Even if you’re never played “Madden” or “NCAA” — if you’ve never poured your blood, sweat, and tears over the sticks (see: the controller), never thrown a gaming console out a window, never had your life devoured by the phenomenon (see: energy vampire) that is Teambuilder Online Dynasty — you’re likely still aware of how big a part of the sports landscape — and pop culture, in general — the two EA Sports video game franchises have become. People line up outside stores at midnight to get the newest version, every year. When you type “Madden” into Google, the game pops up before the man the game is named after. There are reality shows based solely on people playing it. It’s a big deal.
Having a player from your team honored with the cover? Huge.
So it’s strange that Auburn fans seem to have forgotten about Nick Fairley’s “NCAA 12” cover nomination earlier this month. There’s been little talk about it over the last few weeks, let alone any kind of major campaigning from Auburn — fans, school — like you might expect.
Imagine if Ben Tate had been nominated for the cover of “NCAA 11.” There would have been Ben Tate, Inc.-organized parades in the streets. Banners strung downtown. Some Ever To Conquer foundation made to ensure our guy won the honor. But that hasn’t happened this year for Nick Fairley. [Ed. note — would we be having this conversation were a certain Blessed Individual up for the cover?]
That discussion and promotion of the contest has been relative weak hasn’t been because Auburn fans were too busy voting. Next time you’re on the official EA Sports NCAA Facebook page, where the voting is done, check out the wall where people are posting who they voted for, who they’re supporting. If you scroll all the way back to when voting opened on March 3rd, “Fairley” is mentioned just 892 times while “Ingram” is mentioned 1,450 times. (DeMarco “Murray” is mention 490 times, and Jake “Locker” 310.) While it’s a small sample size of the 530,585 who “like” the page — many of whom have probably voted multiple times — I think it’s fair to say that Mark Ingram is winning the contest right now*, and it’s not even close.
The reason why is unclear.
Perhaps all of the votes for Ingram are coming from Fairley’s former teammate and fellow defensive lineman Antoine Carter, who knows the only way an Ingram cover could jive with the reality of last season is if he were on it, too, chasing Ingram down, saving the Iron Bowl.
Or perhaps Auburn fans are simply tired of the spotlight. Have we been spoiled by the Heisman Trophy, the national championship? Are we just genuinely full, and content to let the rest of the world have some fun, even our enemies to the west?
With a week remaining in the voting, let’s hope Auburn fans come surging from behind in the clutch to pop the cover out of Ingram’s hands and win Nick Fairley the honor he deserves.
* An EA Sports email reminder about the vote sent late Monday night confirms it: “Alabama’s Heisman Trophy-winning tailback Mark Ingram is in the lead. It’s up to you to knock him out of the lead or keep riding the Crimson Tide to the top.”
You can vote for Nick Fairley here once per day, every day. Voting ends April 4th, a week from today. The winner will be announced April 19th; the game is scheduled for release on June 12th.
Cover awesomeness via @NewtonCaleb.
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It was never a fair fight regardless. As soon as it was announced that you were going to have an Auburn player going up against players from Alabama and Oklahoma, and to a lesser extent Washington, it was game over. Alabama quite literally has twice as many fans as we do. While it’s true that a lower percentage of them are literate and have internet access than ours, they still have enough of a majority over us to ensure they will win any sort of popularity contest. The real blame goes to EA here, for putting it to a vote at all. Cam should have been on the cover, and it shouldn’t have been up for discussion. I think we all know this to be true.
I really like “ball just popped out, uh oh, game just changed” photo.
Yeah it was never a contest. Defensive player who had one good season, vs. Heisman winner from a nationally recognizable school who plays offense.
I hate to say it, but nationally speaking, Ingram was a sexier candidate. It doesn’t matter though, I will just print out a pic of Cam on the cover, and use that.
Or, we could just use this one. http://theauburner.com/boxart11.html
I only check FB from my I-phone, and EA is using Flash for the voting app, so there’s that. I guess all the Bama fans can access it fine using AOL dial-up.
I have a hard time believing that Mr. 800 Yards has a huge advantage over Fairley in the general public vote — most of whom don’t even vote if they don’t have a man in the running.
And if the overall number of fans in a fanbase were the determining factor, then why is Fairley way ahead of DeMarco Murray?
Because we have more fans than Oklahoma.
Twice as many?
I don’t know about everyone else, but I vote everyday.
ingram had a crap season this past year anyway. i believe he finished 7th in rushing just in the SEC. it makes no sense to even nominate him for the cover this year
isn’t there a correlation between getting on the cover and then suddenly sucking? a curse of some kind?
Don’t be silly, drew, a curse for being on the cover of NCAA doesn’t exist. That’s just crazy.
The Madden Curse, however, is very very real.
I also think here’s a general Auburn disgust with EA for snubbing Cam. I mean really, we all know he should be on the cover. A vote is needless. And since EA flat-out refused to give Cam his due, a vote is even more meaningless.
Nick is not the type to blow his own horn
When I try to vote, they ask for access to all of my Facebook friends. That’s uncomfortable.