Here we go W-Y-O (NCAA 10 dynasty)

[Dark Cloud]

I sometimes like to just take a weekend and try to see if I can achieve some interesting thing. Long term dynasties are fun, but can be hard to keep interest in. We'll see how this goes, though.

So I've decided to create an NCAA custom dynasty off-line that has some custom conferences and takes 12 regular teams and inserts 12 different ones into the mix, as well.

I'm taking over the University of Wyoming Cowboys, but I made them a created team so I could use a larger stadium than War Memorial since it's so small. (I took the UCLA version of the Rose Bowl and put a bunch of custom sounds on the game for the first time, too.)

With the conference changes I made, it was in the interest of keeping things interesting to me. I recognize that the change I've made will be considered blasphemy to some, but they don't have to play my dynasty, I do.

If I wanted to replicate real life in any real way, I'd turn on the TV and bore myself to tears week to week with the status quo.

So...with that out of the way, here's what we've got.

SCHOOLS REPLACED
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Quote:

Bowling Green ---> App State Kent State ---> University of Chicago Miami (OH) ---> Delaware New Mexico State ---> Montana Eastern Michigan ---> UMass San Jose State --> North Dakota Western Michigan ---> Richmond Buffalo ---> Youngstown State UAB --> Maine UL-Lafayette ---> South Dakota State UL-Monroe ---> Rhode Island

CONFERENCE ALIGNMENT CHANGES
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Quote:

BIG 12 --- Oklahoma Texas Oklahoma State Boise State BYU TCU Nebraska Colorado Missouri Arkansas Wyoming Texas A&M ACC ---- Va Tech. UNC Ga. Tech South Florida Miami Clemson NC State Duke Maryland Wake Forest Virginia Louisville BIG EAST ----- Rutgers Boston College UConn Rhode Island Maine Richmond Delaware UMass BIG TEN --- Ohio State Penn State Iowa Notre Dame Pittsburgh Michigan State Illinois Wisconsin Michigan Cincinnati Purdue CONFERENCE USA ---- Vanderbilt Southern Miss Tulsa ECU Houston Troy Iowa State Marshall Ball State UCF Memphis UTEP INDEPENDENTS --- Army Navy Air Force MAC ---- Minnesota Northwestern Youngstown State Appalachian State University of Chicago Central Michigan Temple Syracuse Indiana Northern Illinois Akron Ohio MWC --- Kansas Texas Tech Baylor Kansas State Fresno State Nevada Colorado State New Mexico Washington State PAC-10 ---- Oregon State Oregon Washington Arizona State USC Utah Arizona Cal Stanford UCLA SEC ---- Florida LSU Alabama Ole Miss Georgia Florida State West Virginia Tennessee Kentucky South Carolina Auburn Miss. State SUN BELT ---- Florida Atlantic La. Tech Arkansas State MTSU SMU North Texas FIU Tulane Western Kentucky WAC --- North Dakota Montana South Dakota State Rice UNLV Hawai'i San Diego State Utah State Idaho

I put Wyoming in the Big 12 because I don't want to switch teams the whole time I play and I wanted an alternate universe where the Pokes could actually be a competitive team in a competitive league. So that's explains that, I really wanted to alter the landscape of things a bit to see 1) how fun it would be and 2) whether or not we'd have any semblance of success.

[Dark Cloud]

In any case, our first-year schedule of course is a minefield. No easy games at all. Our motto for season one is "No Days Off."

SEASON 1 SCHEDULE
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Week 1: @ Army (W, 37-9)
Week 2: SOUTH DAKOTA STATE (W, 24-14)
Week 3: @ Colorado State (W, 27-20)
Week 4: MINNESOTA (L, 16-31)
Week 5: BYE
Week 6: @ Missouri
Week 7: TCU
Week 8: BYU
Week 9: @ Nebraska
Week 10: OKLAHOMA
Week 11: @ Boise State
Week 12: ARKANSAS
Week 13: @ Colorado

[Dark Cloud]

Week 1: Wyoming 37, Army 9

QB Jeremy Rushing went 35 of 43 with 418 yards passing and 3 TDs in the win. The goal of this game, of course, was to get at least a win heading down the road, as we feel like after the SDSU game, that we're going to have to claw people's eyes out to get a remote shot a winning.

That said, I think I'm going to move Rushing to wideout. He's a sophomore, senior QB Justin Noble doesn't have the arm he does, but is just about as accurate. We don't exactly have any burners on the outside, so having someone who I can rely on as a big target would really help, since my offense is pretty much reliant on the ability to spread the field out. I don't have the personnel for that on this squad, but I'm working to establish it anyway...since well, that's what I do.

[Dark Cloud]

I'm playing with Playmakers Varsity sliders. I used to always play on Heisman, but I've been following the progress of those and decided it'd be a better way to try to play.

I love that, even though I replaced UW with my own Wyoming team in a new stadium, the game says everything as if it were the actual team, even introducing you to the War Memorial Stadium even though it's a different one.

That's a lot of fun. So had loading all of the sounds to get them to play in-game. I hadn't ever tried it until now, but it really adds a dimension to the game.

In any case, we're now prepared to take on South Dakota State Jackrabbits in our home opener. They're better than they ought to be, since I just downloaded them sight onseen from Teambuilder, but...that'll be a swift test for us nonetheless in a season that will prove full of them.

[Dark Cloud]

I think rather than recap each game -- which can be demanding and make it harder for me to get immersed in what I'm doing, I'm going to do recaps of seasons at a time. It'll be more interesting to read that way, too.

[Cane_Mutiny]

I'll be following, sounds interesting so far. Only thing I don't like is Miami and FSU being put in different conferences... Besides that, the conference rearrangements look cool. Good luck.

[Dark Cloud]

By the time Week 4 came, all of the challenges of running a team that seems like a contender, but is really a pretender becomes really apparent. We simply do not have the personnel to really execute in the ways that we'd want to.

Our main hope for this first season was to get to a bowl game, period. But getting to 6 or 7 wins was not going to be an easy task, given the minefield that is our schedule going forward, which is partially why we scheduled creampuffs early in the year and even with those teams, we had some issues initially.

That said, we went into the Minnesota game 3-0, but I knew it wouldn't last there. The Gophers might not be Big 10 anymore, but they played with a mighty chip on their shoulder and as if they had a lot to prove coming into Laramie in front of the hometown faithful at War Memorial.

With this team I learned quickly, that field goals are like touchdowns. When you get in scoring position, take the points -- don't take risks. I guess I don't play with enough bad teams to really understand the importance of that, but this team made me realize that pretty quickly, as did the new settings. I'm not much of a scheme guy, I really am pretty straightforward as it relates to calling my plays, etc., but...with this team, you start to find new ways to be inventive, again, without the personnel to really implement the sort of offense you're looking to put together.

The result, learning to make play action your friend. I'm way more of a spread, dropback, four wideouts on the wings kind of guy, but...I learned pretty fast how that would go.

Here's evidence of it. With 55 seconds left in the 2nd quarter against Minnesota at home, Justin Noble threw a pas that Jeremy Rushing took for 95 yards to score our first TD of the game and put us down 14-7 to Minnesota.

EA Sports: NCAA Football 10 Video

I waffled a bit about the decision to move Rushing out of the QB spot, but the deal was simple. I have no real receivers, but I had two equally competent QBs. Rushing can run the option really well, but when teams start to pick up on it, it didn't help much and so, I decided having him on the outside would probably be the only way for me to implement my offense with this squad.

That video was the only highlight of that game, as we lost it 31-16 for our first loss of the year.

[Dark Cloud]

SEASON NOTES
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WEEK 7: TCU
This game proved that we could win, when we put our minds to it. Oh and when we run Jeremy Rushing for a school record 297 yards and 2 TDs on 35 carries. TCU proved early they had absolutely no answer for him and so, I kept trying to use him as much as I could, for as long as it would work. We actually had two field goal attempts and our stupid kicker missed them both or else, we'd have had control of this one a lot earlier.

Rushing was also 6 of 9 for 108 yards passing. It was tight at the end, we tried to onside kick (since the game has no squid) they recovered and naturally scored on their first drive, but we recovered their onside, to seal the game, barely.

But I think this game proved we could win. The kids went into it believing that TCU was beatable. I dunno if it's because they recognized them from the MWC or what, but they were confident all week in practice they could get the work done and the home crowd basically made it 24-21 win for us, but hey, a win is a win, right?

Next week, we get #20 BYU at home. We're 4-2 and I don't know that I thought we would've been that when the season started. I mean, we could've easily have lost two of our first three games this year. So, I have no qualms about being in this position. Can we win two more games and go 6-6? I dunno. We'd need another TCU game to make that happen.

Our schedule going forward is full of ranked teams. BYU (20), Nebraska (12), Oklahoma (1) , Boise State (7), Colorado (24) are all ranked and so, there aren't any freebies at all. We'll need to beat BYU, expose Boise State and hope Arkansas really isn't any good (and possibly Colorado) to get into a decent bowl game and we'll probably need 3 of those to get into a Bowl game, and two for sure. Not one of them is a gimmie, but then, TCU wasn't a game I thought we'd win, so...we'll just have to see what comes together.

[Dark Cloud]

SEASON 1 SCHEDULE

Quote:

---------- Week 1: @ Army (W, 37-9) Week 2: SOUTH DAKOTA STATE (W, 24-14) Week 3: @ Colorado State (W, 27-20) Week 4: MINNESOTA (L, 16-31) Week 5: BYE Week 6: @ Missouri (L, 34-51) Week 7: TCU (W, 24-21) Week 8: BYU (W, 34-31) Week 9: @ Nebraska (L, 24-10) Week 10: OKLAHOMA Week 11: @ Boise State Week 12: ARKANSAS Week 13: @ Colorado

[Dark Cloud]

Fun factoid. We're currently averaging 84,868 fans at home games at my new War Memorial Stadium in Laramie. If this actually happened in real life, not only would the stadium be the largest city in the state of Wyoming on game days, it'd also hold about 15.9% of the state's population within its confines.

So the next time you talk about rooting for your home team, remember that you've never attracted 15.9% (or the real life number, about 4%) of your state population to football games on any given Saturday.