I think I'm missing something obvious. I enjoy the recruiting and offseason stuff the most and would prefer to sim most, if not all of the season. However, when my team's games come up, the game wants to take me into watch it. I've been just cancelling the watch before entering, then I uncheck the box on my schedule for the day. Then I'm able to sim past that particular game, but it makes simulating the season pretty tedious.

There has to be a way to change preferences where the default is to simulate your own games. Can anyone help me out with this?

Go to the far upper left of the screen. Click on the 3 horizontal lines. Go to Game Options. SImulation Options. Default to Simulating Human Games. Then go back to PLAY/Sim, Save, and you should be fine. You may have to uncheck the very first game but after that it will sim.