As the topic says, I have zero interest in recruiting fictional players and playing multiple seasons. I'm only interest in current day, real players playing real schedules. I know there is a real world mod that allows you to do this, but is the gameplay good? In other words, does anyone else only play single seasons using real players?

Unfortunately, there's no real player mods out there. To do so would be a massive undertaking - literally thousands of players to enter the correct information and come up with ratings. What the Real World mod gives you is the names of the real coaches, teams, and logos (I don't believe the coaches have had their ratings adjusted to reflect real-life, but I could be wrong on that).

That means this game is definitely not for me. Thanks so much for the reply.