Operation Sports NCAA Football 19: NC State Offense

Primer

It’s been six years out in the wilderness for us College Football (simulation) fans with no sign of a savior on the horizon. After the O’Bannon lawsuit calling for player compensation led to the discontinuation of all college games, we’ve only had teases. From the NCAA’s “working group” to Madden’s inclusion of college football programs in its story modes, sweet nutrients sure but not the real thing. Lately, it’s just been about survival and thanks to the folks over at Operation Sports many of us continue to cling to this (simulated) mortal coil. As has been covered most recently by The Ringer, EA Sports NCAA Football ’14 is regularly updated by some dedicated, unpaid fans who just do this work for the love of the game with hopes that maybe one day someone will compensate them for their efforts. Sounds super familiar. These aren’t guys just arbitrarily updating coaches’/players’ names, likenesses and attributes, they use research and have developed algorithms that look at a player’s recruiting rankings, athletic testing numbers, stats and on-field performance to determine what their various ratings should be. While this is an imperfect system, the folks at Operation Sports have consistently been known to go above and beyond even that of what its believed EA did to update the 100+ college football teams in the game (besides ya know stealing their likenesses). It’s also just interesting to see what those out of the NC State bubble as well as the sports media bubble think of us. So let’s take a look, let’s disagree, let’s find some common ground because if any of you are like me during the weeks between Saturdays, I’ll be leading NC State to an ACC Championship and national title game (simulated).

Today will be the offense, the defense next and then special teams combined with a final update on our overall rankings & final depth chart.

For each position group, I have included their most relevant rankings as well as a 19-20 preseason All-ACC player for comparison purposes. With the QBs it appears as if the OS (Operation Sports) crew are just as decided as Dave Doeren is...which is undecided. Though I think numbers on Leary’s throwing power should be higher it’s important to note that these games are careful not to over-inflate ratings of freshmen or RS freshmen. Hockman appears first because that’s who they anticipate will get the start. I doubt it for game 1, but it’s not as far -fetched as it was a week or so ago.

Going back to their reticence in over-inflating freshmen, Bam Knight’s numbers are pedestrian compared to his hype and what we’ve seen so far. The * denotes Ricky Person as an “Impact Player” which means his attributes get a boost at crucial times during the game. Normally the game has made 2-4 “Impact Players” split between offense & defense (excluding the OL). If we needed 2 for the offense, Person would definitely be one of the ones I’d pick going into the season.

Didn’t include the two Dylans in this number as it is likely they’ll receive playing time but just not much in terms of firepower. And nobody plays a sports video game to grind a game out with precision blocking on offense. I think Tabari Hines is underrated here. Yes his injury and lack of PT for over a year may lead to some rust, but he had shown the ability to be a game changer at Wake (Thanks.) so I’d imagine he’d be higher. Emezie as the other Impact Player makes perfect sense as well. Also unsure that Riley should be as fast as Emezie.

Included all the names bandied about for potential starting spots. And outside of the QBs, this feels the most accurate based on what we know. I genuinely believe that Sculthorpe will graduate as the best player among this group, but for right now Fedd-Jackson and Witt have had the most opportunities to prove it.