Courtesy al.com, EA SPORTS is visiting South Alabama this weekend as they begin prep work on adding the Jaguars to NCAA Football 14.

South Alabama may not be in the game just yet, as the EA Sports advertisement for its "NCAA Football 13'' game suggests, but EA Sports will be in Ladd-Peebles Stadium for the Jaguars' game Saturday against Nicholls State. In fact, the popular game company has been in the stadium since Thursday, collecting data, photographic and video scans and interviews for South Alabama's inclusion in the video game next year.

Due to "misinformation,'' according to site producer Ben Haumiller, the Jags were left out of this year's game, the only one of the 124 eligible Football Bowl Subdivision teams not to be included. When news reached South Alabama students and fans prior to the release of "NCAA Football 13,'' several requested the Jags be added to the game. It was too late to add USA to this year's game, but EA Sports offered to make it up to the school by providing extras for the Jags when they are added to the roster of teams in next year's game. ...

The start of the 2012-13 college football season is almost here! Before the season starts on Thursday night, make sure to sign up for The Gaming Tailgate's College Pick 'Em and College Football Challenge on ESPN.com.

To celebrate the start of the season, TGT will provide the week one winner (leader) for each fantasy game with a copy of the NCAA Football 13 Strategy Guide, courtesy of our friends at Prima.

Continue on for sign-up info for each fantasy game. ...

Madden NFL 13 will be available beginning Friday at 6 PM ET for EA SPORTS Season Ticket subscribers with the retail launch on August 28.

Highlighted by Connected Careers and the new Infinity Engine, Madden NFL 13 may be the most anticipated edition of the franchise in years. Once you play the game, share your thoughts and impressions on the game here with the community. ...

Chris Erb, EA SPORTS Vice President of Brand Marketing, tweeted the following earlier today:

"Unlock exclusive EA SPORTS @EANCAAFootball content on Reese's Cups! pic.twitter.com/xrZ0b1NJ"



UPDATE 8/21 - Continue on to see the complete list of prizes and contest rules. ...

The second NCAA Football 13 Game Update is now available on both XBL & PSN. While an early blog from NCAA Football Lead Producer Jason French detailed some of the improvements planned at that time, more game update details have been announced.

Continue on to read the full blog from French with added game update aspects italicized. After you download the update, share your thoughts here with the community. ...

Courtesy vgchartz.com, the first three weeks of sales for NCAA Football 13 are now available. Overall, sales are down 95,000 over the same period from a year ago. Despite the second-best PS3 launch in the franchise's history, the total is dragged down by the second-worst 360 launch. In a month that saw retail game sales down 20% over the year prior, NCAA Football 13 was still the top-selling game in July.

Why the decrease? There's likely numerous factors at hand, such as the economy, gamer burnout following their experience with NCAA Football 12, and/or a portion of the populace making NCAA Football a purchase every few years and no longer annually. In addition, some in the community have stated that they believe the game is becoming stale.

While NCAA Football 13 addressed some of the major complaints from 12 (namely the Online Dynasty 'Transfer Failed'), its wide feature set lacked the depth and/or changes to numerous game areas (Coaching Carousel, Custom Conferences, TeamBuilder, Practice Mode, Online Play, et al.) along with numerous bugs and annoyances still prevalent, including some legacy issues.

Fans who relied on reviews to base their purchase decision saw the game's metacritic score drop from the year before with many reviews repeating the theme of bugs and a lack of overall differential from previous iterations.

Continue on to see the first three-week sales numbers for the PlayStation 3 and X-Box 360 versions of NCAA Football. ...

The reviews are in for NCAA Football 13 and scores range from PlayStation: The Official Magazine's 90 to Destructoid's 55. The PlayStation 3 version of the game currently has a metacritic score of 82 with the X-Box 360 version scoring a 75.

The metacritic score for NCAA Football 13 likely does not sit well with EA, where the goal is a 90 rating or higher. In June, EA's senior VP of global eCommerce, David DeMartini stated "We have this bar that is set so high, so that whether it is any of our games or services, we want to be 90 plus Metacritic at everything." Here are the last three editions final metacritic average (for PS3 & 360): NCAA Football 10: 82, NCAA Football 11: 86, NCAA Football 12: 82

Continue on to see excerpts of NCAA Football 13 reviews and let us know which review(s) you feel are dead-on and any that are dead-wrong. Afterwards, vote in our poll to share your rating of NCAA Football 13. ...

The NCAA Football team is reaching out to the community once again and wants your help in gathering team reference details for possible inclusion in future editions of the game. After asking for info on band and cannon locations in the past (all properly placed in NCAA Football 13), they now want your help in learning all of the crowd chants for every FBS program. This list will be utilized as a checklist for the team as they travel on-campus to each program in the future to record crowd audio as they build upon the crowd chants and improved crowd audio added in NCAA Football 13.

Share your team - or any team you know - info in this thread. Links to media of the chant (YouTube video, MP3, etc.) or articles/references for each chant are welcome. Post the chant and - as important - when it typically is heard during each game.

Continue on to see an example of the desired information (school, chant, when it occurs) and to share your school's chant information. ...

NCAA Football 13 Lead Producer Jason French has released details on two game updates. The first update was available on July 31st and the second on August 15.

Game Update #1 is now available for X-Box 360 and PS3 users. If connected to XBL/PSN, simply starting the game will automatically prompt you to download the update.

Update 8/1 - A Tuner Pack has been released for both 360 and PS3 users. If connected to XBL/PSN, you'll be prompted if you would like to download it. In order to play any online games (Play Now or Online Dynasty), you'll be required to have this update. Details are immediately after the break.

Update 8/14 - The second NCAA Football 13 game update will be available on Wednesday, August 15.

Be sure to let us know any feedback regarding either the Title Update or the Tuner Pack.

Continue on to see details of the first two game updates as well as the 8/1 Tuner Pack. ...