Spring weather is finally here for most of us, although winter is still hanging on in a few places. That means spring break, March madness, and generally warmer temperatures are putting everyone in a good mood. That’s everyone except for me because I am dealing with my Economics class midterms. I even see economics formulas when I go to sleep at night. While I enjoy the nuances of studying poverty reduction methods using economic plans, there are other things that I enjoy much more about college.

That’s right y’all, I’m talking about college football. I’ve played quite a lot of EA Sports College Football 25 long since I reviewed it. But in addition to the action on the field, I really enjoy the backend of building up teams, recruiting players, and helping to find great talent that fits into each team’s overall strategy. College Football 25 has some of that, but to go into even more detail, I loaded up Football Coach: College Dynasty, which is available on Steam for just under $20. I was hoping that it would give me a great chance to get my football fix during the offseason.

And thankfully, I was mostly right. Football Coach: College Dynasty allows players to pick a school. There are no specific school names since they don’t have the license, so it’s normally just the name of a state, like Texas or California, but that is okay. We can imagine our favorite schools when playing. Players also get to pick a philosophy for how they want to craft a winning strategy, which is interesting.

As a proud WVU alum, I went with a West Virginia team. Then I picked a typical spread attack with a 3-4 defense as my plan and got to work recruiting. The user interface for Football Coach: College Dynasty is less than stellar. Let’s just say that it’s pretty awkward when you first see it, and it doesn’t have the most intuitive menu either. But I pushed through all that, made my initial scholarship offers, built up a good team, and then started my first college game with that team.

While I’m not someone who is obsessed with cutting edge graphics (I’ve played 782 hours and counting with the Football Manager series), but even so, Football Coach: College Dynasty was disappointing by my standards. You basically pick a play watch as a line moves a little bit across the screen. Essentially, it is the ESPN Gamecast but with some more choices. While the selection should make things strategic, without being able to watch a football game it’s kind of impossible to actually formulate a game plan. This reduces Football Coach: College Dynasty down to essentially a football themed guessing game.

This quickly dimmed my enjoyment and quite a bit of my excitement. The thing I like most about these Excel spreadsheets disguised as video games is the ability to develop a solid strategy. This reminds me of back when I reviewed Here Be Dragons from developer Red Zero Games. The gameplay was pretty much decided by dice rolls, with no real strategy. So, while I appreciated the effort put into bringing Football Coach: College Dynasty to life, I think it still has a ways to go before it gets embraced by mainstream players.

It almost felt like I was playing a mobile game from an app store, like something I would play while waiting in the doctor’s office or while totally pretending to work. I think I will hang up my active coaching with Football Coach: College Dynasty for now. Maybe the updates will help bring more excitement and improvements to it.

Now, I need to continue studying for my Economics midterm. Even if Football Coach: College Dynasty was a little bit of a bust (for now), it’s still springtime and there are lots of other things out there to enjoy.