It’s Always The Same Old Story For Video Game Villains [Clips]

It doesn’t matter if you’re Bowser, Mother Brain, Dr. Eggman, Hitler, or Mike Tyson, the motivational speech is always the same, and it always gets you absolutely nowhere, as this CollegeHumor clip readily demonstrates. More

Plenty of Contractions, and a Lower Birth Rate in Sports Gaming [Stick Jockey]

Although hardly a shock, the demise of the NCAA Basketball series is still on some level surprising. It’s a publisher with an uncontested, major team sports title throwing in the towel, after all. NCAA Basketball was not a poor game, but nor was it exceptional, and as such it didn’t have either the sales figures or the motivated community to save it from the firing squad. But one thing I can’t get over is the feeling that sports gaming is in, if not its own recession, a rather stark period of contraction. Look at what’s been cut going back to 2008, when 2K Sports walked away from NCAA Basketball by discontinuing its superior College Hoops 2K series. Later in that year, EA Sports BIG effectively vanished . It had been a source of spinoff titles like the NBA and NFL Street series but hasn’t produced anything since 2008. Then last year, EA Sports confirmed it was no longer developing its NASCAR series , which ended in 2008 after a 12-year run. There are also serious questions that 2K Sports will continue its NHL series . It’s confirmed nothing. Meanwhile, sports simulation gaming on the Wii has turned out to be a very short lived concept. EA started the retreat by canceling its All-Play branding and axing Wii versions of NCAA Football and NBA Live, although FIFA and Madden did survive. 2K Sports, by designating NBA 2K11’s platforms as “TBA” has raised speculation that its one-year run on the Wii has come to an end. MLB 2K10 will release for that console, but it’s received practically no marketing and is probably through after this year too. Everyone seems to have found out that, for reality-based sports gameplay, this type of console is best suited to individual sports like tennis or golf. Then there were the spinoffs, titles meant to help a publisher reach audiences beyond the hardcore simmer, or getting other studios into the sports business without building a full-scale version. Management sims like NFL Head Coach and Front Office Manager had short lifespans. The niche overall appears to be headed for the downloadables market rather than continue as full retail releases. Finally, the PC is in a real transitional period, losing traditional boxed titles but gaining browser-based online games like FIFA and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. Madden last appeared on the PC in 2007. NBA 2K10 appeared on the PC last year but is not yet confirmed for this year. What could be the next to go? NBA Live is perhaps the biggest name. As sales become increasingly important, having a presence in a major team sport becomes less and less so. 2K Sports hired back Mike Wang, whom EA Sports lured away to its NBA Live team, and who is credited with much of that game’s improvement in the past year. But Wang’s departure was attributed to the philosophy differences with the team, and with 2K selling two million copies of NBA 2K10, Live probably has to justify itself this year or face the gallows. It still is listed for its customary October release in EA’s latest filing. Where does all that leave us now? No college basketball of any kind, a sport that commands an 11-year, $6 billion television contract. No motorsports series simulation. No meaningful PC presence. Only two consoles fully serving the genre. Exclusive agreements further limiting choices, and only one head-to-head competition in a major team sport on all consoles – NBA Live and NBA 2K. In 2004, the last year before EA Sports’ exclusive deal with the NFL, a turning point in the history of sports video games, I counted 30 licensed sports games – the big four North American team sports, soccer, tennis, golf, boxing/MMA, motorsports, pro wrestling – available on three consoles. In 2009, I counted 22 (add-ons like NBA Draft Combine or the March Madness edition of NCAA Basketball were not counted.) The number compares well, but bear in mind it includes the canceled Front Office Manager and NCAA Basketball, new releases like NHL 3 on 3 and Madden NFL Arcade that probably won’t get a second version this year, and titles like Fight Night Round 4 and Grand Slam Tennis that are not annual releases. Based on what we know now, I only count 14 for 2010, maybe 16 if the online versions of FIFA and PGA Tour are included, plus the World Cup edition of FIFA. None of this is meant to suggest publishers bear some kind of obligation to ramp up their production of sports titles. But it is a pretty clear indication that the landscape has changed significantly in the past two years with a bad economy only part of the picture. In some cases, we’re simply seeing the market at work. Bad or uninteresting titles don’t sell, and don’t get continued. But there are fewer choices overall, thanks to the era of exclusive licenses and the high barrier represented by development costs on the current generation. And, as NCAA Basketball found out, it’s a climate that can easily offer gamers fewer choices than the only one they had. Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 2 p.m. U.S. Mountain time.

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Plenty of Contractions, and a Lower Birth Rate in Sports Gaming [Stick Jockey]

Boston School Training The Next Video Game Composers [Music]

Composers working on video game soundtracks seem to either be veterans of game-making or TV/movie composers crashing the medium. Take note, then, of schools like Berklee Music College in Boston that just might train people to compose music for games. The Boston Globe reports: Berklee is offering five classes this semester in video game audio or game scoring. Sweet says his typical student is not only knowledgeable about state-of-the-art video games like Modern Warfare and BioShock but also has classroom experience in disciplines like sound production, voice acting, music technology, and film scoring. Versatility and familiarity are important. In writing for games, composers must anticipate and create cues for the various layers and levels a player passes through. Story lines and scenes change rapidly and unpredictably. As technology improves and memory space expands, moreover, these games have grown more sophisticated, visually and sonically. Players’ expectations rise accordingly, creating a demand for such elements as a full orchestral score. If you’re out there taking classes in video game scoring, let us know how it’s going. Why Berklee is teaching its students to compose scores for video games [Boston Globe]

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Boston School Training The Next Video Game Composers [Music]

This Lady Would Like To Be In Warcraft Movie [Hollywood]

Horror scream queen Michele Morrow has professed her desire to be in the upcoming Sam Raimi Warcraft film. Get in line, sister! As with Sean Young and the role of Catwoman or Freddie Prinz, Jr. and the role of Spider-Man, Morrow has announced that she would like to be in a big budget property. Morrow, star of films like Basement Jack , is eying the role of character Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, the leader of the Forsaken. She’s not only the star of low budget horror films, but also has some TV credits to her name (Female Prisoner #1 on The Young and the Restless and College Student on Alias). Like many other people, Marrow also plays World of Warcraft — she is a guild leader in World of Warcraft and currently taking on Saurfang Jr. in the Icecrown Citadel. And actually started playing WoW after a serious accident during the shooting of Basement Jack that left her in a neck brace for about a year. The actress tells game site IncGamers why she wants to be Lady Sylvanas Windrunner in the big budget, highly anticipated Warcraft movie from director Sam Raimi. “To be honest, I’d be happy to play any of the characters in the movie. But, Sylvanas… I love her because she’s determined. She’s insidious. She’s arrogant and spiteful, but you can’t really blame her. She’s very tortured. I love this imagination of her. She truly takes her own council.” Warcraft is poised to be a big film: domestically and internationally. It already has a big name director (Sam Raimi) and a big name screenwriter (Robert Rodat of Saving Private Ryan fame) is most likely to have big name actors. This is a big name film. Those big names will be signed for their acting ability and not their WoW ability. Granted, Sam Raimi got his start in horror, and his long time film editor still has close ties to horror — this could help her if she gets an audition. And if she does, then break a leg. Celebs Interested in the Warcraft Film: Michele Morrow Interview [IncGamers]

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This Lady Would Like To Be In Warcraft Movie [Hollywood]

What the Hell is in the Water in Barrie, Ont.? [Cougars]

Remember Barrie, Ontario? It’s the home of Brandon Crisp, who ran away after his console was confiscated , and was later found. It’s also home to a teenager who ran away to meet his 42-year-old “soulmate” from World of Warcraft . According to Toronto’s Globe and Mail, Andrew Kane, 16, “nonchalantly” asked his mom and dad if they would drive him to a motel where he would meet up with a woman who’d flown up from Texas to meet him. They weren’t too keen on that idea. So he went back upstairs to tell the woman – a mother of two – he couldn’t make the date. Mom and dad went back to check on him – at 2 a.m. – and lo and behold he was gone. Kane was missing for two days. The Globe and Mail, drolly identifiying Kane and Lauri Price, 42, as “the couple” were found Thursday in a store in a nearby town. Ms. Price said whoa-whoa-whoa he told me he was 20, but it doesn’t matter, 16 is the age of consent up in Canada anyway, so she’s not gonna face charges. The Globe and Mail has all of the creepy-creepy, as can only be supplied by two delusional lovebirds, one of whom got her college degree before the other was born. Obligatory game addiction mention, too. Teen Found After Meeting his 42-year-old Online ‘Soulmate’ [The Globe and Mail, Toronto] [ pic via ]

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What the Hell is in the Water in Barrie, Ont.? [Cougars]

The Sports Video Games of the Year [Stick Jockey]

In naming the best video games of the year, the sports genre is often left to fight over a single award. And as I’ve discussed before , one probably isn’t winning an overall game-of-the-year anytime soon. Realizing that sports games don’t usually contend outside of their classification, Stick Jockey ’s named an honor roll of nine awards within the sports game genre for 2009. Seven of them conform to awards offered elsewhere in video gaming. Two of them, Rookie of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year, might sound more familiar to real awards offered by some leagues, but they also recognize the annual nature of games produced in by this sector. While a game’s technical aspects and ability to execute were considered, more subjective qualities such as a title’s innovation, impact, and the size of the gaming population it served also came into play in judging a game’s worthiness. By no means were these the only good games made in the year 2009; but they are Stick Jockey’s choices representing the best the year had to offer. Best Presentation and Best Singleplayer: MLB 09 The Show (Sony Computer Entertainment America) The 32 ballparks of Major League Baseball provide a wonderful canvas to showcase a sports game’s visuals, and yet it was only the starting point for MLB 09 The Show. Abetted by such unique venues, and the pace of a sport that allows long looks at your surroundings, MLB 09 delivered a visual polish unmatched by any other sports game. More than any other game, MLB 09 The Show demonstrated how high-powered visuals aren’t just pretty to look at, but that they necessarily contribute to a game’s true-to-life realism and its ability to perfect a sports simulation. For a pure singleplayer experience, MLB 09’s Road to the Show again exceeded career modes in other sports, both in terms of the deep participation it offers in your player’s progression, and in a game experience better suited to playing as a individual than presently offered by soccer, football or basketball. Best Multiplayer: Madden NFL 10 (EA Sports) Madden, a mainstay of online sports gaming, delivered its first online franchise mode this year. While it lacked some customizable of the other game modes, it was a tremendous improvement over Madden 09’s online leagues. 2009 was not a particularly noteworthy year for multiplayer sports gaming – other titles trended toward innovation or execution, but not both. Given Madden’s stature as an online staple, all year long, this was the most value-added upgrade to a title’s multiplayer package and it lays a strong foundation for improvement in the next year. Best Indie Game: Avatar Golf (BarkersCrest) Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 was an unusual and very laudable effort , delivering simulation quality to a niche sport with a very passionate following. But for gameplay and overall appeal, nothing comes close to Avatar Golf by BarkersCrest Studios on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel. Just $5 delivers seven courses, three different tee lengths, playable with a full bag of clubs, and environmental effects – as your Xbox Live avatar, both singleplayer and online. If that’s not enough, it packaged an entire course editor and the ability to share those creations. For such a trivial price, Avatar Golf is hands down the biggest value in all of sports gaming for 2009. Comeback Player of the Year: NBA Live 10 (EA Sports) In many ways, Madden NFL 10 finally felt like the first game in that series worthy of the current generation of console. Madden also roams alone, with no other licensed competitor, so its improvement is welcome but shouldn’t get extra credit. That instead goes to NBA Live 10, which while it has its shortcomings, made professional basketball the only seriously contested licensed sports title this year. NBA Live 10 was distinguished by better passing, and the little things, like stronger atmospherics, commentary that adapts to season progression, and player-specific crowd reactions. This award does not mean NBA Live 10 is the best basketball game. It means it made that argument worth having again. Rookie of the Year and Best Individual Sports Game of the Year: UFC 2009 Undisputed (THQ) This mixed martial arts title wasn’t perfect, but it delivered immediate impact for a fast-growing sport underserved by video gaming’s mainstream. As a rookie, yes, there are few new IPs in this genre, and 2K Sports offered two – MLB Front Office Manager, and NBA 2K10 on the Wii. Neither had anywhere close to the impact of Undisputed, nor will they see 2010, whereas THQ has already booked a sequel for May. And UFC Undisputed’s upcoming rivalry with EA Sports MMA will be a key story of 2010. Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Fight Night Round 4 from EA Sports also were strong contenders in more traditional roles. But for fun, and for living up to the challenges posed by a new sport, Undisputed gets the nod. Best Team Sports Game and Sports Game of the Year: FIFA 10 (EA Sports) A striking 360-degree player motion upgrade helped make FIFA 10 the most lifelike simulation of game action in any team offering this year, no small order for a constantly flowing, moving and contested sport such as soccer. Its new Virtual Pro capability broke the accepted boundaries of created-player modes in other sims, essentially embedding yourself, the gamer, in the roster for use in all modes, with attendant player progression. Rather than completely reboot some major aspect of gameplay or control, EA Canada moved more to improve what was already a critical success from the year before. Subtle, but such confidence distinguishes a best-in-class sports simulation, and that’s what FIFA 10 is. Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 10 a.m. U.S. Mountain time.

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The Sports Video Games of the Year [Stick Jockey]

The Sports Video Games of the Year [Stick Jockey]

In naming the best video games of the year, the sports genre is often left to fight over a single award. And as I’ve discussed before , one probably isn’t winning an overall game-of-the-year anytime soon. Realizing that sports games don’t usually contend outside of their classification, Stick Jockey ’s named an honor roll of nine awards within the sports game genre for 2009. Seven of them conform to awards offered elsewhere in video gaming. Two of them, Rookie of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year, might sound more familiar to real awards offered by some leagues, but they also recognize the annual nature of games produced in by this sector. While a game’s technical aspects and ability to execute were considered, more subjective qualities such as a title’s innovation, impact, and the size of the gaming population it served also came into play in judging a game’s worthiness. By no means were these the only good games made in the year 2009; but they are Stick Jockey’s choices representing the best the year had to offer. Best Presentation and Best Singleplayer: MLB 09 The Show (Sony Computer Entertainment America) The 32 ballparks of Major League Baseball provide a wonderful canvas to showcase a sports game’s visuals, and yet it was only the starting point for MLB 09 The Show. Abetted by such unique venues, and the pace of a sport that allows long looks at your surroundings, MLB 09 delivered a visual polish unmatched by any other sports game. More than any other game, MLB 09 The Show demonstrated how high-powered visuals aren’t just pretty to look at, but that they necessarily contribute to a game’s true-to-life realism and its ability to perfect a sports simulation. For a pure singleplayer experience, MLB 09’s Road to the Show again exceeded career modes in other sports, both in terms of the deep participation it offers in your player’s progression, and in a game experience better suited to playing as a individual than presently offered by soccer, football or basketball. Best Multiplayer: Madden NFL 10 (EA Sports) Madden, a mainstay of online sports gaming, delivered its first online franchise mode this year. While it lacked some customizable of the other game modes, it was a tremendous improvement over Madden 09’s online leagues. 2009 was not a particularly noteworthy year for multiplayer sports gaming – other titles trended toward innovation or execution, but not both. Given Madden’s stature as an online staple, all year long, this was the most value-added upgrade to a title’s multiplayer package and it lays a strong foundation for improvement in the next year. Best Indie Game: Avatar Golf (BarkersCrest) Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 was an unusual and very laudable effort , delivering simulation quality to a niche sport with a very passionate following. But for gameplay and overall appeal, nothing comes close to Avatar Golf by BarkersCrest Studios on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel. Just $5 delivers seven courses, three different tee lengths, playable with a full bag of clubs, and environmental effects – as your Xbox Live avatar, both singleplayer and online. If that’s not enough, it packaged an entire course editor and the ability to share those creations. For such a trivial price, Avatar Golf is hands down the biggest value in all of sports gaming for 2009. Comeback Player of the Year: NBA Live 10 (EA Sports) In many ways, Madden NFL 10 finally felt like the first game in that series worthy of the current generation of console. Madden also roams alone, with no other licensed competitor, so its improvement is welcome but shouldn’t get extra credit. That instead goes to NBA Live 10, which while it has its shortcomings, made professional basketball the only seriously contested licensed sports title this year. NBA Live 10 was distinguished by better passing, and the little things, like stronger atmospherics, commentary that adapts to season progression, and player-specific crowd reactions. This award does not mean NBA Live 10 is the best basketball game. It means it made that argument worth having again. Rookie of the Year and Best Individual Sports Game of the Year: UFC 2009 Undisputed (THQ) This mixed martial arts title wasn’t perfect, but it delivered immediate impact for a fast-growing sport underserved by video gaming’s mainstream. As a rookie, yes, there are few new IPs in this genre, and 2K Sports offered two – MLB Front Office Manager, and NBA 2K10 on the Wii. Neither had anywhere close to the impact of Undisputed, nor will they see 2010, whereas THQ has already booked a sequel for May. And UFC Undisputed’s upcoming rivalry with EA Sports MMA will be a key story of 2010. Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Fight Night Round 4 from EA Sports also were strong contenders in more traditional roles. But for fun, and for living up to the challenges posed by a new sport, Undisputed gets the nod. Best Team Sports Game and Sports Game of the Year: FIFA 10 (EA Sports) A striking 360-degree player motion upgrade helped make FIFA 10 the most lifelike simulation of game action in any team offering this year, no small order for a constantly flowing, moving and contested sport such as soccer. Its new Virtual Pro capability broke the accepted boundaries of created-player modes in other sims, essentially embedding yourself, the gamer, in the roster for use in all modes, with attendant player progression. Rather than completely reboot some major aspect of gameplay or control, EA Canada moved more to improve what was already a critical success from the year before. Subtle, but such confidence distinguishes a best-in-class sports simulation, and that’s what FIFA 10 is. Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 10 a.m. U.S. Mountain time.

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The Sports Video Games of the Year [Stick Jockey]

The 2010 Video Game Bowl — and Playoff — Spectacular [Stick Jockey]

Do you want a college football playoff? Do you love the tradition of a New Year’s Day packed with A-list bowls? You can have both, as shown by Stick Jockey ’s video game simulation of a 16-team tournament – and 27 bowls. Warning: This is a very long column. There are more than 40 games described below. I’ve highlighted the playoff results in yellow if that’s what you’re really interested in. One of the most false debating points in the college football playoff argument is the idea that somehow the bowls diminish a playoff, or vice versa. I maintain that the bowl postseason should be preserved, running alongside a meritorious, 16-team playoff inviting the champion of every conference. The bowls – the better ones, anyway – have a majesty that far surpasses any “football NIT” label some think they’d acquire if the NCAA implemented a Division I football playoff. My idea is that, while a game like the Orange Bowl may not prefer a pairing of conference runner-ups, provided the sides are appropriately matched the games can be no less memorable. The bowls relentlessly tout their tradition, but forget that tradition, until the early 1990s, felt no obligation to help determine a national champion. And for a sporting culture so built on haves and have-nots, a holiday-based bowl structure as a consolation prize offers a much more meaningful postseason “reward,” as one of the talking points always describes the bowls, to teams that rarely, or have never visited fabled venues like the Sugar or the Cotton, rather than sending them to Birmingham to play in an advertisement for Papa John’s. The bowls have a great value. But they have no place in determining a national champion. The Bowl Championship Series is the most meritless selection of a champion in major sports in the entire world. Worse than boxing. Worse than international soccer’s reputation for draw-rigging and other shenanigans. The Bowl Championship Series is a system that is built on backroom dishonesty, not one exploited by it. And it’s almost proud to announce it up front. Well, not in the reality I control, which is NCAA Football 10 , my most favorite model railroad of sporting sims. So this week I set up a 16-team playoff, and then painstakingly redrew the bowls as close to their existing conference ties as the pool of eligible teams would allow. For an eloquent argument in favor of a 16-team playoff, and the legitimacy that comes from inviting every Division I conference champion, I encourage you to read Dan Wetzel’s recent column for Yahoo! Sports . To it, I’d only add that teams like Troy are either major college football participants or they’re not. It’s not a self-declared thing. The NCAA admitted these teams to the highest level. But the comments and behavior of BCS conferences and the bowl committees hellbent on dividing the pie for the fattest do more to diminish a football program like East Carolina than the quality of the Pirates’ schedule ever does. Alright, here’s the backstory of what happened in my reality this week. After creating this 16-team playoff, the NCAA made one demand and one concession. All bowls had to be completed before national title game. In return, the NCAA would never schedule a playoff game on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1. (or Dec. 24 or Dec. 25, for that matter). The larger bowls, cutting their own TV deals, then began a run back to traditional New Year’s and New Year’s Eve dates, bringing us back to the days of the Rose, Cotton, Sugar and Orange, all on the same day. The championship game was booked for San Diego, largely because the city has a strong track record hosting Super Bowls, and because it’s not home to any of the (very likely pissed off) former BCS bowls. And also because Qualcomm Stadium is an available venue in NCAA Football 10. The football playoff seeding was then handed to an NCAA committee much like the one that handles the basketball bracket. The seeding considered mathematical formulae but, ultimately, it was a human decision, the same as the basketball tournament. Since everyone is so fired up about protecting the sanctity of the regular season games, I made a rule that no at-large team may host an opening round game. Yes, that effectively seeds a team like Florida ninth. It also turns the eighth-seed into a seat of death (likely facing an at-large team that is seeded artificially lower, and then the tournament No. 1 if they win) but, dammit, this is football. It’s hard. We can’t pave everyone’s way to the semifinals, and a seeding reflects how many games a team is expected to win. Without the rule, this eight seed would drop at least one spot lower, which means it is expected to lose in the first round, anyway. Instead, an eight-seed under this rule gets a game at home – against a difficult opponent, sure – but also the advantage and, more importantly, revenue, of just such a date. I still expect Georgia Tech to hate me for this. Anyway, following the Big XII championship game on Dec. 5, my seeding committee met and selected the following teams: (1) Alabama (2) Texas (3) Cincinnati (4) TCU (5) Boise State (6) Oregon (7) Ohio State (8) Georgia Tech (9) Florida (10) Virginia Tech (11) Iowa (12) Brigham Young (13) LSU (14) Central Michigan (15) East Carolina (16) Troy BYU provides the only selection controversy, bumping Penn State. Both teams are 10-2. Brigham Young had a greater strength of schedule in the Sagarin Ratings and, although the victory doesn’t look as good now, the Cougars’ victory over then-No. 5 Oklahoma to begin the season was a mammoth upset. BYU also gutted out a victory over a ranked Utah to end the year. Penn State did not defeat a human-ranked team all year; did not beat any team that finished in Sagarin’s top 30; lost badly to Iowa and Ohio State at home; played the definition of a cupcake non-conference schedule and didn’t do a damn thing except start the season ranked high. Plus, the Nittany Lions finished a decisive third, and the Big Ten is a good conference, but it’s not three-teams good. That’s the SEC, and LSU is the third team. If I would not take Penn State over BYU, I definitely would not take it over LSU. Brigham Young also was seeded ahead of LSU to avoid an opening-round rematch of conference opponents. These rematches are unavoidable elsewhere on the bracket, but it can be controlled here. I’m aware that Alabama and Florida will likely rematch in the second round, three weeks after their SEC title game. I prefer – and therefore my committee prefers – that such a meeting take place there rather than in the national championship. The bowls were then free to invite any .500 or better, six-Division I win team, absent the ones above. Of course this means there are more bowls than can host eligible teams. Six died: the Poinsettia, Meineke Car Care, Little Caesars, Texas, Armed Forces and PapaJohns.com. Lots of horsetrading was involved as the minor bowls scrambled to fill slots. Ultimately, the free market prevailed. The total payout lost with the death of these six: $8.2 million. I think the conferences can spend their share of $8.2 million to reap a much larger slice of a nine-figure television contract for a football playoff. With all that out of the way, here are all the games – 27 bowls and 15 playoff games – simulated on NCAA Football 10 using the roster and depth chart written by RomanCaesar from Operation Sports. The games are presented in the order they were played on the calendar. I do not claim that this is a scientific simulation. These games were played once. A simulation for accuracy would require a much larger sample size and more finely tuned sim settings. The games were played with nine-minute quarters to hold down garish scoring and statistical performances. That also skewed a lot of the results to down-to-the-wire finishes. Dec. 18 at St. Petersburg, Fla. St. Petersburg Bowl South Florida (Big East, 7-5) vs. Central Florida (Conference USA, 8-4) These two Sunshine State up-and-comers did not play their rivalry game this year, so they meet here. USF holds on, 21-17. at Albuquerque, N.M. New Mexico Bowl Wyoming (Mountain West, 6-6) vs. Fresno State (WAC, 8-4) This pairing is one of a few drawn up that reflect real life. Fresno blasts the Cowboys 55-27 behind 151 yards rushing and two touchdowns by Ryan Mathews. Dec. 19 NCAA Division I Football Championship First Round (seedings in parentheses) Noon games: (16) Troy (Sun Belt champion, 9-3) at (1) Alabama (SEC champion, 13-0) Alabama only leads 24-20 at the half, stoking huge upset interest. But Heisman winner Mark Ingram breaks a 74-yard touchdown run to open the third quarter, en route to a 52-27 first round win for the Crimson Tide. (15) East Carolina (Conference USA champion, 9-4) at (2) Texas (Big XII champion, 13-0) Absolutely zero drama here. Texas annihilates East Carolina 52-0. (14) No. 25 Central Michigan (MAC champion, 11-2) vs. (3) Cincinnati (Big East champion, 12-0) The fearless Chippewas open with a come-into-the-room-honey 10-point lead early in the second quarter. But Cinderella fantasies prove premature, and the Bearcats respond with 35 unanswered points to win 45-24, behind six touchdowns from quarterback Tony Pike. 2 p.m. games: (10) Virginia Tech (at-large, 9-3 ACC) at (7) Ohio State (Big Ten champion, 10-2) The first nailbiter of the playoff. Ohio State leads 26-21 after a touchdown and failed two-point PAT. Virginia Tech faces third-and-18 from their own nine, but the Hokies’ Tyrod Taylor responds with a 35-yard bomb to get a fresh set of downs and great field position. VPI scores but also misses its two-point attempt, and leads 27-26. Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor finds Ray Small for a 20 yard gain on 4th and five from the Buckeyes’ 42 with 1:09 left, then hits DeVier Posey for a 26-yard gain to get down to Virginia Tech’s 8. Aaron Pettrey hits the 25-yard field goal for the 29-27 win. (9) Florida (at-large, 12-1 SEC) at (8) Georgia Tech (ACC champion, 11-2) Florida coasts 43-3 in the playoff’s first upset 43-3 – in name only – holding Tech’s Jonathan Dwyer and Josh Nesbitt to 85 yards rushing combined. 4 p.m. games: (11) Iowa (at large, 10-2 Big Ten) at (6) Oregon (Pac-10 champion, 10-2) Another blowout victory, 41-15 for Oregon. The Ducks pile up 507 yards of offense and clamp down on Iowa, holding the Hawkeyes to 283 yards of offense. Oregon’s LaMichael James gets only 79 yards rushing, but adds 107 receiving and even throws a touchdown pass. (12) Brigham Young (at-large, 10-2 Mountain West) at (5) Boise State (WAC champion, 13-0) Trailing 38-26 late in the fourth, a miracle 85-yard run by the Broncos’ Jeremy Avery with 5:22 left makes it 38-33. The Cougars respond with a quick field goal, pushing the lead to eight and giving the Broncos one more drive. Kellen Moore’s eight yard out pattern to Austin Pettis on fourth down from their own 44 keeps the Broncos in business. They reach BYU’s 17 and throw three incompletions before Moore hits tight end Tommy Gallarda to make it 41-39 with 35 seconds left. But Moore’s two-point conversion pass to wideout Tyler Shoemaker is no good. The onside attempt fails, and Brigham Young provides the prototypical 12-5 upset we expect in the college basketball bracket. 8 p.m. game: (13) LSU (at-large, 9-3 SEC) at (4) Texas Christian (Mountain West champion, 12-0) The primetime matchup explodes into one of the greatest games ever played in the history of college football. TCU gets out to a 28-10 lead at the half and then LSU puts it in gear, shrewdly making a two-point conversion in the third quarter en route to 25 unanswered points and a 35-28 lead with 1:17 left. TCU gets a 24 yard kickoff return, a 15-yard pass interference call, a 14-yard pickup on 3rd and 1 from LSU’s 22, and ultimately an 8-yard touchdown strike from Andy Dalton to Jimmy Young with four seconds left to send the game to overtime. Both sides trade touchdowns in the first two overtime periods. In the third, LSU cracks, settling for a 46-yard field goal. On third down of their final possession, the Horned Frogs’ Joseph Turner shoves two defenders to the ground on the way to a 17-yard touchdown run and the win, 55-52, in triple overtime. Delirious TCU fans rip down the goalposts, forgetting they will need them the next week. Dec. 22 at Las Vegas Las Vegas Bowl: No. 23 Utah (Mountain West, 9-3) vs. UCLA (Pac-10, 6-6) This kind of matchup proves how a playoff would improve the bowls. In real life, this game brings a school with fans who don’t travel (Oregon State) to Las Vegas to face one whose alumni don’t drink or fornicate (Brigham Young). Under my system, we’d have Utah and UCLA. Great attendance, and indeed a great game. UCLA triumphs 28-25 in a rare bowl overtime. at New Orleans New Orleans Bowl: Southern Mississippi (Conference USA, 7-5) vs. Middle Tennessee State (Sun Belt, 9-3) Another real-life pairing. MTSU is probably the best nine-victory team no one’s ever seen. For a reason. Senior halfback Damion Fletcher carries the day for Southern Mississippi, 167 yards and three touchdowns in a 28-9 snorefest. Dec. 24 at Honolulu Hawaii Bowl: Nevada (WAC, 8-4) vs. SMU (Conference USA, 7-5) Yet another real-life draw. June Jones returns to the 50th State for SMU’s first bowl appearance since the NCAA leveled the infamous Death Penalty in 1986. Hawaii rolls 41-13 as the Mustangs stumble to just 178 yards of total offense. Dec. 26 NCAA Division I Football Championship Second Round Noon games: (7) Ohio State at (2) Texas The Longhorns take a 21-3 lead after the first quarter and never look back, winning 45-17. Terrelle Pryor is intercepted three times, sacked four, and throws no touchdowns. Colt McCoy, meantime, tosses four. (6) Oregon at (3) Cincinnati Oregon, leading 20-17, misses a 46-yard field goal to open the fourth quarter. Cincinnati responds with a 71-yard, 14-play drive and a 24-20 advantage. The Ducks take over on their 20 with 1:27 left, getting to the Cincinnati 13 with no timeouts left. Jeremiah Masoli spikes the ball, then on fourth down finds D.J. Davis for a touchdown with 14 seconds left and a thrilling 27-24 victory. 4 p.m. game: (12) Brigham Young at (4) TCU TCU connects on a field goal at the beginning of the fourth quarter and leads 17-13. Later, a disastrous, shanked punt gives the Horned Frogs the ball on BYU’s 35 with 5 minutes to play. The key play comes on 4th and 2 from the Cougars’ 13; TCU elects to go for it, makes it, and Joseph Turner ultimately scores the decisive two-yard touchdown. The Frogs need it, as Brigham Young responds with a desperation touchdown and converts the two-point try but can’t recover the onsides kick. TCU wins another thriller, 24-21. 8 p.m. game: (9) Florida at (1) Alabama The day’s second rematch of conference titleists with runners-up. This dazzler features seven lead changes and a finish even more amazing than the TCU-LSU epic of a week before. Trailing 28-24 with the ball at midfield, Tim Tebow fumbles the snap, falls on it, then converts third-and-18 with a 33-yard bomb to Riley Cooper, and ultimately Tebow carries in a four-yard touchdown himself for the 31-28 lead. Alabama gets the ball back with three minutes left and all its timeouts. Quarterback Greg McElroy throws three straight incompletions and is sacked on fourth-and-ten from Alabama’s 27, apparently sealing Florida’s victory. But the Crimson Tide use all of their timeouts, force Florida to kick a field goal, and get the ball back with 1:05 remaining. A miracle 68-yard bomb from McElroy to Julio Jones with 21 seconds left absolutely detonates Bryant-Denny Stadium. Jones has three touchdowns, 175 yards receiving, and never has to pay for a drink in Tuscaloosa the rest of his life. Dec. 27 at Tempe, Ariz. Insight Bowl: Iowa State (Big XII, 6-6) vs. Air Force (Mountain West, 7-5) With two teams going to the playoff, the Big Ten ran out of bowl-eligible teams to send to this game. So I yanked the Zoomies from the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth and sent them to Arizona, home of a more established, higher-paying midlevel bowl. Air Force salts the game away in the fourth quarter when defensive back Anthony Wright returns an interception for a touchdown and the final 35-18 margin. Dec. 27 at San Francisco Emerald Bowl: Navy (9-4) vs. California (Pac-10, 8-4) Cal and its fans get a short trip across the Bay Bridge, assuming it’s functioning. Navy gets a nice holiday in a town with a strong seapower tradition. Jahvid Best, back from his scary injury against Oregon State on Nov. 7, gets 138 yards and three touchdowns. the Bears romp 48-17 in a game not even half as close. Dec. 28 at Orlando, Fla. Champs Sports Bowl: No. 14 Miami (ACC, 9-3) vs. Michigan State (Big Ten, 6-6) ACC schools are not picked by finish and to a bowl committee, Miami – outside of the Orange Bowl or a national title game – is a money-losing disaster. That’s why the Hurricanes fell so far here, but the good news is they stay close to home. Michigan State has the kind of fans who are delighted to go to Disney World for the holidays and call that the biggest thing they’ve done all year. I’m not sure I believe this result myself, but the Spartans trail 21-7 early before scoring 27 unanswered points and coasting to a 48-24 win. Miami’s Jacory Harris is intercepted four times. Dec. 29 at Washington EagleBank Bowl: Northern Illinois (MAC, 7-5) vs. Louisiana-Monroe (Sun Belt, 6-6) Lacking enough participants from its tie in conferences, this new bowl survives only because it pays (Dr. Evil voice) one million dollars. Unfortunately, it’s getting the least desirable matchup – UL-M isn’t even going to a bowl in real life. But the Warhawks give a great show, winning 33-26 when Trey Revell and Luther Ambrose hook up on a 30-yard touchdown pass with four seconds left. Dec. 30 at Boise, Idaho Humanitarian Bowl: Bowling Green (MAC, 7-5) vs. Idaho (WAC, 7-5) Boise State isn’t the only school that can go out guns blazing on the Smurf turf. Bowling Green and Idaho combine for more than 1,000 yards of offense – 433 of that from Idaho quarterback Nathan Enderle’s arm – as the Vandals win a 44-42 track meet on a field goal with 1:56 left. Dec. 31: at Nashville, Tenn. Music City Bowl: Boston College (ACC, 8-4) vs. Kentucky (SEC, 7-5) As a bowl attraction, Boston College is an even bigger disaster than Miami. BC can’t even sell out its own stadium in the regular season. But at least Nashville’s chamber of commerce gets Kentucky, whose fans regularly go to Tennessee to get their asses kicked without complaint. BC obliges, 35-17. at Shreveport, La. Independence Bowl: Kansas State (Big XII, 6-6) vs. Rutgers (Big East, 8-4) With the SEC exhausting its bowl-eligible members, I shipped over Rutgers from the Meineke Bowl, owing to the fact the Independence has been around longer, pays more, and enough time has passed since it was known as the Weedwhacker Bowl. Rutgers freshman Tom Savage tosses a bowl record six touchdowns in a 47-10 blowout. at Atlanta Chick-Fil-A Bowl: North Carolina (ACC, 8-4) vs. Georgia (SEC, 7-5) I have to say, for the realism of matchups, I’m proudest of this one. The Chick-Fil-A, formerly the Peach, loves teams from the Old North State. And who better to play in Atlanta than the Georgia Bulldogs? Plus both schools can settle that technical dispute regarding America’s oldest public university. For the record, it’s UNC, which also wins 35-17. at El Paso, Texas Sun Bowl: Texas A&M (Big XII, 6-6) vs. USC (Pac-10, 8-4) Brut smells like a man, and in El Paso, the Aggies smell like an armpit, losing 38-13 in a sim that probably did not account for USC’s nosedive this year. at Jacksonville, Fla. Gator Bowl: Florida State (ACC, 6-6) vs. Pittsburgh (Big East, 9-3) The Gator wants to give Bobby Bowden a gold watch? Fine. They can take the 6-6 Seminoles over more deserving ACC teams for this one, too. It’s not like Jacksonville’s gonna sell out this stadium on Sundays. The Panthers hold on 37-31 thanks to 136 yards and four TDs – two of them receiving – by freshman back Dion Lewis. at San Diego Holiday Bowl: Texas Tech (Big XII, 8-4) vs. No. 16 Oregon State (Pac-10, 8-4) Unfortunately for Oregon State, Lubbock isn’t the only city where Beavers get the Raider Rash. OSU loses 23-19 when, from Tech’s 23, Sean Canfield can’t hit James Rodgers on a fade as time expires. Jan. 1 at Orlando, Fla. Capital One Bowl: No. 24 Wisconsin (Big Ten, 9-3) vs. Tennessee (SEC, 7-5) This one is formerly known as the Citrus – which as Steve Spurrier reminds us, can’t be spelled without the UT. Tennessee gets the ball on its 20 with 2:45 left, tied a 24. Jonathan Crompton passes of 14, 16 and 20 yards get Tennessee into kicking range, and Daniel Lincoln’s 42-yard boot, after missing two previously from shorter distances, provides the 27-24 victory. at Tampa, Fla. Outback Bowl: Northwestern (Big Ten, 8-4) vs. Auburn (SEC, 7-5) The most major bowl reflecting real life in this simulation, Auburn trails 31-13 early in the third before charging back with 28 unanswered to win 41-31. Tigers halfback Ben Tate helps carry the load with 105 yards and two second-half scores. at Dallas Cotton Bowl: Oklahoma (Big XII, 7-5) vs. Arkansas (SEC, 7-5) The shooting gallery seesaw begins late in the third with Broderick Green’s 60 yard catch-and-run to get Arkansas on top 38-34. Oklahoma hits a 47-yard field goal to draw to 38-37 early in the fourth. Quarterback Ryan Mallett and the Razorbacks storm back with an 11-play, 81-yard drive, 63 of it by air, to lead 45-37 with six minutes to play. Oklahoma stitches together an-eight play, 82-yard drive, and knots the game on a PAT pass from Landry Jones to Dejuan Miller with five minutes to go. Holding Arkansas to a three-and-out, Oklahoma goes back to work from its six, picking up passes of 18, 27, and 34 yards, and rumbling the final 10 to lead 52-45. Mallett gets one last drive, however, bringing the Hogs to the Sooners’ 22 with eight seconds left, where he is intercepted by linebacker Travis Lewis to seal the game. Mallett’s inhuman 485 yards passing is easily a Cotton Bowl record. at Miami Orange Bowl: Clemson (ACC, 8-5) vs. No. 20 Nebraska (Big XII, 9-4) By virtue of its tie-in with the ACC, the Orange has been the de facto Kids’ Table of the BCS for much of this decade, including a Wake Forest-Louisville matchup in 2007 that should have been broadcast by Raycom. But here the Orange returns to its old Big Eight roots to invite Nebraska, pairing the Cornhuskers with Clemson in a matchup recalling 1982, Tom Osborne and Danny Ford, and the Tigers’ only national championship. Clemson’s C.J. Spiller starts the game with an Orange Bowl record 82-yard run from scrimmage for a touchdown as the Tigers sprint to a 21-7 lead by the half. Nebraska rallies to a 28-28 tie, then goes for it on 4th and 1 from their own 35 with 6 minutes left in the fourth – and fumbles. Spiller’s ensuing 7-yard touchdown grab out of the backfield from Kyle Parker provides the final margin, 35-28. at New Orleans Sugar Bowl: No. 18 West Virginia (Big East, 9-3) vs. Ole Miss (SEC, 8-4) After the SEC sent three teams to the playoffs, the bowls were left with an 8-4 Ole Miss, and a bunch of 7-5 teams. So the Rebels visit New Orleans for another A-list nailbiter. West Virginia scores 21 fourth quarter points to take a 35-28 lead. With three minutes remaining, Ole Miss begins driving from its 24, surviving a 3rd-and-18 with a 27-yard hookup from Jevean Snead to Shay Hodge. The drive gets down to West Virginia’s 6 with 1:01 left but sophomore Brandon Bolden drops Snead’s bullet in the end zone, and the Mountaineers hang on for the trophy. at Pasadena, Calif. Rose Bowl: No. 11 Penn State (Big Ten, 10-2) vs. No. 22 Arizona (Pac-10, 8-4) This one is indeed the granddaddy of the day. Trailing 27-20, facing 4th and 10 from Arizona’s 25 with less than four minutes remaining in the fourth, the Nittany Lions’ Daryll Clark hits wideout Derek Moye for a 16 yard gain to keep the drive alive. Then Evan Royster rumbles in from nine yards out to tie the game at 27 with 2:37 left. Arizona quarterback Nick Foles opens the next possession with completions of 11 and 14 yards but, facing 4th and 1 from the 50 – what an agonizing decision this had to be – the Wildcats opt to punt, pinning Penn State on their own 13 with 1:13 to play. On third and 15 his own 34, Clark hits Graham Zug for a 35 yard gain down to the Wildcat 29, and then three rushes by Royster reach paydirt, providing the final margin, 34-27, with 14 seconds to go. Fourteen points in four minutes, 17 in the fourth quarter, and an absolute double-dragon-kick-to-the-nutsack defeat for Arizona in its first-ever Rose appearance. Jan. 2 NCAA Division I Football Championship National Semifinals 4 p.m. game (4) TCU at (1) Alabama Alabama nails a 44-yard field goal at the end of the first half to take a 13-10 lead, then late in the third quarter goes 77 yards – the last 31 of it on seven straight carries by Mark Ingram – to go up 20-10. Alabama coffin-corners a punt, pinning TCU on its two midway through the fourth quarter, then Justin Woodall intercepts Andy Dalton and returns it for a touchdown. TCU does respond with an 11 play scoring drive, but can’t recover an onsides kick, trailing by 10. An Alabama field goal ices the game 30-17. Mark Ingram rushes for 208 yards a playoff record. But then, everything is this year. 8 p.m. game (6) Oregon at (2) Texas Texas does not get beyond the 50-yard line in the entire first half as Oregon races to a 24-7 lead. Eddie Pleasant intercepts Colt McCoy on the Texas 27, and a 12-yard swing pass to the redeemed LeGarrette Blount gives Oregon the 31-10 advantage late in the third quarter. Texas responds with consecutive 80 yard drives to draw within seven, then recovers a LaMichael James fumble at the Oregon 18 with 2:11 left. But McCoy immediately tosses an interception, picked off by Spencer Paysinger, to cement the Ducks’ 31-24 upset. Jan. 4 at Toronto International Bowl: Temple (MAC, 9-3) vs. Connecticut (Big East, 7-5) This game would be much better if it were Jim Calhoun and the Huskies back in the day facing John Chaney’s Owls on the hardwood in Philadelphia. Instead, these two meet on a gridiron in Canada, with UConn winning 31-28. at Mobile, Ala. GMAC Bowl: Ohio (MAC, 9-4) vs. Marshall (Conference USA, 6-6) This game survives because of its MAC tie-in, but it had to drag over Marshall as a replacement, absent any ACC participant. Fortunately, it restores the Bobcats- Hundering Turd Thundering Herd rivalry. They last played in 2004, when both were members of the MAC. Marshall wins here, 31-24. at San Antonio Alamo Bowl: Minnesota (Big 10, 6-6) vs. Missouri (Big XII, 8-4) Another seesaw battle sees Minnesota upend favored Mizzou 35-31 with a 63-yard drive at the end of the game. The Tigers waste 330 yards from quarterback Blaine Gabbert, who also tosses two interceptions. at Memphis, Tenn. Liberty Bowl: Houston (Conference USA, 10-3) vs. South Carolina (SEC, 7-5) South Carolina’s defense gets Houston down 17-0 early, but Case Keenum and the high-powered Cougars come storming back for a 45-34 win that isn’t that close. Keenum tosses five touchdowns, two to Tyron Carrier, who also has 175 yards. at Glendale, Ariz. Fiesta Bowl: No. 19 Stanford (Pac-10, 8-4) vs. No. 21 Oklahoma State (Big XII, 9-3) As the wild card of the major bowls, the Fiesta schedules itself after New Year’s Day, and picks Oklahoma State for proximity and Stanford for the star power of Heisman runner-up Toby Gerhart. The Cardinal lead 16-14 at halftime, but the Cowboys pull away for a 35-16 win. Gerhart gets 116 yards rushing but no touchdowns. Jan. 9 NCAA Division I Football Championship National Final at San Diego, Calif. (6) Oregon vs. (1) Alabama Alabama punts on its first three possessions. Oregon scores on its first three, on the way to a 28-7 halftime lead. The Crimson Tide draw to 28-17 on a 70-yard punt return by Javier Arenas, but Oregon immediately answers with a 14-play drive covering 75 yards for the 35-17 advantage. Alabama scores again in the fourth quarter, but can’t make the two point conversion, and its final drive dies on 4th-and-10 from the Oregon 14 with 2:05 to go. The final is 35-23, and the first champion of the NCAA’s first football tournament is the same as the champion of its first basketball tournament 70 years before: Oregon. Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 10 a.m. U.S. Mountain time.

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The 2010 Video Game Bowl — and Playoff — Spectacular [Stick Jockey]

The 2010 Video Game Bowl — and Playoff — Spectacular [Stick Jockey]

Do you want a college football playoff? Do you love the tradition of a New Year’s Day packed with A-list bowls? You can have both, as shown by Stick Jockey ’s video game simulation of a 16-team tournament – and 27 bowls. Warning: This is a very long column. There are more than 40 games described below. I’ve highlighted the playoff results in yellow if that’s what you’re really interested in. One of the most false debating points in the college football playoff argument is the idea that somehow the bowls diminish a playoff, or vice versa. I maintain that the bowl postseason should be preserved, running alongside a meritorious, 16-team playoff inviting the champion of every conference. The bowls – the better ones, anyway – have a majesty that far surpasses any “football NIT” label some think they’d acquire if the NCAA implemented a Division I football playoff. My idea is that, while a game like the Orange Bowl may not prefer a pairing of conference runner-ups, provided the sides are appropriately matched the games can be no less memorable. The bowls relentlessly tout their tradition, but forget that tradition, until the early 1990s, felt no obligation to help determine a national champion. And for a sporting culture so built on haves and have-nots, a holiday-based bowl structure as a consolation prize offers a much more meaningful postseason “reward,” as one of the talking points always describes the bowls, to teams that rarely, or have never visited fabled venues like the Sugar or the Cotton, rather than sending them to Birmingham to play in an advertisement for Papa John’s. The bowls have a great value. But they have no place in determining a national champion. The Bowl Championship Series is the most meritless selection of a champion in major sports in the entire world. Worse than boxing. Worse than international soccer’s reputation for draw-rigging and other shenanigans. The Bowl Championship Series is a system that is built on backroom dishonesty, not one exploited by it. And it’s almost proud to announce it up front. Well, not in the reality I control, which is NCAA Football 10 , my most favorite model railroad of sporting sims. So this week I set up a 16-team playoff, and then painstakingly redrew the bowls as close to their existing conference ties as the pool of eligible teams would allow. For an eloquent argument in favor of a 16-team playoff, and the legitimacy that comes from inviting every Division I conference champion, I encourage you to read Dan Wetzel’s recent column for Yahoo! Sports . To it, I’d only add that teams like Troy are either major college football participants or they’re not. It’s not a self-declared thing. The NCAA admitted these teams to the highest level. But the comments and behavior of BCS conferences and the bowl committees hellbent on dividing the pie for the fattest do more to diminish a football program like East Carolina than the quality of the Pirates’ schedule ever does. Alright, here’s the backstory of what happened in my reality this week. After creating this 16-team playoff, the NCAA made one demand and one concession. All bowls had to be completed before national title game. In return, the NCAA would never schedule a playoff game on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1. (or Dec. 24 or Dec. 25, for that matter). The larger bowls, cutting their own TV deals, then began a run back to traditional New Year’s and New Year’s Eve dates, bringing us back to the days of the Rose, Cotton, Sugar and Orange, all on the same day. The championship game was booked for San Diego, largely because the city has a strong track record hosting Super Bowls, and because it’s not home to any of the (very likely pissed off) former BCS bowls. And also because Qualcomm Stadium is an available venue in NCAA Football 10. The football playoff seeding was then handed to an NCAA committee much like the one that handles the basketball bracket. The seeding considered mathematical formulae but, ultimately, it was a human decision, the same as the basketball tournament. Since everyone is so fired up about protecting the sanctity of the regular season games, I made a rule that no at-large team may host an opening round game. Yes, that effectively seeds a team like Florida ninth. It also turns the eighth-seed into a seat of death (likely facing an at-large team that is seeded artificially lower, and then the tournament No. 1 if they win) but, dammit, this is football. It’s hard. We can’t pave everyone’s way to the semifinals, and a seeding reflects how many games a team is expected to win. Without the rule, this eight seed would drop at least one spot lower, which means it is expected to lose in the first round, anyway. Instead, an eight-seed under this rule gets a game at home – against a difficult opponent, sure – but also the advantage and, more importantly, revenue, of just such a date. I still expect Georgia Tech to hate me for this. Anyway, following the Big XII championship game on Dec. 5, my seeding committee met and selected the following teams: (1) Alabama (2) Texas (3) Cincinnati (4) TCU (5) Boise State (6) Oregon (7) Ohio State (8) Georgia Tech (9) Florida (10) Virginia Tech (11) Iowa (12) Brigham Young (13) LSU (14) Central Michigan (15) East Carolina (16) Troy BYU provides the only selection controversy, bumping Penn State. Both teams are 10-2. Brigham Young had a greater strength of schedule in the Sagarin Ratings and, although the victory doesn’t look as good now, the Cougars’ victory over then-No. 5 Oklahoma to begin the season was a mammoth upset. BYU also gutted out a victory over a ranked Utah to end the year. Penn State did not defeat a human-ranked team all year; did not beat any team that finished in Sagarin’s top 30; lost badly to Iowa and Ohio State at home; played the definition of a cupcake non-conference schedule and didn’t do a damn thing except start the season ranked high. Plus, the Nittany Lions finished a decisive third, and the Big Ten is a good conference, but it’s not three-teams good. That’s the SEC, and LSU is the third team. If I would not take Penn State over BYU, I definitely would not take it over LSU. Brigham Young also was seeded ahead of LSU to avoid an opening-round rematch of conference opponents. These rematches are unavoidable elsewhere on the bracket, but it can be controlled here. I’m aware that Alabama and Florida will likely rematch in the second round, three weeks after their SEC title game. I prefer – and therefore my committee prefers – that such a meeting take place there rather than in the national championship. The bowls were then free to invite any .500 or better, six-Division I win team, absent the ones above. Of course this means there are more bowls than can host eligible teams. Six died: the Poinsettia, Meineke Car Care, Little Caesars, Texas, Armed Forces and PapaJohns.com. Lots of horsetrading was involved as the minor bowls scrambled to fill slots. Ultimately, the free market prevailed. The total payout lost with the death of these six: $8.2 million. I think the conferences can spend their share of $8.2 million to reap a much larger slice of a nine-figure television contract for a football playoff. With all that out of the way, here are all the games – 27 bowls and 15 playoff games – simulated on NCAA Football 10 using the roster and depth chart written by RomanCaesar from Operation Sports. The games are presented in the order they were played on the calendar. I do not claim that this is a scientific simulation. These games were played once. A simulation for accuracy would require a much larger sample size and more finely tuned sim settings. The games were played with nine-minute quarters to hold down garish scoring and statistical performances. That also skewed a lot of the results to down-to-the-wire finishes. Dec. 18 at St. Petersburg, Fla. St. Petersburg Bowl South Florida (Big East, 7-5) vs. Central Florida (Conference USA, 8-4) These two Sunshine State up-and-comers did not play their rivalry game this year, so they meet here. USF holds on, 21-17. at Albuquerque, N.M. New Mexico Bowl Wyoming (Mountain West, 6-6) vs. Fresno State (WAC, 8-4) This pairing is one of a few drawn up that reflect real life. Fresno blasts the Cowboys 55-27 behind 151 yards rushing and two touchdowns by Ryan Mathews. Dec. 19 NCAA Division I Football Championship First Round (seedings in parentheses) Noon games: (16) Troy (Sun Belt champion, 9-3) at (1) Alabama (SEC champion, 13-0) Alabama only leads 24-20 at the half, stoking huge upset interest. But Heisman winner Mark Ingram breaks a 74-yard touchdown run to open the third quarter, en route to a 52-27 first round win for the Crimson Tide. (15) East Carolina (Conference USA champion, 9-4) at (2) Texas (Big XII champion, 13-0) Absolutely zero drama here. Texas annihilates East Carolina 52-0. (14) No. 25 Central Michigan (MAC champion, 11-2) vs. (3) Cincinnati (Big East champion, 12-0) The fearless Chippewas open with a come-into-the-room-honey 10-point lead early in the second quarter. But Cinderella fantasies prove premature, and the Bearcats respond with 35 unanswered points to win 45-24, behind six touchdowns from quarterback Tony Pike. 2 p.m. games: (10) Virginia Tech (at-large, 9-3 ACC) at (7) Ohio State (Big Ten champion, 10-2) The first nailbiter of the playoff. Ohio State leads 26-21 after a touchdown and failed two-point PAT. Virginia Tech faces third-and-18 from their own nine, but the Hokies’ Tyrod Taylor responds with a 35-yard bomb to get a fresh set of downs and great field position. VPI scores but also misses its two-point attempt, and leads 27-26. Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor finds Ray Small for a 20 yard gain on 4th and five from the Buckeyes’ 42 with 1:09 left, then hits DeVier Posey for a 26-yard gain to get down to Virginia Tech’s 8. Aaron Pettrey hits the 25-yard field goal for the 29-27 win. (9) Florida (at-large, 12-1 SEC) at (8) Georgia Tech (ACC champion, 11-2) Florida coasts 43-3 in the playoff’s first upset 43-3 – in name only – holding Tech’s Jonathan Dwyer and Josh Nesbitt to 85 yards rushing combined. 4 p.m. games: (11) Iowa (at large, 10-2 Big Ten) at (6) Oregon (Pac-10 champion, 10-2) Another blowout victory, 41-15 for Oregon. The Ducks pile up 507 yards of offense and clamp down on Iowa, holding the Hawkeyes to 283 yards of offense. Oregon’s LaMichael James gets only 79 yards rushing, but adds 107 receiving and even throws a touchdown pass. (12) Brigham Young (at-large, 10-2 Mountain West) at (5) Boise State (WAC champion, 13-0) Trailing 38-26 late in the fourth, a miracle 85-yard run by the Broncos’ Jeremy Avery with 5:22 left makes it 38-33. The Cougars respond with a quick field goal, pushing the lead to eight and giving the Broncos one more drive. Kellen Moore’s eight yard out pattern to Austin Pettis on fourth down from their own 44 keeps the Broncos in business. They reach BYU’s 17 and throw three incompletions before Moore hits tight end Tommy Gallarda to make it 41-39 with 35 seconds left. But Moore’s two-point conversion pass to wideout Tyler Shoemaker is no good. The onside attempt fails, and Brigham Young provides the prototypical 12-5 upset we expect in the college basketball bracket. 8 p.m. game: (13) LSU (at-large, 9-3 SEC) at (4) Texas Christian (Mountain West champion, 12-0) The primetime matchup explodes into one of the greatest games ever played in the history of college football. TCU gets out to a 28-10 lead at the half and then LSU puts it in gear, shrewdly making a two-point conversion in the third quarter en route to 25 unanswered points and a 35-28 lead with 1:17 left. TCU gets a 24 yard kickoff return, a 15-yard pass interference call, a 14-yard pickup on 3rd and 1 from LSU’s 22, and ultimately an 8-yard touchdown strike from Andy Dalton to Jimmy Young with four seconds left to send the game to overtime. Both sides trade touchdowns in the first two overtime periods. In the third, LSU cracks, settling for a 46-yard field goal. On third down of their final possession, the Horned Frogs’ Joseph Turner shoves two defenders to the ground on the way to a 17-yard touchdown run and the win, 55-52, in triple overtime. Delirious TCU fans rip down the goalposts, forgetting they will need them the next week. Dec. 22 at Las Vegas Las Vegas Bowl: No. 23 Utah (Mountain West, 9-3) vs. UCLA (Pac-10, 6-6) This kind of matchup proves how a playoff would improve the bowls. In real life, this game brings a school with fans who don’t travel (Oregon State) to Las Vegas to face one whose alumni don’t drink or fornicate (Brigham Young). Under my system, we’d have Utah and UCLA. Great attendance, and indeed a great game. UCLA triumphs 28-25 in a rare bowl overtime. at New Orleans New Orleans Bowl: Southern Mississippi (Conference USA, 7-5) vs. Middle Tennessee State (Sun Belt, 9-3) Another real-life pairing. MTSU is probably the best nine-victory team no one’s ever seen. For a reason. Senior halfback Damion Fletcher carries the day for Southern Mississippi, 167 yards and three touchdowns in a 28-9 snorefest. Dec. 24 at Honolulu Hawaii Bowl: Nevada (WAC, 8-4) vs. SMU (Conference USA, 7-5) Yet another real-life draw. June Jones returns to the 50th State for SMU’s first bowl appearance since the NCAA leveled the infamous Death Penalty in 1986. Hawaii rolls 41-13 as the Mustangs stumble to just 178 yards of total offense. Dec. 26 NCAA Division I Football Championship Second Round Noon games: (7) Ohio State at (2) Texas The Longhorns take a 21-3 lead after the first quarter and never look back, winning 45-17. Terrelle Pryor is intercepted three times, sacked four, and throws no touchdowns. Colt McCoy, meantime, tosses four. (6) Oregon at (3) Cincinnati Oregon, leading 20-17, misses a 46-yard field goal to open the fourth quarter. Cincinnati responds with a 71-yard, 14-play drive and a 24-20 advantage. The Ducks take over on their 20 with 1:27 left, getting to the Cincinnati 13 with no timeouts left. Jeremiah Masoli spikes the ball, then on fourth down finds D.J. Davis for a touchdown with 14 seconds left and a thrilling 27-24 victory. 4 p.m. game: (12) Brigham Young at (4) TCU TCU connects on a field goal at the beginning of the fourth quarter and leads 17-13. Later, a disastrous, shanked punt gives the Horned Frogs the ball on BYU’s 35 with 5 minutes to play. The key play comes on 4th and 2 from the Cougars’ 13; TCU elects to go for it, makes it, and Joseph Turner ultimately scores the decisive two-yard touchdown. The Frogs need it, as Brigham Young responds with a desperation touchdown and converts the two-point try but can’t recover the onsides kick. TCU wins another thriller, 24-21. 8 p.m. game: (9) Florida at (1) Alabama The day’s second rematch of conference titleists with runners-up. This dazzler features seven lead changes and a finish even more amazing than the TCU-LSU epic of a week before. Trailing 28-24 with the ball at midfield, Tim Tebow fumbles the snap, falls on it, then converts third-and-18 with a 33-yard bomb to Riley Cooper, and ultimately Tebow carries in a four-yard touchdown himself for the 31-28 lead. Alabama gets the ball back with three minutes left and all its timeouts. Quarterback Greg McElroy throws three straight incompletions and is sacked on fourth-and-ten from Alabama’s 27, apparently sealing Florida’s victory. But the Crimson Tide use all of their timeouts, force Florida to kick a field goal, and get the ball back with 1:05 remaining. A miracle 68-yard bomb from McElroy to Julio Jones with 21 seconds left absolutely detonates Bryant-Denny Stadium. Jones has three touchdowns, 175 yards receiving, and never has to pay for a drink in Tuscaloosa the rest of his life. Dec. 27 at Tempe, Ariz. Insight Bowl: Iowa State (Big XII, 6-6) vs. Air Force (Mountain West, 7-5) With two teams going to the playoff, the Big Ten ran out of bowl-eligible teams to send to this game. So I yanked the Zoomies from the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth and sent them to Arizona, home of a more established, higher-paying midlevel bowl. Air Force salts the game away in the fourth quarter when defensive back Anthony Wright returns an interception for a touchdown and the final 35-18 margin. Dec. 27 at San Francisco Emerald Bowl: Navy (9-4) vs. California (Pac-10, 8-4) Cal and its fans get a short trip across the Bay Bridge, assuming it’s functioning. Navy gets a nice holiday in a town with a strong seapower tradition. Jahvid Best, back from his scary injury against Oregon State on Nov. 7, gets 138 yards and three touchdowns. the Bears romp 48-17 in a game not even half as close. Dec. 28 at Orlando, Fla. Champs Sports Bowl: No. 14 Miami (ACC, 9-3) vs. Michigan State (Big Ten, 6-6) ACC schools are not picked by finish and to a bowl committee, Miami – outside of the Orange Bowl or a national title game – is a money-losing disaster. That’s why the Hurricanes fell so far here, but the good news is they stay close to home. Michigan State has the kind of fans who are delighted to go to Disney World for the holidays and call that the biggest thing they’ve done all year. I’m not sure I believe this result myself, but the Spartans trail 21-7 early before scoring 27 unanswered points and coasting to a 48-24 win. Miami’s Jacory Harris is intercepted four times. Dec. 29 at Washington EagleBank Bowl: Northern Illinois (MAC, 7-5) vs. Louisiana-Monroe (Sun Belt, 6-6) Lacking enough participants from its tie in conferences, this new bowl survives only because it pays (Dr. Evil voice) one million dollars. Unfortunately, it’s getting the least desirable matchup – UL-M isn’t even going to a bowl in real life. But the Warhawks give a great show, winning 33-26 when Trey Revell and Luther Ambrose hook up on a 30-yard touchdown pass with four seconds left. Dec. 30 at Boise, Idaho Humanitarian Bowl: Bowling Green (MAC, 7-5) vs. Idaho (WAC, 7-5) Boise State isn’t the only school that can go out guns blazing on the Smurf turf. Bowling Green and Idaho combine for more than 1,000 yards of offense – 433 of that from Idaho quarterback Nathan Enderle’s arm – as the Vandals win a 44-42 track meet on a field goal with 1:56 left. Dec. 31: at Nashville, Tenn. Music City Bowl: Boston College (ACC, 8-4) vs. Kentucky (SEC, 7-5) As a bowl attraction, Boston College is an even bigger disaster than Miami. BC can’t even sell out its own stadium in the regular season. But at least Nashville’s chamber of commerce gets Kentucky, whose fans regularly go to Tennessee to get their asses kicked without complaint. BC obliges, 35-17. at Shreveport, La. Independence Bowl: Kansas State (Big XII, 6-6) vs. Rutgers (Big East, 8-4) With the SEC exhausting its bowl-eligible members, I shipped over Rutgers from the Meineke Bowl, owing to the fact the Independence has been around longer, pays more, and enough time has passed since it was known as the Weedwhacker Bowl. Rutgers freshman Tom Savage tosses a bowl record six touchdowns in a 47-10 blowout. at Atlanta Chick-Fil-A Bowl: North Carolina (ACC, 8-4) vs. Georgia (SEC, 7-5) I have to say, for the realism of matchups, I’m proudest of this one. The Chick-Fil-A, formerly the Peach, loves teams from the Old North State. And who better to play in Atlanta than the Georgia Bulldogs? Plus both schools can settle that technical dispute regarding America’s oldest public university. For the record, it’s UNC, which also wins 35-17. at El Paso, Texas Sun Bowl: Texas A&M (Big XII, 6-6) vs. USC (Pac-10, 8-4) Brut smells like a man, and in El Paso, the Aggies smell like an armpit, losing 38-13 in a sim that probably did not account for USC’s nosedive this year. at Jacksonville, Fla. Gator Bowl: Florida State (ACC, 6-6) vs. Pittsburgh (Big East, 9-3) The Gator wants to give Bobby Bowden a gold watch? Fine. They can take the 6-6 Seminoles over more deserving ACC teams for this one, too. It’s not like Jacksonville’s gonna sell out this stadium on Sundays. The Panthers hold on 37-31 thanks to 136 yards and four TDs – two of them receiving – by freshman back Dion Lewis. at San Diego Holiday Bowl: Texas Tech (Big XII, 8-4) vs. No. 16 Oregon State (Pac-10, 8-4) Unfortunately for Oregon State, Lubbock isn’t the only city where Beavers get the Raider Rash. OSU loses 23-19 when, from Tech’s 23, Sean Canfield can’t hit James Rodgers on a fade as time expires. Jan. 1 at Orlando, Fla. Capital One Bowl: No. 24 Wisconsin (Big Ten, 9-3) vs. Tennessee (SEC, 7-5) This one is formerly known as the Citrus – which as Steve Spurrier reminds us, can’t be spelled without the UT. Tennessee gets the ball on its 20 with 2:45 left, tied a 24. Jonathan Crompton passes of 14, 16 and 20 yards get Tennessee into kicking range, and Daniel Lincoln’s 42-yard boot, after missing two previously from shorter distances, provides the 27-24 victory. at Tampa, Fla. Outback Bowl: Northwestern (Big Ten, 8-4) vs. Auburn (SEC, 7-5) The most major bowl reflecting real life in this simulation, Auburn trails 31-13 early in the third before charging back with 28 unanswered to win 41-31. Tigers halfback Ben Tate helps carry the load with 105 yards and two second-half scores. at Dallas Cotton Bowl: Oklahoma (Big XII, 7-5) vs. Arkansas (SEC, 7-5) The shooting gallery seesaw begins late in the third with Broderick Green’s 60 yard catch-and-run to get Arkansas on top 38-34. Oklahoma hits a 47-yard field goal to draw to 38-37 early in the fourth. Quarterback Ryan Mallett and the Razorbacks storm back with an 11-play, 81-yard drive, 63 of it by air, to lead 45-37 with six minutes to play. Oklahoma stitches together an-eight play, 82-yard drive, and knots the game on a PAT pass from Landry Jones to Dejuan Miller with five minutes to go. Holding Arkansas to a three-and-out, Oklahoma goes back to work from its six, picking up passes of 18, 27, and 34 yards, and rumbling the final 10 to lead 52-45. Mallett gets one last drive, however, bringing the Hogs to the Sooners’ 22 with eight seconds left, where he is intercepted by linebacker Travis Lewis to seal the game. Mallett’s inhuman 485 yards passing is easily a Cotton Bowl record. at Miami Orange Bowl: Clemson (ACC, 8-5) vs. No. 20 Nebraska (Big XII, 9-4) By virtue of its tie-in with the ACC, the Orange has been the de facto Kids’ Table of the BCS for much of this decade, including a Wake Forest-Louisville matchup in 2007 that should have been broadcast by Raycom. But here the Orange returns to its old Big Eight roots to invite Nebraska, pairing the Cornhuskers with Clemson in a matchup recalling 1982, Tom Osborne and Danny Ford, and the Tigers’ only national championship. Clemson’s C.J. Spiller starts the game with an Orange Bowl record 82-yard run from scrimmage for a touchdown as the Tigers sprint to a 21-7 lead by the half. Nebraska rallies to a 28-28 tie, then goes for it on 4th and 1 from their own 35 with 6 minutes left in the fourth – and fumbles. Spiller’s ensuing 7-yard touchdown grab out of the backfield from Kyle Parker provides the final margin, 35-28. at New Orleans Sugar Bowl: No. 18 West Virginia (Big East, 9-3) vs. Ole Miss (SEC, 8-4) After the SEC sent three teams to the playoffs, the bowls were left with an 8-4 Ole Miss, and a bunch of 7-5 teams. So the Rebels visit New Orleans for another A-list nailbiter. West Virginia scores 21 fourth quarter points to take a 35-28 lead. With three minutes remaining, Ole Miss begins driving from its 24, surviving a 3rd-and-18 with a 27-yard hookup from Jevean Snead to Shay Hodge. The drive gets down to West Virginia’s 6 with 1:01 left but sophomore Brandon Bolden drops Snead’s bullet in the end zone, and the Mountaineers hang on for the trophy. at Pasadena, Calif. Rose Bowl: No. 11 Penn State (Big Ten, 10-2) vs. No. 22 Arizona (Pac-10, 8-4) This one is indeed the granddaddy of the day. Trailing 27-20, facing 4th and 10 from Arizona’s 25 with less than four minutes remaining in the fourth, the Nittany Lions’ Daryll Clark hits wideout Derek Moye for a 16 yard gain to keep the drive alive. Then Evan Royster rumbles in from nine yards out to tie the game at 27 with 2:37 left. Arizona quarterback Nick Foles opens the next possession with completions of 11 and 14 yards but, facing 4th and 1 from the 50 – what an agonizing decision this had to be – the Wildcats opt to punt, pinning Penn State on their own 13 with 1:13 to play. On third and 15 his own 34, Clark hits Graham Zug for a 35 yard gain down to the Wildcat 29, and then three rushes by Royster reach paydirt, providing the final margin, 34-27, with 14 seconds to go. Fourteen points in four minutes, 17 in the fourth quarter, and an absolute double-dragon-kick-to-the-nutsack defeat for Arizona in its first-ever Rose appearance. Jan. 2 NCAA Division I Football Championship National Semifinals 4 p.m. game (4) TCU at (1) Alabama Alabama nails a 44-yard field goal at the end of the first half to take a 13-10 lead, then late in the third quarter goes 77 yards – the last 31 of it on seven straight carries by Mark Ingram – to go up 20-10. Alabama coffin-corners a punt, pinning TCU on its two midway through the fourth quarter, then Justin Woodall intercepts Andy Dalton and returns it for a touchdown. TCU does respond with an 11 play scoring drive, but can’t recover an onsides kick, trailing by 10. An Alabama field goal ices the game 30-17. Mark Ingram rushes for 208 yards a playoff record. But then, everything is this year. 8 p.m. game (6) Oregon at (2) Texas Texas does not get beyond the 50-yard line in the entire first half as Oregon races to a 24-7 lead. Eddie Pleasant intercepts Colt McCoy on the Texas 27, and a 12-yard swing pass to the redeemed LeGarrette Blount gives Oregon the 31-10 advantage late in the third quarter. Texas responds with consecutive 80 yard drives to draw within seven, then recovers a LaMichael James fumble at the Oregon 18 with 2:11 left. But McCoy immediately tosses an interception, picked off by Spencer Paysinger, to cement the Ducks’ 31-24 upset. Jan. 4 at Toronto International Bowl: Temple (MAC, 9-3) vs. Connecticut (Big East, 7-5) This game would be much better if it were Jim Calhoun and the Huskies back in the day facing John Chaney’s Owls on the hardwood in Philadelphia. Instead, these two meet on a gridiron in Canada, with UConn winning 31-28. at Mobile, Ala. GMAC Bowl: Ohio (MAC, 9-4) vs. Marshall (Conference USA, 6-6) This game survives because of its MAC tie-in, but it had to drag over Marshall as a replacement, absent any ACC participant. Fortunately, it restores the Bobcats- Hundering Turd Thundering Herd rivalry. They last played in 2004, when both were members of the MAC. Marshall wins here, 31-24. at San Antonio Alamo Bowl: Minnesota (Big 10, 6-6) vs. Missouri (Big XII, 8-4) Another seesaw battle sees Minnesota upend favored Mizzou 35-31 with a 63-yard drive at the end of the game. The Tigers waste 330 yards from quarterback Blaine Gabbert, who also tosses two interceptions. at Memphis, Tenn. Liberty Bowl: Houston (Conference USA, 10-3) vs. South Carolina (SEC, 7-5) South Carolina’s defense gets Houston down 17-0 early, but Case Keenum and the high-powered Cougars come storming back for a 45-34 win that isn’t that close. Keenum tosses five touchdowns, two to Tyron Carrier, who also has 175 yards. at Glendale, Ariz. Fiesta Bowl: No. 19 Stanford (Pac-10, 8-4) vs. No. 21 Oklahoma State (Big XII, 9-3) As the wild card of the major bowls, the Fiesta schedules itself after New Year’s Day, and picks Oklahoma State for proximity and Stanford for the star power of Heisman runner-up Toby Gerhart. The Cardinal lead 16-14 at halftime, but the Cowboys pull away for a 35-16 win. Gerhart gets 116 yards rushing but no touchdowns. Jan. 9 NCAA Division I Football Championship National Final at San Diego, Calif. (6) Oregon vs. (1) Alabama Alabama punts on its first three possessions. Oregon scores on its first three, on the way to a 28-7 halftime lead. The Crimson Tide draw to 28-17 on a 70-yard punt return by Javier Arenas, but Oregon immediately answers with a 14-play drive covering 75 yards for the 35-17 advantage. Alabama scores again in the fourth quarter, but can’t make the two point conversion, and its final drive dies on 4th-and-10 from the Oregon 14 with 2:05 to go. The final is 35-23, and the first champion of the NCAA’s first football tournament is the same as the champion of its first basketball tournament 70 years before: Oregon. Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 10 a.m. U.S. Mountain time.

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The 2010 Video Game Bowl — and Playoff — Spectacular [Stick Jockey]

The 2010 Video Game Bowl — and Playoff — Spectacular [Stick Jockey]

Do you want a college football playoff? Do you love the tradition of a New Year’s Day packed with A-list bowls? You can have both, as shown by Stick Jockey ’s video game simulation of a 16-team tournament – and 27 bowls. Warning: This is a very long column. There are more than 40 games described below. I’ve highlighted the playoff results in yellow if that’s what you’re really interested in. One of the most false debating points in the college football playoff argument is the idea that somehow the bowls diminish a playoff, or vice versa. I maintain that the bowl postseason should be preserved, running alongside a meritorious, 16-team playoff inviting the champion of every conference. The bowls – the better ones, anyway – have a majesty that far surpasses any “football NIT” label some think they’d acquire if the NCAA implemented a Division I football playoff. My idea is that, while a game like the Orange Bowl may not prefer a pairing of conference runner-ups, provided the sides are appropriately matched the games can be no less memorable. The bowls relentlessly tout their tradition, but forget that tradition, until the early 1990s, felt no obligation to help determine a national champion. And for a sporting culture so built on haves and have-nots, a holiday-based bowl structure as a consolation prize offers a much more meaningful postseason “reward,” as one of the talking points always describes the bowls, to teams that rarely, or have never visited fabled venues like the Sugar or the Cotton, rather than sending them to Birmingham to play in an advertisement for Papa John’s. The bowls have a great value. But they have no place in determining a national champion. The Bowl Championship Series is the most meritless selection of a champion in major sports in the entire world. Worse than boxing. Worse than international soccer’s reputation for draw-rigging and other shenanigans. The Bowl Championship Series is a system that is built on backroom dishonesty, not one exploited by it. And it’s almost proud to announce it up front. Well, not in the reality I control, which is NCAA Football 10 , my most favorite model railroad of sporting sims. So this week I set up a 16-team playoff, and then painstakingly redrew the bowls as close to their existing conference ties as the pool of eligible teams would allow. For an eloquent argument in favor of a 16-team playoff, and the legitimacy that comes from inviting every Division I conference champion, I encourage you to read Dan Wetzel’s recent column for Yahoo! Sports . To it, I’d only add that teams like Troy are either major college football participants or they’re not. It’s not a self-declared thing. The NCAA admitted these teams to the highest level. But the comments and behavior of BCS conferences and the bowl committees hellbent on dividing the pie for the fattest do more to diminish a football program like East Carolina than the quality of the Pirates’ schedule ever does. Alright, here’s the backstory of what happened in my reality this week. After creating this 16-team playoff, the NCAA made one demand and one concession. All bowls had to be completed before national title game. In return, the NCAA would never schedule a playoff game on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1. (or Dec. 24 or Dec. 25, for that matter). The larger bowls, cutting their own TV deals, then began a run back to traditional New Year’s and New Year’s Eve dates, bringing us back to the days of the Rose, Cotton, Sugar and Orange, all on the same day. The championship game was booked for San Diego, largely because the city has a strong track record hosting Super Bowls, and because it’s not home to any of the (very likely pissed off) former BCS bowls. And also because Qualcomm Stadium is an available venue in NCAA Football 10. The football playoff seeding was then handed to an NCAA committee much like the one that handles the basketball bracket. The seeding considered mathematical formulae but, ultimately, it was a human decision, the same as the basketball tournament. Since everyone is so fired up about protecting the sanctity of the regular season games, I made a rule that no at-large team may host an opening round game. Yes, that effectively seeds a team like Florida ninth. It also turns the eighth-seed into a seat of death (likely facing an at-large team that is seeded artificially lower, and then the tournament No. 1 if they win) but, dammit, this is football. It’s hard. We can’t pave everyone’s way to the semifinals, and a seeding reflects how many games a team is expected to win. Without the rule, this eight seed would drop at least one spot lower, which means it is expected to lose in the first round, anyway. Instead, an eight-seed under this rule gets a game at home – against a difficult opponent, sure – but also the advantage and, more importantly, revenue, of just such a date. I still expect Georgia Tech to hate me for this. Anyway, following the Big XII championship game on Dec. 5, my seeding committee met and selected the following teams: (1) Alabama (2) Texas (3) Cincinnati (4) TCU (5) Boise State (6) Oregon (7) Ohio State (8) Georgia Tech (9) Florida (10) Virginia Tech (11) Iowa (12) Brigham Young (13) LSU (14) Central Michigan (15) East Carolina (16) Troy BYU provides the only selection controversy, bumping Penn State. Both teams are 10-2. Brigham Young had a greater strength of schedule in the Sagarin Ratings and, although the victory doesn’t look as good now, the Cougars’ victory over then-No. 5 Oklahoma to begin the season was a mammoth upset. BYU also gutted out a victory over a ranked Utah to end the year. Penn State did not defeat a human-ranked team all year; did not beat any team that finished in Sagarin’s top 30; lost badly to Iowa and Ohio State at home; played the definition of a cupcake non-conference schedule and didn’t do a damn thing except start the season ranked high. Plus, the Nittany Lions finished a decisive third, and the Big Ten is a good conference, but it’s not three-teams good. That’s the SEC, and LSU is the third team. If I would not take Penn State over BYU, I definitely would not take it over LSU. Brigham Young also was seeded ahead of LSU to avoid an opening-round rematch of conference opponents. These rematches are unavoidable elsewhere on the bracket, but it can be controlled here. I’m aware that Alabama and Florida will likely rematch in the second round, three weeks after their SEC title game. I prefer – and therefore my committee prefers – that such a meeting take place there rather than in the national championship. The bowls were then free to invite any .500 or better, six-Division I win team, absent the ones above. Of course this means there are more bowls than can host eligible teams. Six died: the Poinsettia, Meineke Car Care, Little Caesars, Texas, Armed Forces and PapaJohns.com. Lots of horsetrading was involved as the minor bowls scrambled to fill slots. Ultimately, the free market prevailed. The total payout lost with the death of these six: $8.2 million. I think the conferences can spend their share of $8.2 million to reap a much larger slice of a nine-figure television contract for a football playoff. With all that out of the way, here are all the games – 27 bowls and 15 playoff games – simulated on NCAA Football 10 using the roster and depth chart written by RomanCaesar from Operation Sports. The games are presented in the order they were played on the calendar. I do not claim that this is a scientific simulation. These games were played once. A simulation for accuracy would require a much larger sample size and more finely tuned sim settings. The games were played with nine-minute quarters to hold down garish scoring and statistical performances. That also skewed a lot of the results to down-to-the-wire finishes. Dec. 18 at St. Petersburg, Fla. St. Petersburg Bowl South Florida (Big East, 7-5) vs. Central Florida (Conference USA, 8-4) These two Sunshine State up-and-comers did not play their rivalry game this year, so they meet here. USF holds on, 21-17. at Albuquerque, N.M. New Mexico Bowl Wyoming (Mountain West, 6-6) vs. Fresno State (WAC, 8-4) This pairing is one of a few drawn up that reflect real life. Fresno blasts the Cowboys 55-27 behind 151 yards rushing and two touchdowns by Ryan Mathews. Dec. 19 NCAA Division I Football Championship First Round (seedings in parentheses) Noon games: (16) Troy (Sun Belt champion, 9-3) at (1) Alabama (SEC champion, 13-0) Alabama only leads 24-20 at the half, stoking huge upset interest. But Heisman winner Mark Ingram breaks a 74-yard touchdown run to open the third quarter, en route to a 52-27 first round win for the Crimson Tide. (15) East Carolina (Conference USA champion, 9-4) at (2) Texas (Big XII champion, 13-0) Absolutely zero drama here. Texas annihilates East Carolina 52-0. (14) No. 25 Central Michigan (MAC champion, 11-2) vs. (3) Cincinnati (Big East champion, 12-0) The fearless Chippewas open with a come-into-the-room-honey 10-point lead early in the second quarter. But Cinderella fantasies prove premature, and the Bearcats respond with 35 unanswered points to win 45-24, behind six touchdowns from quarterback Tony Pike. 2 p.m. games: (10) Virginia Tech (at-large, 9-3 ACC) at (7) Ohio State (Big Ten champion, 10-2) The first nailbiter of the playoff. Ohio State leads 26-21 after a touchdown and failed two-point PAT. Virginia Tech faces third-and-18 from their own nine, but the Hokies’ Tyrod Taylor responds with a 35-yard bomb to get a fresh set of downs and great field position. VPI scores but also misses its two-point attempt, and leads 27-26. Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor finds Ray Small for a 20 yard gain on 4th and five from the Buckeyes’ 42 with 1:09 left, then hits DeVier Posey for a 26-yard gain to get down to Virginia Tech’s 8. Aaron Pettrey hits the 25-yard field goal for the 29-27 win. (9) Florida (at-large, 12-1 SEC) at (8) Georgia Tech (ACC champion, 11-2) Florida coasts 43-3 in the playoff’s first upset 43-3 – in name only – holding Tech’s Jonathan Dwyer and Josh Nesbitt to 85 yards rushing combined. 4 p.m. games: (11) Iowa (at large, 10-2 Big Ten) at (6) Oregon (Pac-10 champion, 10-2) Another blowout victory, 41-15 for Oregon. The Ducks pile up 507 yards of offense and clamp down on Iowa, holding the Hawkeyes to 283 yards of offense. Oregon’s LaMichael James gets only 79 yards rushing, but adds 107 receiving and even throws a touchdown pass. (12) Brigham Young (at-large, 10-2 Mountain West) at (5) Boise State (WAC champion, 13-0) Trailing 38-26 late in the fourth, a miracle 85-yard run by the Broncos’ Jeremy Avery with 5:22 left makes it 38-33. The Cougars respond with a quick field goal, pushing the lead to eight and giving the Broncos one more drive. Kellen Moore’s eight yard out pattern to Austin Pettis on fourth down from their own 44 keeps the Broncos in business. They reach BYU’s 17 and throw three incompletions before Moore hits tight end Tommy Gallarda to make it 41-39 with 35 seconds left. But Moore’s two-point conversion pass to wideout Tyler Shoemaker is no good. The onside attempt fails, and Brigham Young provides the prototypical 12-5 upset we expect in the college basketball bracket. 8 p.m. game: (13) LSU (at-large, 9-3 SEC) at (4) Texas Christian (Mountain West champion, 12-0) The primetime matchup explodes into one of the greatest games ever played in the history of college football. TCU gets out to a 28-10 lead at the half and then LSU puts it in gear, shrewdly making a two-point conversion in the third quarter en route to 25 unanswered points and a 35-28 lead with 1:17 left. TCU gets a 24 yard kickoff return, a 15-yard pass interference call, a 14-yard pickup on 3rd and 1 from LSU’s 22, and ultimately an 8-yard touchdown strike from Andy Dalton to Jimmy Young with four seconds left to send the game to overtime. Both sides trade touchdowns in the first two overtime periods. In the third, LSU cracks, settling for a 46-yard field goal. On third down of their final possession, the Horned Frogs’ Joseph Turner shoves two defenders to the ground on the way to a 17-yard touchdown run and the win, 55-52, in triple overtime. Delirious TCU fans rip down the goalposts, forgetting they will need them the next week. Dec. 22 at Las Vegas Las Vegas Bowl: No. 23 Utah (Mountain West, 9-3) vs. UCLA (Pac-10, 6-6) This kind of matchup proves how a playoff would improve the bowls. In real life, this game brings a school with fans who don’t travel (Oregon State) to Las Vegas to face one whose alumni don’t drink or fornicate (Brigham Young). Under my system, we’d have Utah and UCLA. Great attendance, and indeed a great game. UCLA triumphs 28-25 in a rare bowl overtime. at New Orleans New Orleans Bowl: Southern Mississippi (Conference USA, 7-5) vs. Middle Tennessee State (Sun Belt, 9-3) Another real-life pairing. MTSU is probably the best nine-victory team no one’s ever seen. For a reason. Senior halfback Damion Fletcher carries the day for Southern Mississippi, 167 yards and three touchdowns in a 28-9 snorefest. Dec. 24 at Honolulu Hawaii Bowl: Nevada (WAC, 8-4) vs. SMU (Conference USA, 7-5) Yet another real-life draw. June Jones returns to the 50th State for SMU’s first bowl appearance since the NCAA leveled the infamous Death Penalty in 1986. Hawaii rolls 41-13 as the Mustangs stumble to just 178 yards of total offense. Dec. 26 NCAA Division I Football Championship Second Round Noon games: (7) Ohio State at (2) Texas The Longhorns take a 21-3 lead after the first quarter and never look back, winning 45-17. Terrelle Pryor is intercepted three times, sacked four, and throws no touchdowns. Colt McCoy, meantime, tosses four. (6) Oregon at (3) Cincinnati Oregon, leading 20-17, misses a 46-yard field goal to open the fourth quarter. Cincinnati responds with a 71-yard, 14-play drive and a 24-20 advantage. The Ducks take over on their 20 with 1:27 left, getting to the Cincinnati 13 with no timeouts left. Jeremiah Masoli spikes the ball, then on fourth down finds D.J. Davis for a touchdown with 14 seconds left and a thrilling 27-24 victory. 4 p.m. game: (12) Brigham Young at (4) TCU TCU connects on a field goal at the beginning of the fourth quarter and leads 17-13. Later, a disastrous, shanked punt gives the Horned Frogs the ball on BYU’s 35 with 5 minutes to play. The key play comes on 4th and 2 from the Cougars’ 13; TCU elects to go for it, makes it, and Joseph Turner ultimately scores the decisive two-yard touchdown. The Frogs need it, as Brigham Young responds with a desperation touchdown and converts the two-point try but can’t recover the onsides kick. TCU wins another thriller, 24-21. 8 p.m. game: (9) Florida at (1) Alabama The day’s second rematch of conference titleists with runners-up. This dazzler features seven lead changes and a finish even more amazing than the TCU-LSU epic of a week before. Trailing 28-24 with the ball at midfield, Tim Tebow fumbles the snap, falls on it, then converts third-and-18 with a 33-yard bomb to Riley Cooper, and ultimately Tebow carries in a four-yard touchdown himself for the 31-28 lead. Alabama gets the ball back with three minutes left and all its timeouts. Quarterback Greg McElroy throws three straight incompletions and is sacked on fourth-and-ten from Alabama’s 27, apparently sealing Florida’s victory. But the Crimson Tide use all of their timeouts, force Florida to kick a field goal, and get the ball back with 1:05 remaining. A miracle 68-yard bomb from McElroy to Julio Jones with 21 seconds left absolutely detonates Bryant-Denny Stadium. Jones has three touchdowns, 175 yards receiving, and never has to pay for a drink in Tuscaloosa the rest of his life. Dec. 27 at Tempe, Ariz. Insight Bowl: Iowa State (Big XII, 6-6) vs. Air Force (Mountain West, 7-5) With two teams going to the playoff, the Big Ten ran out of bowl-eligible teams to send to this game. So I yanked the Zoomies from the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth and sent them to Arizona, home of a more established, higher-paying midlevel bowl. Air Force salts the game away in the fourth quarter when defensive back Anthony Wright returns an interception for a touchdown and the final 35-18 margin. Dec. 27 at San Francisco Emerald Bowl: Navy (9-4) vs. California (Pac-10, 8-4) Cal and its fans get a short trip across the Bay Bridge, assuming it’s functioning. Navy gets a nice holiday in a town with a strong seapower tradition. Jahvid Best, back from his scary injury against Oregon State on Nov. 7, gets 138 yards and three touchdowns. the Bears romp 48-17 in a game not even half as close. Dec. 28 at Orlando, Fla. Champs Sports Bowl: No. 14 Miami (ACC, 9-3) vs. Michigan State (Big Ten, 6-6) ACC schools are not picked by finish and to a bowl committee, Miami – outside of the Orange Bowl or a national title game – is a money-losing disaster. That’s why the Hurricanes fell so far here, but the good news is they stay close to home. Michigan State has the kind of fans who are delighted to go to Disney World for the holidays and call that the biggest thing they’ve done all year. I’m not sure I believe this result myself, but the Spartans trail 21-7 early before scoring 27 unanswered points and coasting to a 48-24 win. Miami’s Jacory Harris is intercepted four times. Dec. 29 at Washington EagleBank Bowl: Northern Illinois (MAC, 7-5) vs. Louisiana-Monroe (Sun Belt, 6-6) Lacking enough participants from its tie in conferences, this new bowl survives only because it pays (Dr. Evil voice) one million dollars. Unfortunately, it’s getting the least desirable matchup – UL-M isn’t even going to a bowl in real life. But the Warhawks give a great show, winning 33-26 when Trey Revell and Luther Ambrose hook up on a 30-yard touchdown pass with four seconds left. Dec. 30 at Boise, Idaho Humanitarian Bowl: Bowling Green (MAC, 7-5) vs. Idaho (WAC, 7-5) Boise State isn’t the only school that can go out guns blazing on the Smurf turf. Bowling Green and Idaho combine for more than 1,000 yards of offense – 433 of that from Idaho quarterback Nathan Enderle’s arm – as the Vandals win a 44-42 track meet on a field goal with 1:56 left. Dec. 31: at Nashville, Tenn. Music City Bowl: Boston College (ACC, 8-4) vs. Kentucky (SEC, 7-5) As a bowl attraction, Boston College is an even bigger disaster than Miami. BC can’t even sell out its own stadium in the regular season. But at least Nashville’s chamber of commerce gets Kentucky, whose fans regularly go to Tennessee to get their asses kicked without complaint. BC obliges, 35-17. at Shreveport, La. Independence Bowl: Kansas State (Big XII, 6-6) vs. Rutgers (Big East, 8-4) With the SEC exhausting its bowl-eligible members, I shipped over Rutgers from the Meineke Bowl, owing to the fact the Independence has been around longer, pays more, and enough time has passed since it was known as the Weedwhacker Bowl. Rutgers freshman Tom Savage tosses a bowl record six touchdowns in a 47-10 blowout. at Atlanta Chick-Fil-A Bowl: North Carolina (ACC, 8-4) vs. Georgia (SEC, 7-5) I have to say, for the realism of matchups, I’m proudest of this one. The Chick-Fil-A, formerly the Peach, loves teams from the Old North State. And who better to play in Atlanta than the Georgia Bulldogs? Plus both schools can settle that technical dispute regarding America’s oldest public university. For the record, it’s UNC, which also wins 35-17. at El Paso, Texas Sun Bowl: Texas A&M (Big XII, 6-6) vs. USC (Pac-10, 8-4) Brut smells like a man, and in El Paso, the Aggies smell like an armpit, losing 38-13 in a sim that probably did not account for USC’s nosedive this year. at Jacksonville, Fla. Gator Bowl: Florida State (ACC, 6-6) vs. Pittsburgh (Big East, 9-3) The Gator wants to give Bobby Bowden a gold watch? Fine. They can take the 6-6 Seminoles over more deserving ACC teams for this one, too. It’s not like Jacksonville’s gonna sell out this stadium on Sundays. The Panthers hold on 37-31 thanks to 136 yards and four TDs – two of them receiving – by freshman back Dion Lewis. at San Diego Holiday Bowl: Texas Tech (Big XII, 8-4) vs. No. 16 Oregon State (Pac-10, 8-4) Unfortunately for Oregon State, Lubbock isn’t the only city where Beavers get the Raider Rash. OSU loses 23-19 when, from Tech’s 23, Sean Canfield can’t hit James Rodgers on a fade as time expires. Jan. 1 at Orlando, Fla. Capital One Bowl: No. 24 Wisconsin (Big Ten, 9-3) vs. Tennessee (SEC, 7-5) This one is formerly known as the Citrus – which as Steve Spurrier reminds us, can’t be spelled without the UT. Tennessee gets the ball on its 20 with 2:45 left, tied a 24. Jonathan Crompton passes of 14, 16 and 20 yards get Tennessee into kicking range, and Daniel Lincoln’s 42-yard boot, after missing two previously from shorter distances, provides the 27-24 victory. at Tampa, Fla. Outback Bowl: Northwestern (Big Ten, 8-4) vs. Auburn (SEC, 7-5) The most major bowl reflecting real life in this simulation, Auburn trails 31-13 early in the third before charging back with 28 unanswered to win 41-31. Tigers halfback Ben Tate helps carry the load with 105 yards and two second-half scores. at Dallas Cotton Bowl: Oklahoma (Big XII, 7-5) vs. Arkansas (SEC, 7-5) The shooting gallery seesaw begins late in the third with Broderick Green’s 60 yard catch-and-run to get Arkansas on top 38-34. Oklahoma hits a 47-yard field goal to draw to 38-37 early in the fourth. Quarterback Ryan Mallett and the Razorbacks storm back with an 11-play, 81-yard drive, 63 of it by air, to lead 45-37 with six minutes to play. Oklahoma stitches together an-eight play, 82-yard drive, and knots the game on a PAT pass from Landry Jones to Dejuan Miller with five minutes to go. Holding Arkansas to a three-and-out, Oklahoma goes back to work from its six, picking up passes of 18, 27, and 34 yards, and rumbling the final 10 to lead 52-45. Mallett gets one last drive, however, bringing the Hogs to the Sooners’ 22 with eight seconds left, where he is intercepted by linebacker Travis Lewis to seal the game. Mallett’s inhuman 485 yards passing is easily a Cotton Bowl record. at Miami Orange Bowl: Clemson (ACC, 8-5) vs. No. 20 Nebraska (Big XII, 9-4) By virtue of its tie-in with the ACC, the Orange has been the de facto Kids’ Table of the BCS for much of this decade, including a Wake Forest-Louisville matchup in 2007 that should have been broadcast by Raycom. But here the Orange returns to its old Big Eight roots to invite Nebraska, pairing the Cornhuskers with Clemson in a matchup recalling 1982, Tom Osborne and Danny Ford, and the Tigers’ only national championship. Clemson’s C.J. Spiller starts the game with an Orange Bowl record 82-yard run from scrimmage for a touchdown as the Tigers sprint to a 21-7 lead by the half. Nebraska rallies to a 28-28 tie, then goes for it on 4th and 1 from their own 35 with 6 minutes left in the fourth – and fumbles. Spiller’s ensuing 7-yard touchdown grab out of the backfield from Kyle Parker provides the final margin, 35-28. at New Orleans Sugar Bowl: No. 18 West Virginia (Big East, 9-3) vs. Ole Miss (SEC, 8-4) After the SEC sent three teams to the playoffs, the bowls were left with an 8-4 Ole Miss, and a bunch of 7-5 teams. So the Rebels visit New Orleans for another A-list nailbiter. West Virginia scores 21 fourth quarter points to take a 35-28 lead. With three minutes remaining, Ole Miss begins driving from its 24, surviving a 3rd-and-18 with a 27-yard hookup from Jevean Snead to Shay Hodge. The drive gets down to West Virginia’s 6 with 1:01 left but sophomore Brandon Bolden drops Snead’s bullet in the end zone, and the Mountaineers hang on for the trophy. at Pasadena, Calif. Rose Bowl: No. 11 Penn State (Big Ten, 10-2) vs. No. 22 Arizona (Pac-10, 8-4) This one is indeed the granddaddy of the day. Trailing 27-20, facing 4th and 10 from Arizona’s 25 with less than four minutes remaining in the fourth, the Nittany Lions’ Daryll Clark hits wideout Derek Moye for a 16 yard gain to keep the drive alive. Then Evan Royster rumbles in from nine yards out to tie the game at 27 with 2:37 left. Arizona quarterback Nick Foles opens the next possession with completions of 11 and 14 yards but, facing 4th and 1 from the 50 – what an agonizing decision this had to be – the Wildcats opt to punt, pinning Penn State on their own 13 with 1:13 to play. On third and 15 his own 34, Clark hits Graham Zug for a 35 yard gain down to the Wildcat 29, and then three rushes by Royster reach paydirt, providing the final margin, 34-27, with 14 seconds to go. Fourteen points in four minutes, 17 in the fourth quarter, and an absolute double-dragon-kick-to-the-nutsack defeat for Arizona in its first-ever Rose appearance. Jan. 2 NCAA Division I Football Championship National Semifinals 4 p.m. game (4) TCU at (1) Alabama Alabama nails a 44-yard field goal at the end of the first half to take a 13-10 lead, then late in the third quarter goes 77 yards – the last 31 of it on seven straight carries by Mark Ingram – to go up 20-10. Alabama coffin-corners a punt, pinning TCU on its two midway through the fourth quarter, then Justin Woodall intercepts Andy Dalton and returns it for a touchdown. TCU does respond with an 11 play scoring drive, but can’t recover an onsides kick, trailing by 10. An Alabama field goal ices the game 30-17. Mark Ingram rushes for 208 yards a playoff record. But then, everything is this year. 8 p.m. game (6) Oregon at (2) Texas Texas does not get beyond the 50-yard line in the entire first half as Oregon races to a 24-7 lead. Eddie Pleasant intercepts Colt McCoy on the Texas 27, and a 12-yard swing pass to the redeemed LeGarrette Blount gives Oregon the 31-10 advantage late in the third quarter. Texas responds with consecutive 80 yard drives to draw within seven, then recovers a LaMichael James fumble at the Oregon 18 with 2:11 left. But McCoy immediately tosses an interception, picked off by Spencer Paysinger, to cement the Ducks’ 31-24 upset. Jan. 4 at Toronto International Bowl: Temple (MAC, 9-3) vs. Connecticut (Big East, 7-5) This game would be much better if it were Jim Calhoun and the Huskies back in the day facing John Chaney’s Owls on the hardwood in Philadelphia. Instead, these two meet on a gridiron in Canada, with UConn winning 31-28. at Mobile, Ala. GMAC Bowl: Ohio (MAC, 9-4) vs. Marshall (Conference USA, 6-6) This game survives because of its MAC tie-in, but it had to drag over Marshall as a replacement, absent any ACC participant. Fortunately, it restores the Bobcats- Hundering Turd Thundering Herd rivalry. They last played in 2004, when both were members of the MAC. Marshall wins here, 31-24. at San Antonio Alamo Bowl: Minnesota (Big 10, 6-6) vs. Missouri (Big XII, 8-4) Another seesaw battle sees Minnesota upend favored Mizzou 35-31 with a 63-yard drive at the end of the game. The Tigers waste 330 yards from quarterback Blaine Gabbert, who also tosses two interceptions. at Memphis, Tenn. Liberty Bowl: Houston (Conference USA, 10-3) vs. South Carolina (SEC, 7-5) South Carolina’s defense gets Houston down 17-0 early, but Case Keenum and the high-powered Cougars come storming back for a 45-34 win that isn’t that close. Keenum tosses five touchdowns, two to Tyron Carrier, who also has 175 yards. at Glendale, Ariz. Fiesta Bowl: No. 19 Stanford (Pac-10, 8-4) vs. No. 21 Oklahoma State (Big XII, 9-3) As the wild card of the major bowls, the Fiesta schedules itself after New Year’s Day, and picks Oklahoma State for proximity and Stanford for the star power of Heisman runner-up Toby Gerhart. The Cardinal lead 16-14 at halftime, but the Cowboys pull away for a 35-16 win. Gerhart gets 116 yards rushing but no touchdowns. Jan. 9 NCAA Division I Football Championship National Final at San Diego, Calif. (6) Oregon vs. (1) Alabama Alabama punts on its first three possessions. Oregon scores on its first three, on the way to a 28-7 halftime lead. The Crimson Tide draw to 28-17 on a 70-yard punt return by Javier Arenas, but Oregon immediately answers with a 14-play drive covering 75 yards for the 35-17 advantage. Alabama scores again in the fourth quarter, but can’t make the two point conversion, and its final drive dies on 4th-and-10 from the Oregon 14 with 2:05 to go. The final is 35-23, and the first champion of the NCAA’s first football tournament is the same as the champion of its first basketball tournament 70 years before: Oregon. Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 10 a.m. U.S. Mountain time.

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The 2010 Video Game Bowl — and Playoff — Spectacular [Stick Jockey]

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