The next installment of EA Sports' NCAA Football will support an insanely detailed Create-a-School mode, called TeamBuilder. In fact, it's so complex it's being moved to EA's website and will not run in-game. Up to 12 of your creations can then be downloaded by the game and taken into games.

The tool is still running in beta, but its functional and works well. You can create a school in five minutes with logos and a custom field, but power users will want to put a few hours into creation. You'll be able to customize your school details, uniforms, stadium, field, roster, mascot, and more.

What’s really interesting about TeamBuilder since it’s not created on your console, or is console specific, means theoretically you’ll be able to bring your created team across platforms. Considering the data is hosted on EAs servers and can be imported as well as shared, the platform you’re playing the game on – PS3 or Xbox 360 – shouldn’t matter. While EA can’t confirm yet if this will be the case, it could be possible for you to go over to a friends house that has a different console and be able to import your created team.

Additionally, existing teams and stats can be imported into the creator. For example, if you wanted to go through and name all of the players for your team, you simply import the roster into the Create-a-School tool, add their names, and download the new team into your game. Sadly, it won't replace the team in the game itself. It'll be one of your created teams, but match the built-in team in every other aspect.

Uniform creation is especially powerful. You'll be able to upload two logos (large and small) in PNG format, which can be placed on the uniform along with stripes and other patterns. Almost every pattern from real uniforms are represented here. Colors are fully selectable and can even be matched to colors from your uploaded graphic. Helmets, jersey, pants, and shoes can all be customized separately, as well.

When it comes to the rosters, you'll be able to assign any ratings to your players. If you want to create a maxed-out all 99 team, you can. It's much more fun, however, to assign ratings to the real players at your college, high school, or middle school. Created teams will be usable in the game's Dynasty modes including Online. Make sure your friends are bringing balanced teams into the fray.



EA is planning to launch TeamBuilder before the game ships so players can start creating and sharing schools and have them ready to go when the game launches on July 14, 2009 for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game.