Does Academics EVER change?

[Coach Stag]

I may not being paying close enough attention, but does Academics ever chage from its opening star value? If so, what influences it?

I have only had about 2 players in 6 years of my dynasty even CARE about academics. Why add this to the game itf it is going to have such a minor role?

[DuckFan]

Yes they do... although they are slower to change than Prestige.

They are tied to the average awareness of the players you sign. For anything 4-stars and higher, your average player each year must be an A- or better. To maintain 6 stars you better not recruit more than one or two guys a year who do not have an A+.

If you are already an Academic school, you will have more guys wanting to show up that care about that... Duh... :p

If you are not, you will rarely see guys who care about it because they wouldn't be coming to your school in the first place.

If you are playing a typical 3 or 4 star school and you are recruiting pretty much the guys who show up that like your school, you will probably stay at 3 or 4 for a long time. But if you go after a bunch of guys with D+ awareness don't be surprised to see your rating drop.

[Locke888]

Yes they do... although they are slower to change than Prestige.

They are tied to the average awareness of the players you sign. For anything 4-stars and higher, your average player each year must be an A- or better. To maintain 6 stars you better not recruit more than one or two guys a year who do not have an A+.

If you are already an Academic school, you will have more guys wanting to show up that care about that... Duh... :p

If you are not, you will rarely see guys who care about it because they wouldn't be coming to your school in the first place.

If you are playing a typical 3 or 4 star school and you are recruiting pretty much the guys who show up that like your school, you will probably stay at 3 or 4 for a long time. But if you go after a bunch of guys with D+ awareness don't be surprised to see your rating drop.

That seems too strict doesn't it? 10 years into a dynasty I would be surprised to see any 6 star academic teams and maybe 2-3 5 star academic teams.
Unless you are noticing alot of high awarness recruits.

[GaryGuanine]

I'll add little to this discussion (except to say that I appreciate DuckFan's information -- I was wondering how the details of "academics" worked), but I want to complain about my alma mater. Rutgers is a good school and only got 3* academics. Moreover, the 2005 (real life) NCAA Academic Performance ratings put Rutgers Football in the 90th-100th decile for academic performance. My annual "personalized" request for donations from the athletic director was quite proud of it.

Gary

[DuckFan]

I'll add little to this discussion (except to say that I appreciate DuckFan's information -- I was wondering how the details of "academics" worked), but I want to complain about my alma mater. Rutgers is a good school and only got 3* academics. Moreover, the 2005 (real life) NCAA Academic Performance ratings put Rutgers Football in the 90th-100th decile for academic performance. My annual "personalized" request for donations from the athletic director was quite proud of it.

Gary

My alma mater is a 6-star academic school in real life, and a perennial national contender for the D3 football championship (at least they are now, they certainly weren't 13 years ago when I graduated). There were four D1 schools that I considered attending, all on the basis of their academics, all of which I would consider 5-6 star academic schools in real life. EA gives them 6, 4, 3, and 3...

Oh well...

BTW, I have to give you massive props for correctly using the term "decile" in a post on an internet message board. :)

[JPar]

The irony is that the thread is about academics, but the correct phrasing is "DO academics ever change?" :p

[DuckFan]

The irony is that the thread is about academics, but the correct phrasing is "DO academics ever change?" :p

Actually in this context, "Academics" is a reference to a singular rating, and therefore could legitimately be used as a singular word.

But your point is goodly taken... :p

[GaryGuanine]

DuckFan,

Thanks. Listen EA, Rutgers grads use "decile" in video-game message boards. That should be worth at least another star or so for NCAA 2007. I think I'm now going to center my Dynasty on getting RU a better academic reputation. But I won't betray our public school roots (RU's easy to get in from New Jersey -- it's one of the two colleges that admitted me), and so I'll allow in any New Jersey player, regardless of Awareness. I'll be happy with 4 stars.

Gary

[Coach Stag]

The irony is that the thread is about academics, but the correct phrasing is "DO academics ever change?" :p

I may be wrong, but since Academics is being refered to as a singular stat, not as a group of independent studies, "does" is the correct term.

You wouldn't say, "Do Physics ever change?", but you would say, "Do academics (meaning PEOPLE that are involved in academia) change" when talking about it as a group.

[hobbs2324]

They probably rated it so low Gary because they have seen Schiano do some of the stupidest things in the years he has been coach. How can you beat a Michigan State team last year and then lay eggs against Buffalo and who was the other team, New Hampshire of Vermont. I keep reading that this is the year, what about last year being the year, and 2 years ago was supposed to be the year. Tough to get excited for college ball in NJ when we play like crap against the D2 and D3 schools yearly. Monmouth will have a better season I'm sure.....again

[CrazyOldGuy]

Small Gripe.. but why is Rice ( darn tough school to get into academically speaking) ranked lower than Duke?

For me these two great schools are about equal when it comes to academics.

[Mjphillips]

Texas schools. Baylor is my alma mater and we get no love either. :p

[xJakeStone]

... Yeah -- If Army isn't a 6 star academic school, no one should be.

Go Army. :)

[CrazyOldGuy]

... Yeah -- If Army isn't a 6 star academic school, no one should be.

I have to agree... all of the service academies should be as high as Duke.

[PublickStews]

Whoever made this game must have an unhealthy obsession with Michigan. I'm in year 2 of my dynasty and was looking at academic ratings, and Michigan has a 6 while Cal and Stanford only have a 5! Cal and Stanford blow Michigan away, sorry. Of course I'm also bitter because my alma mater Wisconsin, which really is about equal to Michigan, only gets a 5-star rating instead of a 6 like Michigan.

Well I have degrees from two NCAA 5-star schools (Wisconsin and Rice), although Rice should definitely be 6.