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I love EA’s NCAA Football series. So help me sweet baby Jesus, I love it.

My first encounter was NCAA 2004. Didn’t play it much. Got NCAA 05 and via random button mashing and playcalling, learned that Chris Leak threw a fantastic bomb to Chad Jackson on play-action out of the Ace formation. Discovered the direct HB snap, slot outs, and the speed option. Addiction set in.

Now it’s gotten to the point that I eagerly anticipate EA’s July launch of their college football franchise. Hell, I even look forward to the unveiling of the cover athlete. I was a little annoyed when Jared Zabransky (are you kidding me?) made the cover — instead of national championship MVP Chris Leak! — for NCAA ‘08.

Now NCAA ‘09 is soon to be upon us and the requisite team ratings are starting to leak out. A screenshot of Florida’s team ratings appear above. Not surprisingly, “QB #15″ is atop the list, followed by “WR #1″.
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There might be flaws in NCAA Football ‘08, but this is not one of them.

Here you see Tim Tebow making a “Superman Tackle,” proving he is as monstrous on defense as he is on offense.

What’s amazing is that EA Sports actually got this right. This is something Tebow could clearly do in real life. “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game!” Indeed.

The only downside is you’ll only see this after an Timmy throws an interception, something we don’t want to see too much of. But at the very least, it’s good to know that Tebow will take care ‘o bidness if that happens.

Don’t get too full of yourself, Tebow… Newton’s warming up behind you.

At FanHouse (they want us to call it that, but the world knows it as “AOL FanHouse”) I wrote up a scathing review, as I am occasionally my wont to do, eviscerating NCAA ‘08 for the XBox 360. I hated the 360 version of NCAA ‘07 and kept playing my original XBox version, which is still more fluid and more intuitive than the 360 version, so the switch from “current gen” to “next-gen” is harsher for me than the dweebs who just converted to 360 as soon as the first next-gen version of the game came out.But a couple of weeks into the experience, I can say that I’m starting to be converted. I haven’t had the urge to play the old XBox version for an untold number of days, and I’m starting to realize just what depths EA Sports went to in an attempt to make a realistic simulation of college football.

Sure, there’s still a bunch of annoying details that aren’t added in just yet.

There are no referees. No personal fouls called, even when it appears obvious that a DB snagged a face mask when he corralled your running back to the ground. The ball bounces off an invisible net when you kick it through the goalposts. The crowd reacts weirdly to things happening on the field. The players’ stride doesn’t match the distance they cover on the ground. Certain plays just hardly ever work no matter what. The offensive linemen have fat, pregnant bellies which make me wonder if they’re hiding Kuato from Total Recall in there. There are annoying pauses and blips, mainly between play, that get to be annoying because they’re consistently there. And the timing is weird, compared to the original XBox version; you really have to anticipate your throws more.

But I’ll say this, you have to play a real football game to win now. The defensive AI is very sharp.

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