Unverified Voracity Is Heresy-eriffic

I might be excommunicated from the church of college football for this startling revelation, but I am sick and tired of EA's NCAA football franchise. Every year they add inane or useless features aimed at 14 year olds: ridiculous suspensions in franchise mode, impact players, momentum and their career mode. Each of these "features" save the inane but thankfully irrelevant career/Heisman/whatever mode acts as an active detriment to the game's realism. This would be irritating but acceptable if EA had given you the option of turning off the feature that turns any trip to Iowa a 60-7 loss (don't ask... the horror... the horror), but they don't even do this. While they're busy inserting these inane features into the game they release games in which receivers drop 20% of the balls that hit themselves in the hands, the inside running game is useless, or the passing game is completely broken.

This year is no different. The features they're pitching only promise to heighten the silliness:

Impact players, aka ballers with high ratings, will be able to trigger "lead by example" events that impact each player's morale. Score a touchdown with an impact player, a chain-reaction of good feelings spread to the rest of the team, which in turn, boosts each player's performance.

Awesome! Now the randomly selected impact players and the totally unrealistic momentum system are one and the same!

EA is now a company run by its marketing arm. No longer actually concerned with making quality games as long as they know that their franchises will sell, they go years without implementing even the simplest features.

Even so, I might get it. I hate myself. But one of those simple features I've been waiting on for years has been implemented:

Campus Legend makes great use of the new Super Sim feature that allows you to skip single plays or to the next change of possession. You can still watch every play from the sideline through the eyes of your legend, but you can also skip ahead to the next time he takes the field. Super Sim is available in every game, which will come in handy during Dynasty mode when you want to get your second stringers on the field to mop up.

Thank God. And how long did that take? Like... ten minutes? No longer will I score 77 on Northwestern in a perpetual state of glassy-eyed boredom. I will score 42, sim the rest of the game, and bump the difficulty to Heisman just in time for a disastrous trip to Kinnick.

(Initial link via EDSBS.)

Shocking revelations about our head coach's past! It would all be so very Arkansas if it wasn't so very Lloyd:

"Lloyd went from West Virginia to Michigan," the retired Nehlen said from his Florida winter home. "He wasn't with us long, about six weeks at the most, I'd say."

Controversy? Uh, not so much:

"Bo called, and he wants you back there." Carr protested that he had joined Nehlen because "I wanted to stick with you." Nehlen told Carr, "This is Bo. When Bo wants you, you go."

Beisball es caliente. Michigan's impressive 12-game winstreak was a bit hollow, since they've been playing the likes of Oakland and Eastern Michigan of late and had their four games against conference co-favorite Minnesota cancelled on account of Hoth-worthy weather, but is no longer after a four-game weekend sweep of fellow co-favorite Ohio State. Michigan outscored the Buckeyes 41-14 over the four games, to which we at MGoBlog say "ha ha!" before scurrying into our Bunker of Denial so that no one can proffer the obvious and terribly effective response. Michigan is now an impressive 22-6, 8-0 in conference, and has a good shot at an at-large bid to the NCAAs if they finish out the season. Coach Rich Maloney has previously set the at-large threshold at 40 wins, though that was before Michigan lost the Minnesota series. To hit 40 before the Big Ten tourney they'd have to win 2/3rds of their remaining games; since the Big Ten is essentially a mid-major in baseball that's probably doable.

Michigan's home for the next six games, with a Wednesday doubleheader against EMU and a weekend series versus Purdue all at the Fish. Wednesday might be sort of crappy and rainy, but the weekend should be decent weather.

(Side note: in this era of year-round athletic and academic competition, doesn't it seem silly that the college season starts in February and ends in May? Shifting it summer-ward a month would really help out northern sides.)

Etc.: Peter King continues the Branch-bashing. The Daily recaps spring.