Back to NCAA

It’s been a wild year and a half since I’ve returned to Electronic Arts. I started out in EA Tiburon’s Project Management Office. That lasted only a couple of months before I was moved to Madden Ultimate Team. I stuck with the same set of developers as we got the servers for Madden NFL 11 tested and ready for launch, ported Madden Ultimate Team over to Madden 11, and implemented the scouting feature in online games. Once we launched in August, I moved over to our Central Football Gameplay. This group is responsible for the Gameplay for Madden and NCAA Football. I always say they are responsible for “hike to tackle”, but in actuality there’s a little bit more around that.

Well, I’m on the move again. And the job I’m moving to is actually the job I had three years ago. I’m moving back to be the head Development Director on NCAA Football, what Tiburon calls the Program Manager (EA-Canada calls this position Franchise Development Director, which I like better).

As I mentioned in the NCAA team meeting when I was announced as coming back to the team, I’m a big fan of NCAA Football. I’ve been playing it since EA-Tiburon has been making versions of it. So, I’m very excited to be back on that team. Beyond my fandom, I’m also impressed with NCAA’s development practices and I think their long term vision for the franchise is the right direction to go. I will once again be teamed up with Seann Graddy, a Development Director who is now going to be in the “Project Lead” role, or Senior Producer. I’ve worked with Seann in the past on Madden NFL 06 and NFL Head Coach. I’ve always had great respect for Seann and I can’t wait to start my new role.

While putting together the presentation that I showed to the team, I put together a list of Football video games that I’ve played over the years. It was a little scary that I’ve been playing these games for almost 20 years now:

Anyway, I’m excited to be back on the NCAA Football team and the team has evolved over the last three years to a great team that I’m also excited to be a part of.