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To a certain degree, all sports are influenced by swings in momentum. Some, more than others, are also affected by atmosphere, and EA believes that these factors should be examined in NCAA Football '09. This game includes new mechanics that give prominence to momentum, atmosphere, and experience - emphasizing intangibles that have gone largely unnoticed to this point. These changes manifest on both sides of the ball, and while the concept is largely the same, the specific causes, effects, and recovery processes differ to a significant degree.

First, let's examine how playes get rattled, and what happens when they lose confidence in their abilities. Quarterbacks who get rattled will start to "misremember" plays. Suddenly, receivers aren't running the routes you expect them to, because you've "forgotten" their reads and directives. This is represented by the route arrows on the play-screens changing to incorrect values. Also, receivers may have their button markers changed from the predictable X, triangle, or square to a less than helpful "?". Heck, you're just a poor freshman quarterback who just threw 2 interceptions! You can't remember whether you're supposed to give that guy the ball or not! Running backs will cut less sharply, be more prone to fumbling, and break less tackles, while receivers might alligator-arm a ball when they're playing poorly and they think they "hear footsteps." Lineman will do less of what linemen do - which is namely to beat their counterpart on the line of scrimmage. That has a variety of effects, but at heart it's the simplest of the momentum swings. When players lose confidence on the defensive side of the ball, more tackles will be broken, less blocks will be shed, and more fakes will sucker a would-be tackler into missing his hit. How do you escape this death spiral of ineptitude stacking the odds on MORE ineptitude? Well, it's really a matter of coaching and grit.

To some extent, you just have to break a few plays to recover your confidence and get back to normal. A linebacker who sacks the QB feels a lot better about himself, and quickly forgets about whiffing an earlier tackle. A receiver who catches for a first down will recover some of the confidence he lost when dropping that touchdown pass, and a running back who rattles off 25 yards forgets about getting stuffed at the line. You can also, however, "coach" a player out of his slump. QB's can consult with their coordinators to get a reality check, which sparks a neat little mini-game that requires players to guess what defense is being played off of a pre-snap formation. Success results in a small morale boost from the coaching staff. Benching a player is also somewhat effective. You might expect it to FURTHER rattle a player's confidence, but that's not tremendously fun, so the bench is less shame and misery, and more a place of steadying rest and recovery.

There are 6 levels of performance, leading to natural questions about positive momentum. Of COURSE there's positive momentum! Your player can get hot, leading to an "In The Zone" stretch if he gets really good results rolling along. Players on a roll will do everything better. Faster cuts, steadier hands, bigger hits, more power off the snap ... all the things you'd expect from a beast on the field. You can see the momentum level of everyone on the field with a pre-snap button press, so you can even judge who you MAY want to go towards on a given play, based purely on the "hot hand" theory. Moving back and forth between these levels is affected by an interesting amalgamation of factors. Home or away? Is the virtual player experienced or novice (loosely: Senior or Freshman)? How much of a pressure game is it, and how tight is the overall game? These are the fun things that add an extra dimension layered on top of this year's NCAA Football offering.

What else is new, from a technical standpoint? Stadium sounds allow you to customize what you and your crowd hear at home games, and when they hear it. Just imagine - you could play your friend, the Tennessee football fan, and he could have every single game-trigger set to "Rocky Top!" Yikes! Animation blending allows you to start moves before the current ones are finished, based on what you expect to happen, and the game figures out the points that it can exit and enter new animations based on the results it calculates. Lastly, the setup and breakdown "juke" system has been worked over to provide a more natural feel to call-carrying and the prevention thereof.

All in all, I think it's a unique angle. I don't think many games have tried to employ momentum on THIS large a scale, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out (no pun intended) with a larger audience, and what people see with the system. Will it be new and exciting wrinkle in the game? Will the people losing get stuck in endless spirals of error? Will hot players start to dominate? Who knows, but I'm certainly going to keep an eye out!