The return of the popular NCAA Football franchise is one of the more anticipated video game moments of the past decade. With the most recent iteration of the franchise coming in the summer of 2013, it has been a long time coming for many college football fans.
The franchise, originated by the EA Sports game development company, was put on hiatus indefinitely due to a now largely settled legal debate regarding player compensation. In many ways, the legal battle which stemmed in no small part over the existence of the NCAA video games — O’Bannon v. NCAA — led to the current model of Name Image and Likeness [NIL], which allows for student athletes to capitalize on their market value.
All of the nuts and bolts aside, the game, which is slated for a summer release, also means the return of something else: player ratings.
“I’m dreading that day man. I’m that not excited for that one,” Penn State center Nick Dawkins said with a laugh. “That’s definitely gonna be a humbling experience.”
How the new game will assign player ratings is still to be announced, although historically it has been a fairly comprehensive collection of player attributes including strength, speed, quickness and various position-specific skills like blocking, tackling, arm strength, accuracy and catching skills. Much like the Madden NFL football franchise, the release of player ratings will come with no shortage of controversy.
“I think, me personally, I won’t take too much offense to it, but I think there will be some hurt souls out there,” Penn State tight end Tyler Warren said. “But at the end of the day, everybody who’s actually a college football player that’s playing is just gonna go in and bump their ratings up to 99 overall anyway, so I think they’ll be hurt for about a day or two and then they’ll switch it if they please, but I think I’m gonna stick with whatever they give me and, and I won’t let it bother me too much.”
According to a report by ESPN, over 10,000 players have opted into the game, with EA reportedly offering every player a copy of the game and $600 to be involved. EA has not announced price points for the game, but generally one copy of similar games run anywhere between $60 for the most basic digital release to upwards of $100+ for more robust offers.
Texas backup quarterback Arch Manning is the first noteworthy player to publicly opt out of the game so far.
“All I know is I’m gonna be in the game,” Dawkins said. “I’ve been playing the game since I was young. I’m gonna be in the game. Regardless, it didn’t really matter what the contract was like. That’s more like a legacy thing; I’ll be able to pass it on to my kids that I was in the video game. You’re receiving money – let me rephrase – you were going to play this season anyway. So now you’re just receiving money to be put in a video game. I’m gonna be in the game. I don’t know if it’s how other people view it or anything like that, but it really didn’t matter what the situation was gonna be. I’m going to be a bit of game regardless. A lot of guys are still interested in playing as himself [in the game].”
Just being in the game — that’s a feeling echoed by starting quarterback Drew Allar. It’s hard to beat the feeling of being in a video game, especially a franchise that comes with so much nostalgia.
“There’s definitely gonna be some players that take to social media right away that are mad about their ratings,” Allar said with a laugh. “But I’m really excited for it. One of my hobbies outside of football is gaming. And like I grew up on NCAA 14, all the NCAA games really, but specifically ’14. That was at the age where I really started remembering things about video games and really having a passion for it, so I’m just really looking forward to being in it. That’s surreal to even be in a video game, but to have it be in the NCAA is just something really cool. So I’m really looking forward to it. And it’s gonna be interesting to see the overall that’s for sure.”
And as Allar notes with another laugh and a smile, now he can get angry about throwing interceptions in real life, and in a video game.
