
It looks like there's going to be a lot of changes ahead for UNLV's football team. Early designs for a new domed football stadium near the UNLV campus have been floating around the internet for a few weeks, and news also recently broke that Timm Rosenbach has been hired as the team's new offensive coordinator.
In your face, Jerry Jones!

Concept art for the UNLV Now football stadium, featuring a 100-yard-wide video screen. We'll never squint at an instant replay again...
The stadium will be replacing decades-old Sam Boyd stadium (located in the outskirts of town near Henderson, NV), and is supposed to be built on-campus, near the Thomas & Mack Center, only a few blocks away from the Las Vegas strip. The stadium is going to have a retractable dome roof, a seating capacity of 60,000+, and a 100-yard wide video screen. That's right, this stadium is going to have a video screen running the entire length of the football field, effectively making a whole side of the stadium unsuitable for seating.

Now on a 100-yard-wide video screen: the "Rebel Girls"!
The designers and backers of the new stadium want a building that exhibits the uniqueness and flair of Las Vegas, and they think a massive video screen is the way to do it. I guess mounting video poker machines on the backs of everyone's seats wouldn't fly. I'm not terribly thrilled about the video screen idea. A dick-measuring contest with Jerry Jones isn't my idea of improving the football program, and I highly doubt that any video screen is going to attract higher-profile recruits to the program unless the team actually starts winning. Maybe we can use close-ups of the cheerleaders to distract the visiting team? [More]
c2012164-fbe7-4745-adc2-eea86292c168|4|3.3
Tags:UNLV, Rebels, Running Rebels, University of Nevada Las Vegas, football, college, NCAA Football, Mountain West Conference, Timm Rosenbach, Bobby Hauck, Sam Boyd Stadium, football stadium, college campus, uniform
This review was originally published 09/14/2010 on Game Observer (now defunct as of 05/13/2014). It has been republished here for archival purposes.
More than just a roster-update, but Gameflow is worthless and not worth the full price if you already own Madden 10.
It’s that time of year again. It’s time for the annual release of EA’s powerhouse licensed NFL game, Madden. This year’s release promises to completely redefine the way people play football games by bringing the playbooks of hundreds of plays down to one pre-selected play based on a Gameplan. It’s the way NFL coaches really do it, and once you stop and think about it, the idea really is brilliant. But a good game needs more than just good ideas. The ideas need to work. And Gameplanning just simply doesn’t.
I’ve always played the Madden games for the strategy and coaching elements. So when I first heard that the game would now be picking my plays for me, I was skeptical and afraid. But after hearing the arguments, and thinking about it a little bit, the change actually did make sense and even had me excited.
The Madden developers were claiming that gamers would be able to Gameplan for their upcoming opponent by setting up which plays to run in any given situation -- exactly how real NFL coaches do it. The system also had the potential to make full-length, 15-minute-quarter games more playable and practical, since the combination of the Accelerated Clock and GameFlow means that all the time spent between plays is now simulated. A default-length game of 7-minute quarters takes half an hour. And a full-length 15-minute-quarter game can be completed in less than an hour. An in-game save would have also helped make full-length games more practical for those of us who still may not have a full hour to devote for one continuous game. But too bad, we didn’t get that. [More]
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Tags:Madden NFL 11, review, Madden NFL, NCAA Football 11, EA, EA Sports, Tiburon, sports, football, simulation, GameFlow, PC, PS2, PS3, Wii, PSP, XBox 360
This review was originally published 07/30/2010 on Game Observer (now defunct). It has been republished here for archival purposes.
The game has nice ideas and looks great, but new gameplay mechanics only seem to create more bugs and problems.
EA really needs some competition in the football gaming market. I can’t imagine any football gaming fan NOT wanting the NCAA to discontinue EA’s NCAA football-exclusivity license when it expires either this year or next. [Update: EA has agreed to not sign another exclusivity agreement!] Comptetition is always good for the consumer, and right now, EA really isn’t giving us games that are up to par with our expectations. For the past two or three years, EA has given us NCAA football games that have contained some great new features and gameplay additions, but every year, they manage to fill the game with new flaws or take steps backwards in terms of gameplay.
Two years ago, excessive turnovers made the game almost unplayable. Last year, the oppressively fast game speed made the game look and feel so chaotic, that it almost completely overshadowed the improvements such as the "Dead Duck" passes and the "Setup Play" feature. Like in past years, the new game gives us a lot of welcome improvements, but also introduces new problems and takes several steps backwards in certain areas. [More]
47bd3000-c4de-4098-aa1f-73ef3c994938|1|3.0
Tags:NCAA Football 11, review, NCAA Football, Madden NFL 11, Electronic Arts, EA, EA Sports, Tiburon, sports, football, PS3, PSN, XBox 360
At the start of the 2012 season, I may have had my hopes for the Bears a little high. I argued that the Bears might be the most balanced team in the league this year, potentially featuring an elite offense, defense, and special teams!
For the first half of the season, in which the Bears got off to a 7-1 start, it looked like I might have been right. But red flags started going up out of the gate. The offensive line just wasn't protecting Cutler very well, and Mike Tice's offense too often looked like the anemic offenses under coordinator Mike Martz. Although not ruled out for sure, it didn't look like Johnny Knox would be playing this year, and Devin Hester just doesn't have the same spark he once had. Early in the season, it seemed as if the Bears might have to rely once again on their defense. That defense shocked the league by being more effective than the offense, with both cornerbacks (Tim Jennings and Charles Tillman) earning Pro-Bowl honors for forcing turnovers and scoring touchdowns! Things were looking good at 7-1, but there was a bad feeling in my gut that this all looked too familiar.
Starting the second half of the season, that feeling became justified. Once again, the injury bug started biting the Bears. Alshon Jeffrey and Earl Bennett were both the victims of multi-week injuries, leaving Brandon Marshall as the team's only true threat in the passing game and allowing opposing defenses to send everything they had after Jay Cutler and Matt Forte. Cutler and Forte also suffered temporary injuries, and backups Jason Campbell and Micheal Bush were ineffective against the 49ers.

I'm getting too used to seeing Urlacher in street clothes.
[More]
8be29af7-af95-4b91-849e-cf7b394c7a04|2|2.5
Tags:football, Chicago Bears, DA Bears, NFL, NFC North, Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks, San Francisco 49ers, Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall, Matt Forte, Alshon Jeffrey, Earl Bennett, Johnny Knox, Brian Urlacher, Charles Tillman, Tim Jennings, Henry Melton, Julius Peppers, Devin Hester, Lovie Smith, Mike Tice, Mike Martz, Peyton Manning, playoff
With the football season nearing its finale and the college Bowl and NFL playoff pictures coming into focus, I thought I'd take a minute to reflect on EA's NCAA Football 13 and Madden NFL 13 and offer up my suggestions for next year's football games.
Table of Contents
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