Notre Dame Football: Simulating 2018 with NCAA 14

It’s would-be NCAA 19 season. The best way to celebrate? Play Notre Dame football on NCAA 14, because NCAA 19 doesn’t exist.

Remember winning consecutive national chamionships with Notre Dame football on EA Sports’ NCAA Football 14? Although one of the most popular video game series on the market at the time, NCAA Football is no longer produced thanks to a lawsuit from former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon.

All’s right in his world (supposedly), because he did win $15,000 from that lawsuit that took away the video game series.

So I decided to take a stroll down memory lane and fire up my old PS3. With the help of updated rosters (thanks to NCAANation247), I attempted to simulate the 2018 season.

Because this is 2013’s game, trying to line up the schedule was an absolute nightmare. I managed to get ten of the 12 teams on the slate (we’ll get to that) and the games are severely out of order.

Hey, the game is five years old — work with me a little bit.

Also, I’ve decided just to keep Brian Kelly, rather than make my own coach, which I know makes a certain portion of the Irish fan base overjoyed.

Back to the schedule…I couldn’t fit in Syracuse or Northwestern. I replaced Syracuse with Georgia Tech, which I quickly realized I shouldn’t have done since the Yellow Jackets are an option team. Oops.

As for Northwestern, I’ve replaced them with Purdue. In related news, I finally found a reason I’m happy there’s no NCAA 19: we don’t have to hear that ridiculous ear-piercing train horn Purdue will use after every touchdown this season. Let’s hope for lots of field goals this season — presumably at noon on ESPN2.

Notre Dame is unranked (26 in the preseason poll) but plays No. 21, 11, 3, 4 and 14 this season. No. 3 and 4 are back-to-back.

So with that, let’s get started.