Improving Your Passing Game Experience

At this point every piece of the newest edition of NCAA Football has been flushed out in some form through website and user reviews, along with endless threads on video game forums. We know the good, the bad and the indifferent. Thanks to slider sets we have also been privy to many individuals opinions on how to fix some of the problems, while accentuate some of the positives.

The bottom line to this author is that NCAA Football 2008 is a very good game. In fact it competes with the best in the series history. It is not a perfect game, but if you want to see one of those go watch films about Nolan Ryan. If you love college football and football video games this will more than satisfy. If you want to see facemask penalties though, look elsewhere as the officials for the second year in a row on the next-generation console refuse to whistle this infraction. As one person on a message board pointed out the animation is actually in the game, but the referee simple does not make the call.

There has been one complaint from gamers that I feel can be worked on through focus from the player and that is the high number of user interceptions thrown. Often times on message boards gamers will note the trouble they are having avoiding turnovers, while throwing the football and more times than not these individuals are rudely met with a response along the lines of; "You just need to learn how to play." This is not productive in helping the issue and it defeats the purpose of public forums because it makes people shy away from posting questions, concerns or opinions out of fear that some dope they have never met will attack their intelligence when they are noting issues they are having playing a video game.

Instead of bashing people who ask this question, how about some recommendations on how to improve these gamers passing game.

Here are my "Rules to remember when attempting to pass in NCAA Football 2008."

1. Forget everything you previously believed about passing in video games.
I cannot take full credit for this rule as I read it in someone posts regarding this topic somewhere, but it rings so true that it needs to be stated here. For most gamers passing in video games, even those that were meant to be simulation type games did not take much effort or focus. Now, more than ever you have to think like a quarterback, not like a video game player. Every play cannot be a big play. Throwing the ball away, even taking a sack in some instances is better than chucking the ball downfield. Setting the players feet and throwing moving forward are also useful tools for success.

2. Be patient
Staying with what was mentioned before you have to be patient with play calling and play execution. Wait until the right time to attack the defense vertically.

3. Call plays with routes you feel comfortable with
If all the routes in a particular play appear to take a long time to develop isolate a check down option in case pressure comes. Also, find routes where you feel the receiver has the advantage and use those as primary options.