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Official NCAA Football 12 Thread: Patch #4 Available Nov. 8th Details p. 41
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T0INE
formerly toine2983
- 67,219
- 73,650
Hi NCAA Football fans, NCAA Football 12 designer Jordan Peterson here, and it is my privilege to provide you with a more in-depth view of one of the new features in Dynasty, Coach Carousel. Coach Carousel has been one of the top requested features each year from the community and the new addition of coaches, and contracts, will add even more depth to Dynasty.
When starting an Online, or Offline Dynasty, you will be able to create a new coach or use an existing coach. There are three coach positions available: Head Coach, Offensive Coordinator and Defensive Coordinator. As the Head Coach, you will be in control of the entire team and held accountable for completing contract goals both on and off the field. Coordinators, however, are only responsible for their side of the ball, and the CPU coaches will run the other half. Only controlling one side of the ball creates additional drama to your Dynasty games as you watch each play of your CPU controlled offense attempting to march down the field for a game-winning drive. This can keep you on the edge of your seat, cheering your team to pull out the victory.
In addition to the appearance options available when creating a new coach, there are a few that will affect the path your coach takes while climbing the coaching ladder. In particular, along with your coachâs playbooks, your coachâs Alma Mater may come into play later on during the Coach Carousel, so be certain you have it set correctly. Without getting into too many details, when considering potential candidates, schools will take a closer look at a coaching candidate who went to their school.
I know the commissioners out there are wondering what type of setting options there will be in Online Dynasty for Coach Carousel. First, commissioners will be able to determine the starting Prestige and Coach Position for the Dynasty. Meaning the commissioner can set the Dynasty to start from the bottom of the barrel as a One Star Coordinator and climb their way to the top as a 6 Star Head Coach. The ability to move teams around via Custom Conferences provides even more flexibility, challenge and depth.
Whether in Online or Offline Dynasty, you will be able to preview each contract before signing with a particular team, as well as that schoolâs current roster. Each contract displays the goals the school is requiring for a particular position, their positive and negative impact, and your starting Job Security. As a Head Coach, schools will offer contracts that require efficiency in recruiting and often have a focus upon overall number of total wins, bowl game appearances, and team rankings. Coordinators should expect contracts that focus on their area of expertise, but will also be on the hook to ensure that their side of the ball is excelling on the field.
Each goal in the contract is important, as both Coach Prestige and Job Security are impacted by passing and failing these goals. The arrow indication next to each goal highlights how important that goal is for that particular contract. Job Security determines if you are at risk of being fired based upon your completion or failure of your goals. The lower a Coachâs Job Security percentage is, the greater the risk of being fired.
There are three varying types of rewards for the goals. Required, but expected goals, will display as more red arrows than green. This is a base requirement for this contract for the school and it is expected that the coach must pass this goal. Then there are balanced goals, with both red and green arrows, that the school considers as something the coach should pass and is less challenging. Finally, the bonus goals are the goals with only green arrows. The school considers these stretch goals for the contract.
In addition to goal types varying by coaching position, goals are also tuned by prestige. A Head Coach at Akron will not have the same objectives as a Head Coach at Alabama. As the Alabama Head Coach, you may be penalized for not making it to a bowl game. However, as the Akron Head Coach, your contract may provide a bonus for making it to a bowl game. There are also unexpected goals that may not appear on the contract, but can provide a boost for overachieving coaches.
The type of goals for a Head Coach will differ from Coordinators rather significantly. As a Head Coach, there are goals for bowl wins, total number of wins, rival wins, recruiting, final conference ranking and even recruit visits. Coordinators, however, are focused entirely on their half of the game. Their goals will largely focus upon their on-the-field achievements, such as sacks, interceptions, passing touchdowns, etc. They will also focus upon total number of wins. Keeping these goals in mind as you are playing will, in turn, affect your play style.
For example, if youâve failed a few goals already and youâre on the hot seat, plus you have a goal to reach 1000 yards in a single season, you may change the way you play knowing that you must pass this goal in order to help keep your job. In this scenario, the coach goals add a significant amount of pressure to the game.
Coach Prestige rating impacts several areas of the game including Recruiting, Player Progression, and the quality of the teams that could potentially be interested during the Carousel Stage. You will also notice that during a recruiting phone call a Coachâs Prestige rating is dynamic. Given all the areas it may impact, including potential job offers during the Carousel, Coach Prestige becomes a vitally important rating. Completing goals within a contract is just one way to improve Coach Prestige.
Another method to influence Coach Prestige during the season is by either beating a higher ranked team to gain a small bonus, or alternatively, losing a game to a lower ranked team, which will slightly decrease your Coach Prestige.
At any point during the regular season, the Coach Central hub is available to view more information about your Coachâs progress on his goals, edit your Coach Philosophy, or to track the progress of other coaches around the NCAA.
During the regular season, the Contract Feedback screen will display direct feedback from the Athletic Director on the latest events impacting your goals. It will also display updated Job Security percentage and Passing, Failing and In Progress goals. Also, any weekly penalty or bonus for beating a better team, or losing to a worse team will be displayed here.
The Job Security screen will display the current Head Coach and Coordinators for every school, along with the number of years remaining in the contract and their current rating. In an Online Dynasty, you will be able to see how the other human-controlled teams are faring in the Dynasty. From here, you can start to track how you think the Carousel may play out during the off-season. If your dream job is to be the Head Coach of Michigan, this is where you can track how hot the seat is getting in Ann Arbor.
The Coach Philosophy screen is where you can edit all of the Sim information for your Coach. This is particularly useful if you plan on simming ahead a few seasons since these settings have a significant impact upon simulations. Finally, in Coach Info you will be able to create new additional User Coaches or edit any existing coach, including physical appearance and both offensive and defensive styles.
Recruiting has also seen some changes due to the addition of coaches. While any of the coach positions can recruit, only the Head Coach will have recruiting-related goals in their contracts. Coordinators can handle the recruiting as well, but they will not be held accountable to do so via contracts.
As the Head Coach, the impact you have on your teamâs recruiting is evident through the dynamic Coach Loyalty and Coach Prestige ratings. Now, Coach Loyalty will be impacted by how long a Coach is at a particular school, if they have met their goals and if they have signed any contract extensions. During a phone call with a recruit, you can now expect to see the Coachâs ratings dynamically update, potentially helping (or hindering) your weekly phone calls.
The Coach Carousel screen is the first option available in the off-season portion of Online Dynasty. The Carousel will display any job openings that may occur as a result of a contract expiring, coaches being fired, leaving for a better job offer or even retiring. In an Online Dynasty, the carousel will jump from one player offer to the next playerâs offer. If there is any one member that is slowing the Carousel down, the commissioner can always step in and advance the Carousel.
Several characteristics are taken into consideration when a School offers a new job or even an extension to a coach, including their Prestige, Playbook Style, and Alma Mater. As you advance through the Carousel, schools will evaluate their current coaches, determine if it is necessary to take any action on their contract, and consider other coaches that may be considering job offers.
Schools will only offer a Coordinator contract to a coach that has experience on that side of the ball. For example, if Tulsa is looking for an Offensive Coordinator, they will not consider Defensive Coordinators. However, schools may also decide to promote a current Coordinator to a Head Coach. Should the unthinkable happen, and a Head Coach is fired, their expertise in a particular side of the field will be considered when they are offered a Coordinator position.
Occasionally, coaches will accept a job offer even if they are mid-contract if itâs a better job, or if itâs their Alma Mater. This will cause unexpected jobs to be added to the Carousel, which can mix up subsequent coach maneuvers. Essentially, even just one coachâs decision has ramifications across the NCAA. The domino effect from one six star school changing its coach can potentially have ramifications all the way down to offensive coordinators of a one star school.
For example, letâs say itâs year 10 of a Dynasty and Michigan hires South Carolinaâs Head Coach because heâs an alumus. South Carolina then hires USCâs Offensive Coordinator because of his offensive style. USC then hires San Diego Stateâs Head Coach to be their Offensive Coordinator, because of his coach prestige. San Diego State then promotes their Defensive Coordinator to Head Coach because heâs also an alumnus, and so on.
After the Carousel has been completed, advancing to the next week will expose the Carousel summary, which will provide a detailed overview of changes that occurred during the Carousel.
That wraps up this blog for Coach Carousel, be sure to check back this week for more NCAA Football 12 information.
T0INE
formerly toine2983
- 67,219
- 73,650
Hi NCAA Football fans, NCAA Football 12 designer Jordan Peterson here, and it is my privilege to provide you with a more in-depth view of one of the new features in Dynasty, Coach Carousel. Coach Carousel has been one of the top requested features each year from the community and the new addition of coaches, and contracts, will add even more depth to Dynasty.
When starting an Online, or Offline Dynasty, you will be able to create a new coach or use an existing coach. There are three coach positions available: Head Coach, Offensive Coordinator and Defensive Coordinator. As the Head Coach, you will be in control of the entire team and held accountable for completing contract goals both on and off the field. Coordinators, however, are only responsible for their side of the ball, and the CPU coaches will run the other half. Only controlling one side of the ball creates additional drama to your Dynasty games as you watch each play of your CPU controlled offense attempting to march down the field for a game-winning drive. This can keep you on the edge of your seat, cheering your team to pull out the victory.
In addition to the appearance options available when creating a new coach, there are a few that will affect the path your coach takes while climbing the coaching ladder. In particular, along with your coachâs playbooks, your coachâs Alma Mater may come into play later on during the Coach Carousel, so be certain you have it set correctly. Without getting into too many details, when considering potential candidates, schools will take a closer look at a coaching candidate who went to their school.
I know the commissioners out there are wondering what type of setting options there will be in Online Dynasty for Coach Carousel. First, commissioners will be able to determine the starting Prestige and Coach Position for the Dynasty. Meaning the commissioner can set the Dynasty to start from the bottom of the barrel as a One Star Coordinator and climb their way to the top as a 6 Star Head Coach. The ability to move teams around via Custom Conferences provides even more flexibility, challenge and depth.
Whether in Online or Offline Dynasty, you will be able to preview each contract before signing with a particular team, as well as that schoolâs current roster. Each contract displays the goals the school is requiring for a particular position, their positive and negative impact, and your starting Job Security. As a Head Coach, schools will offer contracts that require efficiency in recruiting and often have a focus upon overall number of total wins, bowl game appearances, and team rankings. Coordinators should expect contracts that focus on their area of expertise, but will also be on the hook to ensure that their side of the ball is excelling on the field.
Each goal in the contract is important, as both Coach Prestige and Job Security are impacted by passing and failing these goals. The arrow indication next to each goal highlights how important that goal is for that particular contract. Job Security determines if you are at risk of being fired based upon your completion or failure of your goals. The lower a Coachâs Job Security percentage is, the greater the risk of being fired.
There are three varying types of rewards for the goals. Required, but expected goals, will display as more red arrows than green. This is a base requirement for this contract for the school and it is expected that the coach must pass this goal. Then there are balanced goals, with both red and green arrows, that the school considers as something the coach should pass and is less challenging. Finally, the bonus goals are the goals with only green arrows. The school considers these stretch goals for the contract.
In addition to goal types varying by coaching position, goals are also tuned by prestige. A Head Coach at Akron will not have the same objectives as a Head Coach at Alabama. As the Alabama Head Coach, you may be penalized for not making it to a bowl game. However, as the Akron Head Coach, your contract may provide a bonus for making it to a bowl game. There are also unexpected goals that may not appear on the contract, but can provide a boost for overachieving coaches.
The type of goals for a Head Coach will differ from Coordinators rather significantly. As a Head Coach, there are goals for bowl wins, total number of wins, rival wins, recruiting, final conference ranking and even recruit visits. Coordinators, however, are focused entirely on their half of the game. Their goals will largely focus upon their on-the-field achievements, such as sacks, interceptions, passing touchdowns, etc. They will also focus upon total number of wins. Keeping these goals in mind as you are playing will, in turn, affect your play style.
For example, if youâve failed a few goals already and youâre on the hot seat, plus you have a goal to reach 1000 yards in a single season, you may change the way you play knowing that you must pass this goal in order to help keep your job. In this scenario, the coach goals add a significant amount of pressure to the game.
Coach Prestige rating impacts several areas of the game including Recruiting, Player Progression, and the quality of the teams that could potentially be interested during the Carousel Stage. You will also notice that during a recruiting phone call a Coachâs Prestige rating is dynamic. Given all the areas it may impact, including potential job offers during the Carousel, Coach Prestige becomes a vitally important rating. Completing goals within a contract is just one way to improve Coach Prestige.
Another method to influence Coach Prestige during the season is by either beating a higher ranked team to gain a small bonus, or alternatively, losing a game to a lower ranked team, which will slightly decrease your Coach Prestige.
At any point during the regular season, the Coach Central hub is available to view more information about your Coachâs progress on his goals, edit your Coach Philosophy, or to track the progress of other coaches around the NCAA.
During the regular season, the Contract Feedback screen will display direct feedback from the Athletic Director on the latest events impacting your goals. It will also display updated Job Security percentage and Passing, Failing and In Progress goals. Also, any weekly penalty or bonus for beating a better team, or losing to a worse team will be displayed here.
The Job Security screen will display the current Head Coach and Coordinators for every school, along with the number of years remaining in the contract and their current rating. In an Online Dynasty, you will be able to see how the other human-controlled teams are faring in the Dynasty. From here, you can start to track how you think the Carousel may play out during the off-season. If your dream job is to be the Head Coach of Michigan, this is where you can track how hot the seat is getting in Ann Arbor.
The Coach Philosophy screen is where you can edit all of the Sim information for your Coach. This is particularly useful if you plan on simming ahead a few seasons since these settings have a significant impact upon simulations. Finally, in Coach Info you will be able to create new additional User Coaches or edit any existing coach, including physical appearance and both offensive and defensive styles.
Recruiting has also seen some changes due to the addition of coaches. While any of the coach positions can recruit, only the Head Coach will have recruiting-related goals in their contracts. Coordinators can handle the recruiting as well, but they will not be held accountable to do so via contracts.
As the Head Coach, the impact you have on your teamâs recruiting is evident through the dynamic Coach Loyalty and Coach Prestige ratings. Now, Coach Loyalty will be impacted by how long a Coach is at a particular school, if they have met their goals and if they have signed any contract extensions. During a phone call with a recruit, you can now expect to see the Coachâs ratings dynamically update, potentially helping (or hindering) your weekly phone calls.
The Coach Carousel screen is the first option available in the off-season portion of Online Dynasty. The Carousel will display any job openings that may occur as a result of a contract expiring, coaches being fired, leaving for a better job offer or even retiring. In an Online Dynasty, the carousel will jump from one player offer to the next playerâs offer. If there is any one member that is slowing the Carousel down, the commissioner can always step in and advance the Carousel.
Several characteristics are taken into consideration when a School offers a new job or even an extension to a coach, including their Prestige, Playbook Style, and Alma Mater. As you advance through the Carousel, schools will evaluate their current coaches, determine if it is necessary to take any action on their contract, and consider other coaches that may be considering job offers.
Schools will only offer a Coordinator contract to a coach that has experience on that side of the ball. For example, if Tulsa is looking for an Offensive Coordinator, they will not consider Defensive Coordinators. However, schools may also decide to promote a current Coordinator to a Head Coach. Should the unthinkable happen, and a Head Coach is fired, their expertise in a particular side of the field will be considered when they are offered a Coordinator position.
Occasionally, coaches will accept a job offer even if they are mid-contract if itâs a better job, or if itâs their Alma Mater. This will cause unexpected jobs to be added to the Carousel, which can mix up subsequent coach maneuvers. Essentially, even just one coachâs decision has ramifications across the NCAA. The domino effect from one six star school changing its coach can potentially have ramifications all the way down to offensive coordinators of a one star school.
For example, letâs say itâs year 10 of a Dynasty and Michigan hires South Carolinaâs Head Coach because heâs an alumus. South Carolina then hires USCâs Offensive Coordinator because of his offensive style. USC then hires San Diego Stateâs Head Coach to be their Offensive Coordinator, because of his coach prestige. San Diego State then promotes their Defensive Coordinator to Head Coach because heâs also an alumnus, and so on.
After the Carousel has been completed, advancing to the next week will expose the Carousel summary, which will provide a detailed overview of changes that occurred during the Carousel.
That wraps up this blog for Coach Carousel, be sure to check back this week for more NCAA Football 12 information.
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The Custom play-books will basically allow a team with a running QB to be unstoppable (Ohio State, LSU, Oregon). You can basically put the Multiple, Spread Option, Power Option and Run & Shoot offences in one play-book. That means an opponent will never be able to key on any tendencies you have. You can run 3 different play-books the first 3 quarters then unleash everything in the 4th. Imagine having to stop Oklahoma, Oregon, Georgia Tech and Houston's offense all in one game. You'll definitely need a lot of 3-4 and 4-2-5 defenses schemes in a custom defensive play-book to even have a chance.
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The Custom play-books will basically allow a team with a running QB to be unstoppable (Ohio State, LSU, Oregon). You can basically put the Multiple, Spread Option, Power Option and Run & Shoot offences in one play-book. That means an opponent will never be able to key on any tendencies you have. You can run 3 different play-books the first 3 quarters then unleash everything in the 4th. Imagine having to stop Oklahoma, Oregon, Georgia Tech and Houston's offense all in one game. You'll definitely need a lot of 3-4 and 4-2-5 defenses schemes in a custom defensive play-book to even have a chance.
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Does anyone know if you can carry a dynasty across games. Like if I want to keep my current incoming dynasty recruiting classes for the league and import them into the 2012, is this possible?
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Does anyone know if you can carry a dynasty across games. Like if I want to keep my current incoming dynasty recruiting classes for the league and import them into the 2012, is this possible?
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^ I dont know for sute but I doubt it.
Anyone putting together a Dynasty im down to play. Ima run with Notre Dame if no ones scooped em up yet. And ill def stick with it. I got like 3 dynasties 8 yrs deep in 2011
Anyone putting together a Dynasty im down to play. Ima run with Notre Dame if no ones scooped em up yet. And ill def stick with it. I got like 3 dynasties 8 yrs deep in 2011
- 1,785
- 40
^ I dont know for sute but I doubt it.
Anyone putting together a Dynasty im down to play. Ima run with Notre Dame if no ones scooped em up yet. And ill def stick with it. I got like 3 dynasties 8 yrs deep in 2011
Anyone putting together a Dynasty im down to play. Ima run with Notre Dame if no ones scooped em up yet. And ill def stick with it. I got like 3 dynasties 8 yrs deep in 2011
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ps3 dynasty count me in I call dibs on ohio state or the U
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ps3 dynasty count me in I call dibs on ohio state or the U
T0INE
formerly toine2983
- 67,219
- 73,650
T0INE
formerly toine2983
- 67,219
- 73,650
T0INE
formerly toine2983
- 67,219
- 73,650
T0INE
formerly toine2983
- 67,219
- 73,650
T0INE
formerly toine2983
- 67,219
- 73,650
Custom Conferences
Hey Everyone, Ben Haumiller here to give you the details on the new Custom Conferences feature in NCAA Football 12.
This is without a doubt one of the deepest features added to the game in years. With conference membership movements, conference rule changes, and editing BCS bowl tie-ins the combinations you can make in your Dynasty are almost endless. Plus, you can make updates in future years of the Dynasty, which not only allows you to make updates based on changes in the real world, but also allows you to make whatever changes you prefer to see in your Dynasty.
There's a lot to talk about, so let's get to it:
Conference Realignment
The hot topic of the last off-season was conference realignment and the possibility of 16 team super conferences seemed very, very real. As a college football fan it was fascinating to watch these stories develop. Rumors of major shifts in the college landscape seemed to happen almost hourly at times and trying to keep up with the news left your head spinning with possibilities of how these new conferences might play out on the field.
Great Plains/Great Lakes anyone?
Not only were the rumors rampant, but they also felt like they were never ending. Just when it appeared as though the dust had settled on schools moving conferences TCU jumped to the Big East and the Mountain West set their eyes on a few schools from the WAC. Even as I type this there are still talks of the Big East looking to expand.
It's because of this that we wanted to give you the flexibility to expand/contract conferences to be able to adapt to the changes in the real world. Even though we are not able to go higher than 120 schools in this year's game, we allow the ability to take a conference below the required eight schools so that you can move Fresno State, Nevada, and Hawaii out of the WAC even though that drops the WAC down to five schools.
There are three ways you can edit conference membership. Just like last year you can import a TeamBuilder school to replace an existing school and swap schools between divisions or conferences (i.e. you can swap Florida State and Virginia Tech so that FSU is in the Coastal and VT is in the Atlantic). Now for the first time ever you can move a school from one conference to another without having to replace that school in the conference.
You can go to a max of 16 schools in a conference, and as mentioned above, drop down to as few as four schools in a conference. The exception to this is Independents. You will be able to grow Independents to as many as 32 schools and as few as one school, which can really shake up the college football world.
For divisions in a conference 12 is the magic number. Drop a conference below 12 members and the divisions disappear; go to 12 schools or more and you will see schools split into two even divisions. Once the divisions are set, you can swap schools within the conference to get them aligned just the way you want.
One final note on conference realignment: the movement of schools is all up to you now (or your commissioner in an Online Dynasty). Since the old conference invite/demote logic had a lot of issues and only involved human controlled teams, we decided to give you the power to adjust conference membership, rules, and BCS tie-ins during future years of the Dynasty so that you can make the moves that you see fit.
Conference Rules
Once you have the schools where you want them, the next step is to adjust the rules for each conference. The rules are set based on what the conferences do in real life by default, but here you get a chance to change things how you see fit:
Schedule type - if you have 12 schools or more you will have the option to choose what type of schedule you want: one with protected rivals or one without. Protected rivals on means you will have one anchored opponent in the other division of your conference that you play every year while the remaining cross divisional schools will rotate on/off the schedule after a home/home series. College football wouldn't be the same if Ohio State didn't play Michigan every year, so if you keep them in separate divisions, make sure they are set as protected rivals.
The number of conference games depends on the schedule type you select and the number of schools. By default all conferences use the correct schedule type, but we needed to account for how conference schedules would work for conferences with less than eight schools or more than 13. Here's a quick breakdown of how many conference games will be played for each schedule type:
4-8 schools â 7 conference games. There are no protected rivals since everyone plays everyone else. For conferences of 4-6 schools FCS opponents will play the part of your additional conference games
9 schools â 8 conference games. There are no protected rivals since everyone plays everyone else.
10 schools â 9 conference games. There are no protected rivals since everyone plays everyone else.
11 schools â 8 conference games with a rotation of other conference members.
12 schools â 8 conference games when using protected rivals. 9 conference games when not using protected rivals. (Note: C-USA will use their 8 conference game, no protected rival format by default)
13 schools â 8 conference games. Protected Rivals are not available in conferences with odd numbered schools.
14 schools - 8 conference games when using protected rivals. 9 conference games when not using protected rivals.
15 schools â 10 conference games. Depending on the rotation you will have 6-7 division games in a year with 3-4 rotating cross divisional games (based on the MAC's 13 school schedule rotation)
16 schools â 9 conference games. With protected rivals you will have 7 division games, 1 protected rival, and 1 rotating cross division opponent. Without protected rivals you will have 7 division games and 2 rotating cross division games.
Night Games in November â in an attempt to get every possible detail of a conference correct we added this setting. The Big Ten is currently the only school that abides by this rule, but if night games in snowy conditions are your thing go ahead and turn this offâ¦the player's won't mind.
Weekday Games â some conferences only play on Saturday, while others seem to take the field any time someone says they will show up with a TV camera.
Start Conference Games â Are you a fan of getting the non-conference games out of the way at the start of the season? Make sure you set this so that the conference games start later in the season.
Location for Championship Game â once you have 12 or more schools you will determine your conference champion with a championship game. Here you will be able to set where that game is played. You can select any stadium in the game, any bowl game, any school's home stadium, even the high school stadium and practice fields. If you aren't into the neutral site thing, go ahead and set it so that the school with the best conference record hosts the game (like the PAC-12 and Conference USA do).
Division Names â When you go from 11 to 12 schools the default names are Div A and Div B. It's up to you to change that to whatever you want. You can also edit existing division names too if that's your thing.
Protected Rivalries â here you can set up each protected rival matchup. In the Great Lakes/Great Plains example above, you can make sure the Battle for the Land Grant Trophy carries on every year by setting Penn State and Michigan State as protected rivals.
Schedule Logic
Now seems as good a time as any to talk about some of the new schedule logic that was added to make sure that certain games were scheduled on certain dates even if you changed conference sizes and moved rivals into different divisions.
College football is a sport overflowing with tradition, and there's not shortcoming of traditions when it comes to the schedule. From the Third Saturday in October to Thanksgiving weekend you can set your watch to certain games kicking off on the same week every year. Protecting those traditions were very important when determining how schedules would be created when conferences changed membership and attempting to keep those rivalry games alive and scheduled on the correct date even when the schools have been moved to different conferences were also greatly considered when determining the new schedule logic.
If you take the Big Ten from 12 to 16 schools, Ohio State and Michigan should always play in the final week of the regular season. We've also been able to clear up an issue you might have seen in the past where an extra week was added to the end of the schedule allowing a non-conference game to be scheduled after Ohio State/Michigan week. I'm very excited to finally put that problem to rest.
Non-conference games are the last games to get filled when the schedules are created. If Auburn goes the Independent route but Alabama stays in the SEC, the game will still try and schedule the Iron Bowl for the last week of the season. If it can't get scheduled that week it will try to find another week to schedule the game. This should help keep some semblance of normalcy to your schedules even though you made a ton of changes to conference memberships.
BCS Tie-ins
Now that you've got your conferences aligned and your rules set, it's time to edit the BCS bowl tie-ins. For me, there's nothing better than tailgating on Bourbon Street before heading into the Sugar Bowl, so I'm going to move the ACC Championship Game from Miami to the Big Easy. While we're at it, let's pair up the Big 12 and the Mountain West in the Fiesta Bowl, and have the Big East champ take on the Conference USA champ down in the Orange Bowl.
Here you have the ability to add/remove any BCS Bowl tie-in, which will determine how those BCS bowl slots get filed every year. You can fill all of the slots like I've done above, remove all tie-ins so that the BCS standings determine not only who plays in the BCS Championship Game but also who plays in each of the additional BCS games.
You can set a conference to be tied to a specific bowl, or you can set it so that the champion of a conference is guaranteed a spot in one of the BCS bowls, but not tied to a specific one (think Big East currently).
When you edit a conference's bowl tie-ins it moves all other bowl game tie-ins up/down by one based on the change made. For example, if you remove the SEC BCS tie-in the SEC champ (if they don't qualify for an at large BCS berth) will go to the Capital One Bowl, the #2 SEC school will go to the Outback Bowl, #3 to the Gator Bowl, and so on.
Well that about wraps up Custom Conferences. July 12th is fast approachingâ¦time to start thinking about how you are going to lay out your conferences in NCAA Football 12. We've got more announcements still to come. Stay Tuned.
T0INE
formerly toine2983
- 67,219
- 73,650
Custom Conferences
Hey Everyone, Ben Haumiller here to give you the details on the new Custom Conferences feature in NCAA Football 12.
This is without a doubt one of the deepest features added to the game in years. With conference membership movements, conference rule changes, and editing BCS bowl tie-ins the combinations you can make in your Dynasty are almost endless. Plus, you can make updates in future years of the Dynasty, which not only allows you to make updates based on changes in the real world, but also allows you to make whatever changes you prefer to see in your Dynasty.
There's a lot to talk about, so let's get to it:
Conference Realignment
The hot topic of the last off-season was conference realignment and the possibility of 16 team super conferences seemed very, very real. As a college football fan it was fascinating to watch these stories develop. Rumors of major shifts in the college landscape seemed to happen almost hourly at times and trying to keep up with the news left your head spinning with possibilities of how these new conferences might play out on the field.
Great Plains/Great Lakes anyone?
Not only were the rumors rampant, but they also felt like they were never ending. Just when it appeared as though the dust had settled on schools moving conferences TCU jumped to the Big East and the Mountain West set their eyes on a few schools from the WAC. Even as I type this there are still talks of the Big East looking to expand.
It's because of this that we wanted to give you the flexibility to expand/contract conferences to be able to adapt to the changes in the real world. Even though we are not able to go higher than 120 schools in this year's game, we allow the ability to take a conference below the required eight schools so that you can move Fresno State, Nevada, and Hawaii out of the WAC even though that drops the WAC down to five schools.
There are three ways you can edit conference membership. Just like last year you can import a TeamBuilder school to replace an existing school and swap schools between divisions or conferences (i.e. you can swap Florida State and Virginia Tech so that FSU is in the Coastal and VT is in the Atlantic). Now for the first time ever you can move a school from one conference to another without having to replace that school in the conference.
You can go to a max of 16 schools in a conference, and as mentioned above, drop down to as few as four schools in a conference. The exception to this is Independents. You will be able to grow Independents to as many as 32 schools and as few as one school, which can really shake up the college football world.
For divisions in a conference 12 is the magic number. Drop a conference below 12 members and the divisions disappear; go to 12 schools or more and you will see schools split into two even divisions. Once the divisions are set, you can swap schools within the conference to get them aligned just the way you want.
One final note on conference realignment: the movement of schools is all up to you now (or your commissioner in an Online Dynasty). Since the old conference invite/demote logic had a lot of issues and only involved human controlled teams, we decided to give you the power to adjust conference membership, rules, and BCS tie-ins during future years of the Dynasty so that you can make the moves that you see fit.
Conference Rules
Once you have the schools where you want them, the next step is to adjust the rules for each conference. The rules are set based on what the conferences do in real life by default, but here you get a chance to change things how you see fit:
Schedule type - if you have 12 schools or more you will have the option to choose what type of schedule you want: one with protected rivals or one without. Protected rivals on means you will have one anchored opponent in the other division of your conference that you play every year while the remaining cross divisional schools will rotate on/off the schedule after a home/home series. College football wouldn't be the same if Ohio State didn't play Michigan every year, so if you keep them in separate divisions, make sure they are set as protected rivals.
The number of conference games depends on the schedule type you select and the number of schools. By default all conferences use the correct schedule type, but we needed to account for how conference schedules would work for conferences with less than eight schools or more than 13. Here's a quick breakdown of how many conference games will be played for each schedule type:
4-8 schools â 7 conference games. There are no protected rivals since everyone plays everyone else. For conferences of 4-6 schools FCS opponents will play the part of your additional conference games
9 schools â 8 conference games. There are no protected rivals since everyone plays everyone else.
10 schools â 9 conference games. There are no protected rivals since everyone plays everyone else.
11 schools â 8 conference games with a rotation of other conference members.
12 schools â 8 conference games when using protected rivals. 9 conference games when not using protected rivals. (Note: C-USA will use their 8 conference game, no protected rival format by default)
13 schools â 8 conference games. Protected Rivals are not available in conferences with odd numbered schools.
14 schools - 8 conference games when using protected rivals. 9 conference games when not using protected rivals.
15 schools â 10 conference games. Depending on the rotation you will have 6-7 division games in a year with 3-4 rotating cross divisional games (based on the MAC's 13 school schedule rotation)
16 schools â 9 conference games. With protected rivals you will have 7 division games, 1 protected rival, and 1 rotating cross division opponent. Without protected rivals you will have 7 division games and 2 rotating cross division games.
Night Games in November â in an attempt to get every possible detail of a conference correct we added this setting. The Big Ten is currently the only school that abides by this rule, but if night games in snowy conditions are your thing go ahead and turn this offâ¦the player's won't mind.
Weekday Games â some conferences only play on Saturday, while others seem to take the field any time someone says they will show up with a TV camera.
Start Conference Games â Are you a fan of getting the non-conference games out of the way at the start of the season? Make sure you set this so that the conference games start later in the season.
Location for Championship Game â once you have 12 or more schools you will determine your conference champion with a championship game. Here you will be able to set where that game is played. You can select any stadium in the game, any bowl game, any school's home stadium, even the high school stadium and practice fields. If you aren't into the neutral site thing, go ahead and set it so that the school with the best conference record hosts the game (like the PAC-12 and Conference USA do).
Division Names â When you go from 11 to 12 schools the default names are Div A and Div B. It's up to you to change that to whatever you want. You can also edit existing division names too if that's your thing.
Protected Rivalries â here you can set up each protected rival matchup. In the Great Lakes/Great Plains example above, you can make sure the Battle for the Land Grant Trophy carries on every year by setting Penn State and Michigan State as protected rivals.
Schedule Logic
Now seems as good a time as any to talk about some of the new schedule logic that was added to make sure that certain games were scheduled on certain dates even if you changed conference sizes and moved rivals into different divisions.
College football is a sport overflowing with tradition, and there's not shortcoming of traditions when it comes to the schedule. From the Third Saturday in October to Thanksgiving weekend you can set your watch to certain games kicking off on the same week every year. Protecting those traditions were very important when determining how schedules would be created when conferences changed membership and attempting to keep those rivalry games alive and scheduled on the correct date even when the schools have been moved to different conferences were also greatly considered when determining the new schedule logic.
If you take the Big Ten from 12 to 16 schools, Ohio State and Michigan should always play in the final week of the regular season. We've also been able to clear up an issue you might have seen in the past where an extra week was added to the end of the schedule allowing a non-conference game to be scheduled after Ohio State/Michigan week. I'm very excited to finally put that problem to rest.
Non-conference games are the last games to get filled when the schedules are created. If Auburn goes the Independent route but Alabama stays in the SEC, the game will still try and schedule the Iron Bowl for the last week of the season. If it can't get scheduled that week it will try to find another week to schedule the game. This should help keep some semblance of normalcy to your schedules even though you made a ton of changes to conference memberships.
BCS Tie-ins
Now that you've got your conferences aligned and your rules set, it's time to edit the BCS bowl tie-ins. For me, there's nothing better than tailgating on Bourbon Street before heading into the Sugar Bowl, so I'm going to move the ACC Championship Game from Miami to the Big Easy. While we're at it, let's pair up the Big 12 and the Mountain West in the Fiesta Bowl, and have the Big East champ take on the Conference USA champ down in the Orange Bowl.
Here you have the ability to add/remove any BCS Bowl tie-in, which will determine how those BCS bowl slots get filed every year. You can fill all of the slots like I've done above, remove all tie-ins so that the BCS standings determine not only who plays in the BCS Championship Game but also who plays in each of the additional BCS games.
You can set a conference to be tied to a specific bowl, or you can set it so that the champion of a conference is guaranteed a spot in one of the BCS bowls, but not tied to a specific one (think Big East currently).
When you edit a conference's bowl tie-ins it moves all other bowl game tie-ins up/down by one based on the change made. For example, if you remove the SEC BCS tie-in the SEC champ (if they don't qualify for an at large BCS berth) will go to the Capital One Bowl, the #2 SEC school will go to the Outback Bowl, #3 to the Gator Bowl, and so on.
Well that about wraps up Custom Conferences. July 12th is fast approachingâ¦time to start thinking about how you are going to lay out your conferences in NCAA Football 12. We've got more announcements still to come. Stay Tuned.
- 4,201
- 10
Ps3 dynasty, Im in!
I Call Michigan OR OK State
I Call Michigan OR OK State
- 4,201
- 10
Ps3 dynasty, Im in!
I Call Michigan OR OK State
I Call Michigan OR OK State
- 2,950
- 10
Are we calling dibs on PS3 dynasty teams?
If so I want UF
If so I want UF
While any of the coach positions can recruit
Mr Schematic Advantage on the recruiting trail?
- 2,950
- 10
Are we calling dibs on PS3 dynasty teams?
If so I want UF
If so I want UF
While any of the coach positions can recruit
Mr Schematic Advantage on the recruiting trail?
- 2,950
- 10
I mentioned this earlier and agree 100%. Defense is gonna be a nightmare. Players won't have tendencies anymore. You shut down the spread option, they switch to a pro style, stop that then they go to the run n' shoot, and so on. It's ridiculous.
- 2,950
- 10
I mentioned this earlier and agree 100%. Defense is gonna be a nightmare. Players won't have tendencies anymore. You shut down the spread option, they switch to a pro style, stop that then they go to the run n' shoot, and so on. It's ridiculous.
- 11,773
- 70
Yo I been called FSU in the ps3 dynasty. Let's Go.
