Team Ratings Released, Where Do Cougs, Huskies Stack Up in NCAA Football ’14?
By Josh Davis
Nov. 23, 2012; Pullman, WA, USA; Washington State Cougars wide receiver Brett Bartolone (19) tries to get by Washington Huskies linebacker John Timu (10) during the second half at Martin Stadium. The Cougars would go on to beat the Huskies by a final score of 31-28 in overtime. Mandatory Credit: James Snook-USA TODAY Sports
EA’s video game series NCAA Football, is less than a month away from the release of NCAA ’14. At E3 this week (the gaming communities’ annual big news release party and show-floor), select gamers are able to get inside the games and release different aspects to the general public.
Tradition Sports got it’s hands on the complete list of team ratings today and I was interested in just how the Pac-12 shook-out, mostly compared to Washington State. In the past 4 or 5 iterations, Wazzu has been simply dreadful upon release of the game in the ratings. While I always thought they were under-appreciated at the time, it seems EA knew a lot about just how bad the Cougars were.
It was my expectation that WSU would be dreadfully rated again in this seasons’ game, but to my surprise, they aren’t half bad. Still, the Pac-12 is pretty solid and here is the complete list of team ratings for the conference, overall, offense and defense:
- Arizona 86, 86, 88
- Arizona State 84, 86, 83
- Cal 84, 86, 83
- Colorado 79, 81, 78
- Oregon 95, 99, 92
- Oregon State 84, 86, 83
- Stanford 91, 91, 93
- Utah 86, 84, 87
- UCLA 88, 88, 87
- USC 91, 95, 90
- Washington 91, 91, 90
- Washington State 81, 83, 80
As you can see, Washington State is not dead last in EA’s eyes, Colorado holds that honor. But the Cougs are the next worst team in the conference. Still, they’ll be a B- when the game comes out and heaven knows that’s miles above the mid 70’s where I expected them to be placed.
I’m surprised at OSU’s ratings and Washington’s for opposite reasons. Mostly because there’s no way Oregon State is that far behind the Huskies in talent across the board. By the way in my opinion the Huskies are horrifiably (yes, new word for the sake of this article) overrated as possibly the second best team in the conference!? Washington fans don’t hate me but you got a favorable rating this season! Then again, Stanford and OSU did absolutely nothing to keep that from happening last season, so I’m going to blame them as well ;-).
Other than that this doesn’t tell us much, except that football season actually starts on July 9th, when NCAA ’14 is released.
Go Cougs!