re: How many of you was EA's NCAA Football series play a pretty big role in childhood?

Another vote for '06 here. Soundtrack was awesome.

And it had a bug in recruiting where offering a guy and then taking it away counted as a pitch. This gave you basically unlimited pitch points and after a few weeks you'd start punching two or three levels above your weight. And once your prestige level got maxed out you were basically guaranteed 15-20 5* players every year.

I ended up simming entire seasons because I was just addicted to the recruiting. I remember one year in my Baylor dynasty I landed every single 5* plus the top-ranked player at each position that didn't have a 5* (K, P, and I think DL; 5* DLs were exceedingly rare in that game). I had half a dozen 5* QBs from just that class alone

Think I won 30 NCs in 60 years doing that. TAMU and SDSU were the other powerhouses. They'd be top 5 even with two or three losses. SDSU finished #2 going 7-4 one year

Love that game.