NCAA Football 13

NCAA's Dynasty mode is at the heart of the game's college football experience, and updates for NCAA 13 hope to make the week-to-week recruit pitching process more accurate.

Like I've done for NCAA 13's gameplay updates in our previous preview, some of the game's new Dynasty tweaks are listed in this easy-to-read format. Be sure to also check out the new screens in the gallery below as well as the trailer at the end of the page.

Last year's game added the coaching carousel and tweaked its recruiting system, and NCAA 13 goes a crucial step further by improving the accuracy of your school's pitch grades to recruits. The basics of the feature are the same, but the team is making a better effort to improve the information that drives those pitches.

RECRUITING

In NCAA 12, your team's BCS ranking the previous season determined many of your school's pitch grades. Developer EA Tiburon figured out that using old BCS rankings didn't produce very realistic results when it came to trying to entice recruits. Therefore, many of the pitch grades for your school are now updated weekly to offer more accurate grades.

For instance, instead of basing your Championship Contender pitch grade on last year's BCS ranking, now it's updated weekly based on your current performance. Specifically, the behind-the-scenes calculations look at how your team projects out four years into the future, and also takes into account who you've just signed, who you're recruiting, and who's left the program.

There are 14 pitch types in NCAA Football 13, including a new one. Here are highlights of just some of the changes that have been made to a few of the pitches. This list is not exhaustive.

• Playing Style (New): Now you can pitch potential recruits on how your team playing style may be a good fit for their skill set.
• Coach Prestige: The grades are distributed NCAA wide so there is less lumping of coaches around certain grades.
• Coach Stability: This combines the old Coach Loyalty and Program Stability pitches and takes into account factors like your years at the school, current job security percentage, and penalizes you if you work your way up and leave for a better program.
• Conference Prestige: Formerly static, now it ranks all the teams in the conference and takes the average grade of the top 6 schools. Also figures in the toughest places to play, as well as overall W/L record of the conference – including cross-conference results as they happen.
• TV Exposure: Now tied to the team and not the coach. Updated weekly.
• Pro Potential: Runs mock drafts to project how players in your program may enter the NFL. It also takes into account your school's draft results from the past four years. The Pro Potential projection runs in the offseason and takes into account transfers, promises you've made to players, etc.
• Tradition: Instead of being based on an old BCS ranking, this grade uses your number of overall wins, bowl game appearances, and national championships.
• Proximity to Home: Adds a hometown bonus for local prospects and the potential that a freshman on your team gets homesick and leaves the program.

SCOUTING

For the first time, you will be able to scout recruits to find out important info about them such as their attribute ratings. Like almost all the features in the game, this can be done from your computer's browser as well.

OTHER DYNASTY TIDBITS

• You now have a better chance of breaking into a recruits' top ten schools list because the AI will no longer clutter that list with schools that are only there because of their high prestige. If you put the time and effort into recruiting a kid, you'll pop up on their radar.
• Player Promises are available to you from the start.
• Athletes can be head-and-shoulders above other players at certain positions instead of just a little better. Furthermore, some athlete recruits will be triple threats at three positions.
• There are no more random topics where you talk about something that the recruit is possibly not interested in. Instead there are Prospect's Choice calls where they talk about a topic that matters to them.

ETC.

• The Broyles Award is available for the best assistant coach.
• Custom Playbooks have been bug fixed and improved so that there's no minimum number of plays required.
• ESPN's Rece Davis will give updates on other games as they occur (also in your online dynasty), including Heisman alerts, noting when a player is having a big game, upsets, etc. Davis' updates will then trigger commentary by Brad Nessler about how these games might affect your BCS standing, whether it's a rival school, and more.

NCAA Football 13 hits the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on July 10.