The College Years

The College Years is the college football counterpart to Solecismic Software's award-winning Front Office Football. It is no longer for sale.

In The College Years, you assume the role of the head coach of a major college football team. Each year, you'll recruit athletes from any of nearly 14,000 public high schools modeled in the game, train them and try to build a winning team in the challenging world of college football.

Long-term success in The College Years requires you to win championships, develop your school's academic reputation and build a profitable football program through alumni donations, television revenue and ticket sales.

The College Years is a text-based sports simulation aimed at fans who enjoy the numbers in sports as much as they enjoy the on-field action. The interface focuses on packing enormous amounts of data about each team and athlete into easily accessible lists and charts. The game simulation is depicted through play-by-play descriptions of the on-field action. Coaches can optionally view games through a graphical representation of a stadium scoreboard.

Coaches can simulate a full season very quickly on one of today's low-end computers. This speed is vital. The game's success centers around its depth, replay value and the ability to play literally hundreds of seasons in a career. The game is designed to run on any Windows-based operating system, '95 or later. However, if you are running Windows Vista or later, you will have to give The College Years full administrative privileges to save files into the installation directory and the directories underneath the installation directory.

The College Years is the sequel to original Front Office Football, a professional football simulation originally released in 1998. It received an Editors' Choice Award from Computer Gaming World and was nominated by Computer Gaming World and several online magazines for Sports Game of the Year. EA Sports Front Office Football (Front Office Football 2) and Front Office Football 2001 were published by Electronic Arts and also received Editors' Choice Awards from Computer Gaming World.

Major Game Elements

• Scheduling. Each team will have a built-in schedule of conference games along with at least one non-conference rivalry each season. You will negotiate the final two non-conference games in your schedule for the upcoming season with computer-run teams.

• Staff Hiring. Each coach will have a staff to maintain. Each year, you will have the opportunity to hire new staff members. The staff you hire determines the accuracy of your scouting, the reputation of your recruiting staff as well as other key areas such as your team's ability to resist injuries and off-field suspensions.

• Recruiting Transfer Students. You'll have the opportunity to recruit transfer students from other college teams each year. During this stage of the game, you'll examine other rosters and make offers to players you think might want to play for your college. Keep in mind that this is considered an "illegal" activity and may carry a risk of sanction against your team.

• Recruiting High School Athletes. Each year, you'll recruit about 15 incoming freshmen from almost 14,000 public high schools modeled in The College Years universe. These players represent the future of your team. During this stage of the game, you'll scan the lists of available high school players, offer scholarships, make phone calls, visit athletes and issue requests for athletes to visit your college.

• Game Play. Once your team is ready for the season, you'll set up game plans and depth charts to organize your team. You'll then simulate games and have, at your fingertips, access to a wealth of statistical information useful for evaluating your results.

• Yearly Evaluation. Each year, you will receive scores based on your on-field success, the quality of your recruiting class, your ability to generate revenue for your college and your athletes' academic performances.

• Graduation Day. Graduating seniors and some of the most talented underclassmen will leave college and can be packaged into a draft file that coaches can import into any version of Front Office Football in place of the randomly generated amateur draft pool created each season.