EA has some work to do. I'm a hard-core college football fan and gamer and this is so far from a realistic simulation.

User Rating: 6.5 | NCAA Football 11 X360
If you're like me, you are disappointed constantly with the lack of reliability from EA Sports during their football sims. Some years they make vast improvements and then for the next two seasons they just redo the rosters and sell another copy at $60. Well, this review is not to talk about what everyone else talks about on that topic. Here's my opinion from someone who is still playing in online dynasties every week.

In NCAA 10, the game was too easy. The computer was too predictable (this includes Heisman difficulty--I only play on the hardest level). I won the Heisman 5 straight years with my DE by having about 40-50 sacks a year. However, this year, they have tweaked it back the other way too much. Here's the problems:

Pass Blocking:
You can take a SEC team and go up against a team from the Sun Belt (ex. Tenn vs MTSU) and you will get shut down all game. You will be lucky to get one sack the entire game. This isn't right. I can understand getting shutdown some games but this year you don't even get close enough to the QB to make him sweat.

Run Blocking:
Terrible. A good example is on short yardage situations. They still haven't fixed the QB sneak problem of constantly falling down and not gaining a single yard. However, this year, the game is way too poor with run blocking. You can run outside pretty good (however the toss sweep still is useless) but running up the middle even when there are no linebackers is pretty much pointless. They did however fix the draws. They work pretty well now.

Unbalanced Offenses:
The Air Raid offense on Heisman is unstoppable. The only way to beat ANY team that runs an Air Raid offense is to force turnovers and score on every possession you have. I was playing Troy with South Carolina in an online dynasty. Troy put up 450+ yards passing while their QB went 28/29 on pass attempts. Thats only one incomplete pass! It's Troy! A Sun Belt team. I beat UGA, UT, UF, and Auburn that season but yet lost to Troy and Hawaii! I will say I like that they increased the difficulty but its unbalanced. If I play a running offense they dont score a TD against me. The Option Attack and Single Back playbooks are just about useless without the top tier teams.

Recruiting:
Recruiting system has changed and I like it alot. One thing I don't like is the players. You can sign a 5-Star athlete and he will be like a 70 overall. Even your best players are damped by their LOW awareness stat. I had a MLB who was an overall of 85 (great speed, good tackling, good coverage, but awareness was 49) who was the worst player on my defense. When covering a TE he would keep dropping back even if the TE did a slant or curl. He would just drop straight back and not do anything. If the ball was throw right over his head he wouldn't even try to tip it or pick it off. EA messed up big time here. Another huge mess up, the slot receiver slant is impossible to stop unless you take the MLB and do it yourself (which leaves the run wide-open).

Un-Balanced Teams:
This is my pet-peeve. When playing online, if you are playing someone who selects #1 Alabama, you best pick a team in the top 5. If not you will not win unless they are terrible. Example: I played this guy in 2 online dynasties. First, I was Wake Forest and he was UNC. My record against him was 6-1 during that dynasty. Then we did the SEC. He took Bama and I took South Carolina. My record then was 1-5. Then we played a few random games online and I beat him everytime with balanced teams.
Here's what happens: When Alabama runs the ball, they are so overpowered, your entire D-line will be on their back before the QB hands the ball to the HB. In every game we played he had over 150 yards rushing on around 15-20 carries with Bama. That's around 8-10 yards a carry. Several times just to test this, I practiced with the two teams and I blitzed 9 people on a run play and he scored 4 out of 10 times--with a 9 man blitz!!! EA please fix this next season.

Stupidity:
(1) When a team runs the no huddle, it's unstoppable. Several times a team has come out in the Wild Cat formation--meaing their HB is in the QB position and takes a direct snap. After the play they would run a no huddle and the HB would be playing QB and they would go 5-wide and drive down the field and the HB would go like 5/5 for 60 yards and a TD. This is super unrealistic and needs to be fixed as well.
(2) CPU will make 60 yard FGs regularly.
(3) When adjusting the D-Line you will jump offsides
(4) If you put blocking on aggressive, they will call holding 50% of the time (I've seen 5-straight holding calls making 1st and GL from the 50 yard line).
(5) Challenging the play nevers changes the results even if their foot was out of bounds during the catch. The booth will automatically review the play if it is going to be changed.
(6) Randomly the secondary will make one-handed interceptions and then the next series will drop tipped passes that land in their lap.
(7) DT can jump 3 feet off the ground and bat down a pass
(8) QBs can throw the ball while looking the other way


Final Thoughts (compared to last year):
Cut Scenes...... better
Tackling..... better
Passing Offense..... better
Passing Defense.... terrible failure
Difficulty..... better
Rushing Offense..... terrible
Rushing Defense..... same
Online Dynasty..... better
Realistic..... not even close


Final Say:
Good game but it's not realistic to beat teams depending on their playbooks. If I'm playing with a top-25 team I should not lose to a Sun Belt or MAC team that runs the no huddle.

GREAT GAME.... it's lots of fun its just so unbalanced and unrealistic that it takes so much away from the game. It feels like a arcade game more than a realistic simulation.