NCAA Football 13 : TSO helps define the recruiting database

Posted for Drifterbub..

For several years now, most would agree that the recruiting features of NCAA Football have taken huge steps in creating a deep, realistic experience. However, for those of you who are recruiting enthusiasts like me, it can be hard to authenticate certain recruits when you know that their measurables would never lend them to their position in real life. Coupled with the fact that there is little to no growth or weight progression in the game and the end result is some really unrealistic player models.

We've all seen them. The 6'4'' wide receivers who weigh 175 lbs or the 6'5'' defensive ends that clock in at a whopping 180 lbs. Almost every position is littered with recruits that, even if they physically could exist, would be pushed around on the basketball court of any college or university, much less the gridiron. With high school programs doing a great job of preparing athletes for college ball, more recruits are physically capable of contributing early on in their college career.

While I was down in Orlando for the NCAA 13 Dynasty Community Event, Shaun Mason (@shaunlmason) and myself talked a lot about what a realistic college prospect would physically look like. That topic parlayed into multiple discussions about the progression system as a whole, but unfortunately our ideas were given too late in the cycle for NCAA Football '13 for the development team to consider such a drastic change. As a result, Shaun and I offered to take a look at their recruit database and see what changes we could make to help the generated recruiting classes make more sense.

What we found was that the minimum weight range for most of the positions was entirely too low for a given height. Much like NCAA Football '12, this would result in the same 'bean pole' prospects being generated, such as the examples mentioned earlier. The approach used to determine appropriate weight and height values was fairly straight forward. A database was compiled of recruits from several recruiting services around the web in which we were able to determine average minimum weights for a given position and height range (It should be noted that we only used the data from real life recruits that received scholarships from FBS universities). Next, to account for the lack of weight progression during the career of a recruit in the game, a small 2-10% buffer was added on to each value to achieve new minimum weight ranges. Comparing our values to the original values being used in the recruit generator yielded fairly large gaps.

Figure 1: An example of minimum weights that were being used versus proposed min weight value

The changes should be a step in the right direction for those of us who enjoy a bit of recruiting realism. Our shortlists for next year include a lot of progression and recruiting concepts that could really shape dynasty mode into a fully immersive experience for all the recruitniks out there.

Well done guys. Very good contribution to the product.

Thanks guys. It was a good amount of work to flip through a few dozen recruiting databases, but I think we put something together that will really helps recruiting at least appear more realistic.

Sort of. It's kind of interesting how recruits are generated. As I said in another thread, I think the population of recruits in '13 will look a little different with the addition of the triple threat athletes.

RynoAid is taking all my LIKES! lmao

Wait..... so no more 5-9, 175 lb linebackers to recruit? Damnit! There goes my defensive mantra, "they may be small but at least they're slow!"

I have them all. I will post them at a later date.

It's all relative.

Strictly for aesthetics.

Its aesthetic this year. I don't think we will see weight, momentum, etc play a role until next gen consoles.