Hoos.
Have rebounded nicely in year two winning a lot of close games and started the season either 8-0 or 7-0 (donāt recall which).
Then had the typical deflating UVA football game we always get. Terrible Wake team rolls into Scott and pulls the upset in a rout. AC threw six picks in the game and completely buried us.
Iām sure the imaginary message boards were bashing the idiot coach who let AC keep slinging the ball around, but thatās how we roll. All gas, no brakes.
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Let me tell you what was a real pain too.
Home finale of my first season against SMU.
It snowed hard during the game and SMU was decked out in all white. The levels of concentration necessary to avoid a turnover implosion were akin to whatās required to perform surgery, Iām sure.
Lost the game anyway because SMUās offense completely shredded my defense, weather be damned.
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Undefeated in Year 3 and ranked #1 heading into the last two regular season games against a crappy SMU team that we will try to pound into sand this year and a VT team that has whimpered for mercy for the last two seasons. Though based on the first two seasons we will have a tragicomedy loss in the playoffs.
Just wrapped up our recruiting class more or less and are currently the #1 class with 5 five-star recruits (including 3 five-star DEs for some reason). We kinda oversigned last season and we kinda did it again, so next season is gonna start with a lot of cuts again. Oops.
Running the veer and shoot this season and have found that it has turned us into a mean running team. Already have two 1000-yard rushers in two converted receivers, Kameron Courtney and Tylyric Coleman; Courtney picks up Wear and Tear very easily so the little body display is red all over for him most games. We only throw for like 200 yards or less each game but get a dumb amount of 5-yard RPO TDs. This means that our star WR who transferred in from Tennessee hates our playing style and wants to leave, but is also the favorite for the Heisman because heās the national leader in receiving TDs.
Game is still fun. Itās gotten me to look up how Cover-3 and Cover-4 matching rules work in real life, which I donāt think I would have ever done in my life otherwise.
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This game is addictive and has taken over my life. My wife has left me, my kids wonāt talk to me, but my team needs their coach!! (This is a joke in case anyone actually gets concerned)
I think Iām in year 13 at this point - 7 titles so far, 9 playoff appearances. Seems like the key was once I got the instant recruit skill and upgraded my pipelines, it was a cheat code. Most of my recruiting classes have a minimum of 8 5-stars (highest Iāve gotten is 12) and the remaining is filled by 4-stars.
Also I somehow correctly guessed 4/5 teams that moved into the Pac-12 a few seasons ago cause I got tied of Oregon State getting easy access to the CFP.
So glad they brought this game back even if they still havenāt fully gotten the UVA home experience correct! Well done EA Sports!
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Just started year 6 the 2030 coming off a second national championship and 5 CFP appearances.
Iāve built my team with a mix of old and new school. Relied on the portal to bring in some quality DBās and LBs while building a ton of 3s into 4s at the skill positions on offense and DL. Last offseason that all changed and I inked 6 5stars and the Nations No1 class. The goal this year will be transition from a massing first offense lead by a 4 yr starter, to a run based scheme with 3 good backs and a 1st yr QB who Iām trying to figure out.
One of my favorite things Iāve done for the set up is bring a loose version of promotion/relegation to the conferences. It started as an effort to rebuild the Pac12 but I wanted to reward some of the other programs that are building. The biggest moves have been Miss St. Auburn, and A&M being removed from the SEC and are now Sun Belt and CUSA teams. Memphis made their way to the Pac12. Wake is now in the SEC after going down and now coming back up. Charlotte has become a standout member of the ACC. IU got demoted to a rebuilding Pac12. UMass is now in the MAC and crushing it and ND is fully in the ACC. Independent status is only for teams that win 1 game or less.
Itās fun.
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Year 3 recap:
- Lost a heartbreaker in the ACC Championship game to Clemson after failing on a 4th and 3 that would have killed the game off. Their Heisman-winning receiver smoked us for the game-winning TD.
- Got a gift draw in the CFB playoff and had the G5 team first round, surprise B12 winner UCF in the quarters, and a Washington team that matched up horribly with us in the semi, so ran through them all.
- Lost another one-possession game to Georgia in the national championship, again had a chance to kill off the game but got stopped.
- Top 5 recruiting class, but did lose our best receiver to the portal.
Year 4:
- Starting the season #1, have a pretty loaded roster on both sides of the ball.
- Weakest area is QB, our early recruits havenāt developed as hoped, so we are starting a RS FR 4-star scrambler, but heās doing OK.
- Recruiting is popping: have signed like 7 5-stars already.
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So on Friday, PlayStation Network was running a 50% off special on Madden 25, so I picked it up.
Not sure if itās because Iām more of an NFL fan than CFB, but honestly like it a lot better than NCAA 25. The Franchise mode is very realisticā¦I like the fantasy mode where you pick a team to use (rosters are empty) and fill it with a 54 round draft. Your media interactions can affect team morale, you manage contracts, free agency, trades, the college draft. Set up offensive and defensive goals for your assistant coaches. Iām about 1/3 through my first season, and feel like itās much better than NCAA Dynasty.
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I know nothing about game development, but I figure this first year back of the CFB game was focused around nailing the aesthetics/vibe of college football and proving that the NIL compensation was workable from an economic perspective. Hopefully feature depth gets improved for future editions.
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The Madden franchise has always been further ahead on the in-game experience especially in the dynasty modes. Not surprised if that gap is pretty big now with it being NCAAās first year back.
The thing that drove me to stop playing madden was the number of glitches. I had Madden 14 back in the day and it would freeze up every time at week 4 of a dynasy. Went back and bought Madden 19 or 20 and When I finally got my franchise to the Super Bowl (I like the fantasy build a team from scratch mode) the game crashed out and canceled my NFC Championship win. Just refused to take the result. I can handle glitches in a game but that legit pissed me off.
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Yeah, it was good to have the game back, but felt like there were some gaps. Mentioned before Iād like to see NIL figured into Dynasty, and unless Iām just not finding it I noticed there wasnāt a trophy room like the old game had where you can pull up old player and bowl trophies from earlier seasons.
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Thereās no trophy room. As Iām entering the later part of the 2031 season thatās a feature I really miss. Overall like everyoneās said they could have made the dynasty experience more robust.
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