NCAA Football 13 Message Board

#stickjockey By all rights, Johnny Manziel should have engraved his name on the Heisman Trophy yesterday. He quarterbacks one of college football's most archetypal brands, the Texas A&M Aggies, and has had an outstanding season running the nation's most demanding gantlet, the Southeastern Conference. On Saturday he and A&M deposed Alabama, the No. 1 team and defending national champion, on its home field, in TV's game of the week. He was captured in two dazzling Heisman-pose photographs that will likely make their owner a ton of money. And then there's that winning smile of a nickname, Johnny Football. More »

#stickjockey This year, NCAA Football included 24-track audio, pulled from an ESPN broadcast at one of the college football's biggest stadiums, hosting one of its best rivalries. The "Go Blue" you hear at Michigan Stadium comes through loud and clear any time you play in Ann Arbor, as the Wolverines or a visitor, as it should. It should be easy to re-create one of the best crowds in the game. More »

#ncaafootball The development team didn't need to read a dozen reviews, all saying the same thing, to know where NCAA Football stood. A single presentation, in a creative debriefing shortly after the game's July release, said enough. More »

#stickjockey Even for an NBA 2K13 soundtrack curated by Jay-Z himself, the butchery of Puff Daddy's "Victory," was to be expected. That track contains four N-words, eight F-words and nine S-words, and this is a game played by 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds. More »

#ncaafootball The mistaken exclusion of South Alabama, a newcomer to college football's top division this year, from NCAA Football 13 left EA Sports wiping a crateful of egg from its face back in June. Both USA and the embarrassed label would have to stew for another year, until NCAA 14, before the problem could be solved. For whatever it was worth, EA Sports' NCAA team vowed to give South Alabama the red-carpet treatment. More »

#bestofmetacritic Welcome back to "Backhanded Box Quotes," a collection of measured, thoughtful criticism from the user reviews of Metacritic, Amazon and elsewhere. Good luck getting a job with Irrational Games if your game shows up here. More »

Stiq Flicks - from film and video game industry freelance writer Kevin Kelly - examines video games and attempts to pair them with matching films. It's like wine and cheese, but with more aliens.
NCAA Football 13 has been out for a couple of weeks now, providing players with the college football experience more than a month before it officially begins in the real world. For many, the collegiate experience ends and begins with sports. With college athletes being courted, hand-picked and groomed for the pros, the brainier student side has no real equivalent. You don't see tens of thousands of fans gathering in stadiums to watch a team of mathletes work out quadratic formulas by using Lagrange resolvents.

We know that the last thing you probably want to think about in the middle of summer is school, but we're pairing this rough-and-tumble game with the cerebral experience of Dead Poets Society in order to provide you with a fully rounded learning experience without the exams. So Blue-47-21, Carpe Diem and read on for this week's game / movie matchup.

#stickjockey When the NCAA leveled crippling sanctions against Penn State a week ago, harshly penalizing the football power for its lack of institutional control in a 13-year sexual abuse scandal, it wasn't long before I was asked if the NCAA Football series, this year or in the future, would incorporate any of these bans and restrictions. More »

#ncaafootball Poor Paul Wulff. I don't think I played a dynasty season in NCAA Football 12 in which Washington State didn't fire him. Like clockwork, his name was on the axe list when the annual "Coaching Carousel," implemented last year, started to spin. He never had a winning season in Pullman and his two Pac-12 victories last year, in real life, were a career high. More »

#ncaafootball Deciding where to go to college was very simple for me. It had nothing to do with a university convincing me to enroll there; it had everything to do with convincing one to actually admit me. N.C. State, for whatever reason, sent me the fat envelope in late 1990, and I said yes on the spot. More »

#easports Baylor University wants answers from a music licensing group it trusted to manage its fight song, which did not end up in a video game whose cover celebrates the school and its first Heisman Trophy winner. More »

#easports Baylor University says it demanded no extra money from EA Sports for the use of its fight song in NCAA Football 13 and no one in the university's administration had anything to do with the song's exclusion in this year's version of the game, which released last week with its Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback starring on the cover. More »

#stickjockey As a private-school doormat for decades to two big-boy conferences, until last year most people couldn't name one guy on the Baylor football roster. Even if Robert Griffin III won the Heisman Trophy in 2011, it didn't make the school's fight song any more recognizable last week. Maybe that's why so few noticed that when NCAA Football 13 released—with Griffin himself on the cover—the Bears didn't take the field to "Old Fite." More »

#humor Some attribute ratings are easily understood, if not self explanatory: Speed. Agility. Strength. Others, you're often left guessing what's really going on: Trucking? Finesse Move? Press? More »

#review NCAA Football 13 arrives at a particularly nostalgic time in my life. I've moved back to my hometown—in a house literally across the street from the five-time state champion high school I graduated. Revered names like Jeff Hayes and Mike Chatham, Harry Jennings and Richard Grissom, and Clarence Edwards (pictured above, somewhat idealized) are flooding back to my memory. Hell, I'm even dating a former cheerleader as I write this. More »

EA Sports' latest in the NCAA Football series pays tribute to Heisman Trophy winners of the past. One name that stands out is quarterback Matt Leinart, former USC great and current NFL flop. Leinart's college career was magnificent, but he's since struggled at the professional level and has already landed with his third NFL team since he was drafted in 2006. By all accounts, his moment in the sun is sometimes overshadowed by his moments on the bench in recent years.

NCAA Football 13 is just that, a "Matt Leinart" of sports games; there's much to celebrate and much to despise.

#stickjockey Archie Griffin is the only player to win two Heisman Trophies. The last guy to win a Heisman and finish as high as second for the award in another year was Herschel Walker, 30 years ago. I wouldn't know where to begin in rating either player for an appearance in a video game. For what they accomplished, and what they mean to their sport, hell, I'd probably write a 99 in every box under their names. More »

How does this year's installment stack up? Find out.

Flutie for Heisman in NCAA Football 13

Fran Mirabella III was meant for NCAA Football 13.

Mizzou makes an entrance in NCAA Football 13.

You can only hope to contain Sanders in NCAA Football 13.

#scoreboard News and notes from around the world of sports video gaming: More »

#madden Both are made by EA Sports. Both are American football titles. Both are made under exclusive license, and both come out every year. More »

#impressions Robert Griffin III may be the cover athlete for NCAA Football 13 but the former Baylor quarterback is not an optimal superstar headlining the game's demo, which released last week. He's skilled enough, but the new "Reaction Time"—the signal feature of NCAA 13's Heisman and Road to Glory modes—is really showcased when you're running the ball, not throwing it. More »

EA Sports unleashed a trailer demonstrating player scouting in NCAA Football 13's Dynasty mode earlier this week. NCAA 13 takes the field on July 10 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

#scoreboard News and notes from around the world of sports video gaming: More »

#stickjockey One of the few broadcast features in Madden NFL 12 that I didn't punch away with a quick button press was the official league bumper video at the end. You know, when the smooth narrator puffs up and says "This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL," and lays down the law of the league's expressed written consent. More »

#scoreboard News and notes from around the world of sports video gaming: More »

Robert Griffin III won 2011's Heisman Trophy, an award given to the best footballers who ever footballed in college football.

Griffin, who was selected to grace the cover of NCAA Football 13, will be joined by former Heisman recipient Barry Sanders, a football hall of famer. Sanders was voted to be on the cover by the fans in a contest which pitted eight past Heisman winners against each other in a bracket-style elimination tournament.

NCAA Football 13 launches on the Xbox 360 and PS3 on July 10. Hit up the trailer above to see some of the new passing system changes in the next installment.