Difficulty spike from Freshman to Varsity is frustrating

I just got this game a couple weeks ago, and while I've been enjoying it as a whole, I've had serious headaches with the different difficulty levels on RTG and Dynasty. Namely, I seem to be stuck between Freshman and Varsity, being far too good to play on the former and hopelessly bad when attempting the latter. The biggest issue is the passing game, which is a problem because I'm playing Dynasty mode as an Offensive Coordinator.

Here's my issue: when I play Freshman, all my receivers get massive separation, I have a clean pocket, and it's comically easy to just lob deep balls for 75 yard catch and runs on basically every possession. When I play Varsity, none of my players can get separation, the pass rush is immediately in my face, and if I do manage to get the ball to a receiver who seems to be in space a DB will pull some amazing maneuver to swat the ball out of the air or even pick it off. On Varsity, every opponent I play seems to have a backfield made up of Derwin James, Primetime, and Derek Stingley Jr.

I'm aware of and have made use of the gameplay sliders, but even when I set the CPU pass defense sliders to basically 0 they're still way more effective than they should be--I mean, the Akron Zips should not be putting up a no fly zone against Jeremiah Smith and Emeka Egbuka.

I am the first to admit I am not good at this game, but it's frustrating that I have to choose between playing boring, far too easy games and games that are so frustratingly difficult (for me) that they're more vexing than fun.

As a longtime FIFA player, EA sports games have always had this issue of massive difficulty spikes between levels, but at least in FIFA the difficulty spike doesn't come until the 4th or 5th level (Professional or World Class for most players), whereas for me on NCAA25 I'm getting dumped by the 2nd level.

Anyway, any tips for how a skill-deficient player like myself can make the game challenging but fair?