My second game tonight was against Dave Sleepy.  His name might not indicate it, but our game was anything but boring.  It took two overtime periods to determine a winner and probably could have gone even longer.  He used Pitt and I played with my home state Maryland Terps.

I picked off a pass in the first quarter that set up my first scoring drive and Dave quickly replied with a touchdown drive of his own.  Fom that point it was back and forth all game.

Dave wasn't satisfied with playing catch up and took the lead in the fourth, forcing me to kick a game tying field goal to go into over time.  In the overtime period Dave got the ball first and scored on his very first play.  I scored on my own second play in overtime to keep the score tied.

I just barely converted a 4th down and managed a short touchdown pass to my tight end to go up 34-27.  It was up to Dave to tie it back up.  After a 3 incomplete passes he had one more chance to stay in the game.  The Maryland pass rush was just too much and a quarterback sack ended the game in my favor 34-27.  It was a great game by Dave.  Let's get a rematch soon.

Check back tomorrow for more updates and gameplay videos from the event!

-raczilla

The NCAA Football 10 Community Playdate is in full swing and the community has the edge over the EA SPORTS participants. While the night is far from over, the chances of the EA SPORTS guys winning the night at this point seems dim. Take a look at a couple of recaps from our EA SPORTS participants.

Designer Greg Heddelsten talks about his matchups from the evening thus far and what he expects from the rest of the night.

Producer Ben Haumiller faces a bit of trouble during his showdown with a community member.

Follow us on Twitter where we're posting all night and keep an eye out for more updates, including gameplay videos from some of the games the NCAA Football 10 dev team is playing.

I just finished my first game in the NCAA Football 10 Community Playdate against xRomo_9winz.  He brought Texas so I thought it would be fun to play using Oklahoma.  Check out some screens and notes from our epic battle.

I started out thinking I was in really good shape as I drove down the field fairly quickly, but found myself in a 3rd down situation that I needed to convert in order to avoid kicking a field goal.  I completed the pass but Romo put me out with the hit stick and the ball came loose.  He recovered the fumble and drove down the field.  The first quarter ended with no points being scored so I felt like it might end up being a defensive battle.

Romo started the 2ndquarter by going up on a 3-0 field goal but I was able to drive back down the field and score on a 23 yard pass to my tight end.   He drove downfield against and was stopped and settled for another field goal, so I held a 7-6 lead going late into the 2nd quarter.  Knowing another touchdown would be huge for me, I was fortunate enough to score a touchdown on a 58 yard pass to my wide receiver and went up 14-6 at the half. 

In the 3rd quarter I extended my lead on a 71 yard touchdown bomb, but Romo returned the favor on his first play of the ensuing drive with a 74 yard passing touchdown of his own, putting him down just 21-13.   We then traded a couple of punts and went into the 4th quarter with that same score.

In the 4th I attempted to end the game and had a great drive that Romo ruined with a fantastic interception in his end zone.  He then systematically drove down the field and scored on a two point conversion to tie the game at 21.  I had about a minute left to try and win the game.  After some solid plays on the ground, I set up a chance to win the game with time running out.  All I needed was a 28 yard field goal to win.  Romo wisely called timeout to try and Ice the kicker.

Icing the kicker was a great strategy, but I was fortunate enough to hit the field goal and win the game.  Great game Romo!

-raczilla

The NCAA Football 10 Community Playdate is now underway and the community and EA SPORTS participants have been trading wins back and forth so far.  The community is holding their own, having won half the early games that have been played.  Take a look at a couple of recaps from our EA SPORTS participants.

Justin Dewiel recaps the rough loss he has in his first game.

Eric Gray reacts to his late game winning drive.

Follow us on Twitter where we're posting all night and keep an eye out for more updates, including gameplay videos from some of the games the NCAA Football 10 dev team is playing.

Now that we've got our full roster of players, it's time to head into the preseason.  I had a number of decisions to make in the pre-season, but the most important area to cover off was recruiting.  As every fan of the NCAA Football series knows, this is the first chance to see the recruits that are out there and add prospects to your team's recruiting board.  Let's take a look at some of what I've found out about our recruits.

My School

To compete with other top schools in the nation, you want to see your school highly ranked in all of the areas recruits tend to care about.  I left the Orlando Raczillas with the default set up of the powerhouse template, and that means they are really good at almost everything.  It might seem like it will make recruiting easy, but here's the thing... I decided to put this team into the SEC replacing Kentucky, so they're competing with some pretty tough schools in both their conference and their state.  Hopefully the top prospects know to choose the Raczilla's over the Gators.

Team Needs

I always like to recruit the best players available, but it's also important to recruit for need.  Here's a look at our team on both sides of the ball.  Fortunately there aren't a lot of areas with really pressing need so we'll be able to go after the best talent instead of trying to fix weak areas.

Top Recruits

Here's a look at the top 14 prospects in the nation.

Recruits interested in the Orlando Raczillas

And here are the players in the top 100 who are already wisely considering joining our squad.

Matt Wright

One of our best prospects so far is Matt Wright, the top ranked cornerback in this year's class.  He's got a lot of potential and is a hard hitter, which I love, but we're competing with two other top Florida schools to get him.  More on Matt Wright next week as we dive into recruiting and our week 1 game against Notre Dame!

What's next?

I'm going to try and get to the next post ASAP (I'm traveling this week but I'll give it a shot!).  Let me know what questions you have and what your thoughts are about recruiting.  Do you think I should be going after certain players?  Are there specific kinds of players I should search for?  Are there players in that top 10 for whom you'd like to see more stats?  Let me know.

You'll also want to follow me on Twitter as I've been talking back in forth with fans to help make decisions about the schedule, playbooks, etc.  I might even have time to do some live recruiting via Twitter when I'm back in the office next week, so look out for that and send me some questions and comments in the mean time!

-raczilla