I started a dynasty with Florida (rosters are out already!) and the first game is against Wyoming. They've got a decent team, with a very good QB and one star WR (92 rating). I never got through the game (no game report....was doing lots of slider tweaking and resetting), but they kept passing and looking for the star WR throughout the game. I had to change my strategy to take him away, and then they'd pass pass pass to their #2 and #3 receivers, where they were less effective.

I also played a full game against Tennessee, a 31-28 thriller. Tennessee ran on most plays, and I wasn't doing a very good job of stopping the runs up the middle, so they kept on going up the middle. I don't know if they would have ran more outside if I was stopping the inside run...but I like the fact that they were (or at least seemed to be) attacking my weakness.

I've only done rather minimal tweaks with sliders. I'm probably bumping human WR catch a notch or two, increasing human tackles a bit (because every now and then you have one of those "bump against the guy that doesn't initiate a tackle animation" moments...which is ok unless that guy is THE tackle necessary to make any play), decreasing kick and punt accuracy and distance a bit...and that's about it. I might want to tweak a few more things, as my outside running is a little more effective than I think it should be (maybe I'll increase breaking blocks by the CPU).

Haven't fooled around with the dynasty mode options much. Recruiting is definitely different than last year....primary thing is that it's in-season recruiting. You set targets and then....well, I'm not sure, since I haven't gotten any farther than game 1.

One thing I'm concerned about is that having the A button as the run button might make it easier for the cheesy players to go crazy with the Hail Mary roll out and run plays. Not sure though...it's tough to really see if there are gamebreakers without lots of people online. But there seems to be LOTS of QB spy plays...I think I remember seeing one with 3 spies (!).

There are still the usual EA football annoyances though, such as Mario running and DBs being excellent and jumping up and deflecting passes at their backs when they're face-guarding the receiver. Also, the field feels a little small (but I've had this gripe for a while now...and I have no idea if it's just in my head or not).

But overall, the game is definitely solid. I'm kind of thinking that this is what NCAA 2005 should have been.