I have a plethoras of MP3 bits on my hard drive. Songs, musical melodies, comedy bits, stuff like that. One of the MP3's I have is an old comedy bit by Bill Cosby that talks about his old college football days, when his team was getting killed by literally every team that took them on. Then he talks about Hofstra, this big, bad football team that almost sounds like a bunch of nightmarish ghouls just taking the field and eating the astroturf. And in an attempt to get a score, things go disastrously wrong.

So what does that have to do with EA Sports' first next-gen football foray with the NCAA Football license? Well, oddly enough, they've built a game that's trying to tackle the franchise and be the next top dog and it doesn't even come close. For years now, EA's college football series has managed to maintain a strong grip on the market, prepping junkies of the sport for the following month's Madden releases, and it's gotten so big in its britches that everyone's been expecting NCAA Football 07 for the Xbox 360 to be this all-out touchdown-scoring affair. So it fights this uphill battle against its own juggernaut franchise, like Cosby's team against the demons at Hofstra.

And yet, it can't come through. There is some promise underlying in NCAA Football 07 that many will be glad to see, improvements on last year's Madden 06 engine that make better use of the Xbox 360 hardware. But that promise is buried by a few mistakes that show this is clearly a sophomoric effort, and not this latest and greatest entry in a series that has made a reputation for itself over the years.

Where shall we start? Well, I suppose we should tackle (there I go with the football puns) the in-depth modes featured in the game. You do have access to a Dynasty Mode that allows you to draft players and accustom your own team so you can create something along the lines of the Trojans' strengthened line-up, and get a slight taste of what management is about. But, as packed as it may be, it's a mere morsel compared to the Campus Legend and Race For the Heisman modes featured in other versions of the game, and it's questionable as to why they weren't included. If this is the prestigious NCAA product that EA wants this to be, then why didn't all the modes make the cut?

It bothers me that some other items were cut out as well. The create-a-school mode fails to appear, meaning that your hopes and dreams of building your ideal university will have to be realized on older hardware (although create-a-player is still present). The drills, featuring scrimmage and spring drills, are also gone, and replaced instead by three mini-games that are somewhat sad in comparison. I know they may seem minor to some people, but there are others who get a kick out of running drills, especially against others online.

The Dynasty Mode, which can span over a sixty-year career, is acceptable for those who would like to create their ideal team, and the three mini-games, consisting of Tug of War, Option Dash, and Bowling, can be fun for a little while, but, really, you're paying $10 extra for this game and to see it come up short in content is just a little sad. That's like paying for a steak, being able to pick out which cut of the meat you want, and then watching the chef burn it to the point that it's like edible charcoal. Even with the option to import your created player from this game to the forthcoming Madden 07, you feel a little cheated in the long run.

The gameplay makes up a little bit for this lack of depth, although not entirely. The game features some splendid passing and defensive moves, and actually does feel like a good game of football. It's mostly an improved version of what worked in Madden 06, but at least nothing was broken to the point that you can't snap off a pass for the game-winning touchdown or hold down the right trigger button to set yourself up on a wondrous sprint to the end-zone. Achievements that can add to your GamerScore push a bit as well. However, I really wish EA had done more with the punt-kicking system. They had a three-button press system that worked just fine by me, but, for this game, they re-invented it by using a kick system where you pull back on the analog stick and then push forward to pull off the kick, kind of like the club swing system that Tiger Woods used. The only problem is, it's not that accurate all the time, meaning that you'll be shanking some kicks as a result. And at a time when you have to keep the lead in a crucial game, it's probably not wise to have a punt only go a few yards instead of all the way down-field.

I also have to complain a bit about the newly added Momentum feature. Basically, you're able to build new-found energy upon the completion of key plays and give yourself the opportunity to be that much more a show-stopper. However, it can also work against you, and the AI can easily stack momentum in their favor as well. This would be a good system if it just had some balance to it, but it doesn't. Most of the time it just goes back and forth, sometimes questionably. Why, when I'm leading by four scores, would I see my momentum get sucked up because the other team scored a measly run-in? I just pretty much tried to ignore it, although since it's implemented with the main gameplay, I really can't. Sigh. It probably would've been best to have something along the likes of the GameBreaker system from NFL Street...even though this is nothing like that arcade-based effort. At least that would've been more functional.