Many sports video game fans across the country (including myself) were excited to learn that the NCAA Football franchise is on track to return to our lives in the summer of 2024, which will be re-named “EA Sports College Football.”
Plans for the game were threatened to be delayed due to a lawsuit from The Brandr Group, citing that the franchise’s $500 million pool, which would give each athlete represented in the game $500, was considered to be “far below market value.”
Despite the setback, EA Sports remains on schedule to release the game next summer.
“We’re incredibly excited to bring back an authentic college football experience for fans and athletes that have shown such passion for the franchise, and we’re looking forward to delivering it in Summer 2024,” an EA spokesperson tells On3’s Pete Nakos.
It has been ten years since the release of the last game, NCAA Football 14. It has us at Auburn Wire thinking… which Auburn athletes missed out on being a cover athlete for the famous video game franchise?
In the first edition of the series titled “Missing the Cut”, we took a look back at which Auburn players had the best chance of being the cover athlete for NCAA 15, ultimately settling on [autotag]Chris Davis[/autotag] and now it is time to break down who could have been on the cover of NCAA Football 16.
After making a run to the BCS National Championship Game in 2013, Auburn’s 2014 season did not go nearly as well, the Tigers finished the year 8-5 and lost four of their final five games. However, several players had impressive seasons and have strong cases for being on the cover but only one player can be picked.
[autotag]Cameron Artis-Payne[/autotag] had the tough task of attempting to replace the production of [autotag]Michael Dyer[/autotag] and he proved to be up to the task. He wracked up 1,608 yards and 13 touchdowns on the ground en route to being named to the All-SEC First-Team.
Artis-Payne rushed for over 100 yards in nine different games including a monster game against Texas A&M where he ran for 221 yards and two touchdowns on 30 carries.
His great season was just enough to edge out wide receiver [autotag]Sammie Coates[/autotag] and cornerback [autotag]Jonathan Jones[/autotag] both of whom had breakout seasons for the Tigers.
Here are the best photos of each of the candidates that could have been used as the cover image.