Having suspected that EA's default roster underrated the incoming freshmen for many iterations now, I decided to use the dynasty website's ability to download the entire roster to look at the actual numbers. I started an online dynasty with a default named roster, then simulated each year while grabbing the roster for each season. So far, I have gotten three subsequent years (2013,2014,205) of rosters to compare the default freshmen to their game-generated counterparts.
The results back up the feelings I had originally. The average top 5 freshman at each position is underrated by 3-4 points.
Top 6-10 is worse at 4-5 points underrated.
Top 11-20 is 3-4. 21-30 is 1-2. 31-40 is 1.
So what is happening during my dynasties is the freshmen on the roster rarely have a big impact and are routinely passed up by new recruits.
I also am going to look into the older underclassmen being underrated as well.
Excel file used to run the numbers: Roster Breakdown
I plan on continuing the simulation and gathering of subsequent years to see what the rosters look like once all of the default players have graduated. Hopefully, there is a roster editor who can use this information to make the default roster more comparable with the generated ones and allow some of this year's freshmen to make an impact during dynasties.
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