Have you ever tried to escape the constant onslaught of daily life that is now a feature of living in this broken world? I have. One of my strategies is to play old Madden and NCAA Football games.
I started this project before, playing NCAA 08 and Madden 08 until my Madden 08 franchise died in year seven (I believe the issue was that somehow the Seahawks didn’t have a kicker or punter and therefore I couldn’t sim past their game or play their game.) When that happened, I broke out the wallet and spent a combined $30 or so for NCAA 12 and Madden 12 so that I could start the project anew. That time, I played NCAA with the Minnesota Golden Gophers and replaced all Madden teams with fantasy football teams past and present.
I got a little ways into that series when I decided I’d start “televising” the games and stream them on the Immersion YouTube channel. So I started fresh on NCAA with the lowest rated team on the game – the Eastern Michigan Eagles. I decided they would be coached by a grinder from our Minnesota Golden Gophers squad – former cornerback Keron Day.
On the Madden side of things, I decided to make every team a cupcake team. All NFC teams are current and former SCUFFLE Immersion squads and all AFC teams are current and former SCUFFLE DyNasty squads. Symmetry was achieved, but every roster in the league was pretty much identical because all cupcake teams were constructed in the same way. Hopefully that will shake out over the course of a few drafts and some teams will establish themselves as outliers. Obviously, I would control the Batavia Colliders.
The goal of this project was to do a little storytelling. Create a little universe outside of this one that is a bit more palatable. So it was a happy coincidence to learn that Keron Day would be coaching his son, Ben Day, at Eastern Michigan as Ben played out his senior season. In fact, Keron Day had offers at more prestigious schools, but couldn’t pass on the opportunity to coach his son.
2011 Eastern Michigan Eagles
Eastern Michigan University is located in Ypsilanti, Michigan, just 15 minutes down the road from Ann Arbor and their much more heralded rival, the Michigan Wolverines. They play in the MAC (at least they did in 2011) and were the worst-rated team at 63-overall. They had one star of prestige, so recruiting would prove to be difficult, as they had no solid pitches outside of “playing time.”
Coach Keron Day would have his work cut out for him, but he didn’t shy away from any challenges. He scheduled every state rival he could, including the aforementioned Wolverines and the Michigan State Spartans. Eastern Michigan also played the other Directional Michigan Schools as part of their conference play. But Keron Day ventured out of Michigan as well, scheduling #2 Alabama and #4 Stanford.
The out of conference schedule was brutal as the Eagles did not have the firepower to keep up with the top teams in the country. They started 0-3 before pulling off an improbable upset of Michigan State, handing the Spartans one of the only 2 losses they’d have on the season.
They rode the momentum of that upset to two more wins in conference play before dropping a game to Central Michigan, losing 17-13. Then they won 4 conference games in a row and stood a good chance of playing for the MAC championship, but they could not even come close to beating the Northern Illinois Huskies, losing 34-16. The wolf howl after every touchdown will haunt my dreams.
Losing to the Huskies cost the Eagles a chance at playing for the MAC Championship. They finished the season at 7-5, which was somewhat respectable given how bad the roster was. The Eagles were invited to play in the uDrove Humanitarian Bowl against the 10-2 Nevada Wolf Pack. Despite being humbled by a wolf-related team one week prior, Coach Keron Day was able to inspire his guys and get the Bowl win.
Stats Leaders
Junior quarterback Gabriel Hubbard took every snap for the Eagles and managed to throw for 2665 yards and 15 touchdowns versus 12 interceptions. Hubbard’s lack of arm strength was very apparent as he was unable to complete deep passes to open receivers consistently. In fact, his deficiencies made Keron Day consider quarterbacks during recruiting.
Ben Day, coach’s son, was the starting running back, but he wasn’t the most productive. He missed several games with injuries. His backup, Jay Caldwell, also missed time due to injury, so third string running back Adam Dowdell saw extended playing time. Dowdell matched Ben Day exactly with 103 carries, but he converted his into 778 yards compared to Day’s 555 yards, despite only having a speed rating of 80.
The Eagles most productive receiver was tight end Blair Guidry, who caught 48 passes for 823 yards and 5 touchdowns. Given the lack of talent on the team, backup center Josh Concepcion found himself playing tight end at times, catching 5 passes for 88 yards.
Right Outside Linebacker Jeremy Heath was the tackle leader with 63 tackles. Senior Left End Maurice Williams had the most sacks with 8. The interception leader was Free Safety “Captain” John Smith, who plucked 3 interceptions on the year. Overall the defense struggled, especially the secondary. The only defensive score was achieved by Strong Safety Calvin McIntosh, who had a pick-6 in the bowl game.
Recruiting
Keron Day was able to recruit plenty of 1 and 2-star prospects, but despite a large recruiting class it was only rated 104th in the nation. The best prospects they landed were a couple of 3-star prospects: DE Roger Dennis and QB Jared Tolbert. It took quite a bit to land Tolbert, including a promise not to redshirt him and “significant playing time.”
Each year I’m adding one player from among the owners of teams in the SCUFFLE Immersion. This year it was me, WR Josh Hammond. The Eastern Michigan Eagles put forth their best effort, but Hammond ultimately signed with the Oklahoma Sooners. We’ll be following Hammond’s exploits next season, and we made sure to schedule Oklahoma as well so we could see the man in action.
Offseason
Keron Day was excited to get a recruit from Ohio State. Running back Bo Gordon came in as an 84-overall, instantly making him the best player on the team. I hadn’t remembered just how exploited college football players used to be until I realized that Gordon would have to sit out the 2012 season before he could play for us. GAH!
Obviously none of the Eastern Michigan Eagles went pro, and Ben Day graduated and looks to join his dad’s staff as an assistant to the Assistant Running Backs Coach.
The Heisman Trophy winner was QB Jason Allen out of Ohio State. The pro scouts weren’t too high on his game translating at the next level, and he wasn’t drafted until the 5th round by the Bestine Banthas. We’ll see if coach Ryan Lindsay can get the most out of him.
2011 Batavia Colliders
The Colliders were one of the best teams in the league, going 12-4, despite downright awful quarterback play. While they only scored 16.4 points per game they suffocated other teams with their defense, who allowed a mere 10.2 points per game. Overall, given that the league was full of cupcake teams, it was like football one hundred years ago.
I have no interest in playing in the playoffs after doing 16 regular season games, so I simulated them to see how good my team really was. The Colliders lost in the first round of the playoffs. After starting the season 4-1, I decided to increase the difficulty. Given the low quality of the other teams in the league, that didn’t slow me down much. Depending on how the 2012 season starts I might have to switch to All-Madden but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Stats Leaders
The Colliders cycled through 3 quarterbacks, with starter Greg McLain sidelined with an injury for the first half of the season. He wound up being the team’s best passer with 7 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. Those are obviously not numbers to write home about. Orlan Hamilton had the best completion percentage but he threw 9 interceptions as well, while only tossing 4 touchdowns.
The Colliders’s best player was bellcow running back Jyhe Holliday. He was slow, but he carried the ball 271 times for 1234 yards and 10 touchdowns. His efforts earned him a trip to the Pro Bowl.
You can tell by the QB stats that passing game was not very good. In fact, the leading receiver was a tight end (just like at Eastern Michigan.) Brad Gillespie caught 56 passes for 1023 yards and 7 touchdowns. When quarterbacks weren’t missing receivers badly, receivers were dropping catchable balls. The Colliders’s receivers dropped 22 passes officially, but there were many more that simply weren’t recorded by the game.
The defense was the strongest part of this team. Free Safety Elisha Wright, an 82-overall, led the team in tackles and interceptions. He was named Defensive Back of the Year and earned a trip to the Pro Bowl. Shawn Arnold led the team in tackles for loss and added 11 sacks to lead the Colliders. Middle Linebacker Jaquese Price had two defensive scores, including an incredible 94-yard interception return for a touchdown against the Linn County Lumberjacks.
The Draft
I decided to record every pick in the draft because it was WILD. How wild, you ask? Let’s just say that the Ampelmann Neukolln took a PUNTER second overall. The Colliders draft was as follows:
Batavia didn’t have a great pick in the draft but they needed a wide receiver who could play even a little bit, and Morgan Montoya will be the fastest guy in the WR room with 94 speed. Their second pick, Defensive Tackle Alexander Williams, was listed as a top-5 prospect. He fell all the way till the end of the 2nd round so many teams must have had some dirt on him. The early draft grade was bad, but we won’t know their full stats until the end of preseason next year.
Again, no Eastern Michigan Eagles were drafted.
Thoughts on Year One
I did some experimenting with how to do the games. I tried letting the game announcers do it. I tried commenting while I was playing (that was hard). I ultimately came up with the solution of turning the announcers off and then offering my own play-by-play in their stead. That allowed me to focus on the guys that matter. One challenge, especially with Madden, was the plethora of players on the same team with the same jersey number. Madden is just so lazy, and I’ve read that the repeated jersey numbers persist to this day!
I need to come up with a more consistent intro to games, and I need to do better YouTube thumbnails, because apparently that makes a difference. Only the best for my 25 subscribers. So tune in for the 2012 season, where you might see more polished videos and thumbnails featuring me making the YouTube face.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!
© 2025, Josh Hammond. All rights reserved.
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