The Madden Files – 2012

What happens when your team regresses and you decide to crate an A+ schedule? A college football season of strife and struggle, that’s what.

Minnesota Golden Gophers

The Gophers went from an 81-overall team to a 78-overall team thanks to a bunch of graduating seniors and a mediocre recruiting performance. Their offense sunk to 76 overall and with no Matt Lane the running game struggled. In fact, their new starting running back, Will Redd, only had 79 speed. Coach Kelly Krebs was able to recruit four 3-star running backs, but all of them sucked so they were all redshirted in hopes they could gain some skills while sitting out. Cue Redd getting injured and the Gophers were forced to start WR Tyler Tidwell at running back for most of the season.

It did not go well.

Krebs scheduled Alabama and Virginia Tech so they could play against WR Josh Hammond and QB Adam Franssen. Alabama was the opener, and they were ranked #3 at the time. Though Hammond was subdued, the Gophers couldn’t overcome the far superior squad and lost 24-10. The next week they played Virginia Tech (Franssen was the backup QB) and managed an inspiring 14-9 win. Could they build on the momentum?

No, they could not. The Gophers alternated wins and losses for the first 10 games and were sitting at 5-5. They lost several nail biters and heartbreakers along the way but did manage a 15-14 win against Michigan. They were 4-5 heading into their game with #20 Nebraska and they eked out a 24-17 win in overtime.

They squared off against Wisconsin, who managed to climb to #3 in the rankings, and secured a thrilling 17-14 come-from-behind win. They capped off their season by beating Northwestern to go 7-5 during a murderer’s row of a schedule.

For the second year in a row they drew South Carolina in a Bowl game, this time in the Outback Bowl. They secured a 20-17 bowl victory and their tough season mercifully came to an end.

Kicker Erik Richardson was a great replacement for their bum kicker of the previous year. The 80-overall kicker converted 20 of 24 field goals and gave the Gophers a little more scoring range. Ironically, kicker prospect Ben Pershey opted to come to Minnesota, where he’ll likely redshirt his freshman year. The other recruit, HB Jason Enright, rejected Oregon State in favor of Oregon, maybe because they had the Heisman winner and won the National Championship. That didn’t stop fans in Corvallis from calling him a traitor.

Minnesota finished the year ranked #12, most likely due to their strength of schedule. Krebs was far more successful in recruiting, though, pulling three 4-star recruits and a 5-star CB named Sidney Moses. Krebs had to promise a lot to get him, including that he’d make the Freshman All-American team. We’ll see if it pans out next season. (Also their recruiting class rank was somehow worse, slipping from #41 to #44. Krebs needs to land some big time players before his contract runs out.)

Batavia Colliders

The Colliders were coming off a Super Bowl win, which gave them the 32nd pick in the draft. They used it to draft QB Zac Crane, who has a better arm than incumbent QB Greg Mclain. Crane hails out of Lafayette, which is only possible because of the exporting bug from NCAA 12 that resulted in Madden creating its own draft class (and Madden loves nothing more than overrepresenting small schools in the draft.) Mclain struggled early on, despite progressing to an 83-overall in the offseason, so Crane got a little work. He eventually settled in and passed for 3,000 yards and 21 touchdowns, good enough for a repeat pro-bowl and QB-of-the-year performance.

Their second round pick was a running back that coach Amari Jenkins hoped could supplant the plodding MVP Jyhe Holliday. Unfortunately, Eldrin Gray was only a 72-overall. He profiled as a return specialist but wasn’t even very good at that. Fun fact, there’s another free agent running back named Eldrin Gray, also hailing from South Carolina, though he has a different face and different ratings. It seems the import from NCAA function is totally borked in this version of Madden.

The draft was looking pretty suspect until the third round, where they got WR Tramell Diggs, who was a 79-overall with decent WR-type speed. He proved to be the only guy on the squad who could get open, and inferior corners tried to press him at the line of scrimmage which was a tactical error. Diggs finished with 1,749 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns, winning all of the awards.

The Colliders selected TE Chandler Palmer in the 4th round to help Mclain attack the seam, and he came through with 975 receiving yards. But the real gem was 5th round DT Brenden Ulm out of Illinois. He was diamond in the rough, and it turned out he was an 83-overall. He finished the season with 13 sacks, winning DROY and DL of the Year. He would have had more sacks, but his 3-sack week 16 performance was wiped out when Madden crashed on the save screen after the game (it also wiped out a rare safety by my MLB. I swear to God I’d pay $100 for a cool Madden that just, you know, worked.)

The Colliders had another 13-3 campaign, but this time the computer simulation was not so kind in the playoffs. They got bounced in the second round (after securing a first round bye) and the Maryland Meerkats won the Super Bowl.

Well, now I’m all caught up on chronicling my video game exploits, so the next Madden Files won’t come out for a while. I have to complete another NCAA season and then Madden, so it will be a little bit. I am off of work, though, and we’re not going anywhere, so maybe I can work through it quickly. At any rate, let me know if you want to be a recruit! Thanks for reading!

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