Missing the cut: Which Auburn Tiger could have been on the cover of NCAA Football 20?

Three Auburn defenders had cases to be on the cover of NCAA Football 20 if it had been released.

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?

Auburn entered the 2018 season with high expectations after winning the SEC West in 2017 and started the year off 4-1 with a win over No. 6 Washington. They were unable to keep it going though and went on to finish the season 8-5.

It was the defense that led the way for the Tigers and the leader of the group was linebacker [autotag]Deshaun Davis[/autotag] and he is our choice to appear on the hypothetical NCAA Football 20 cover.

Davis did it all for Auburn’s defense, he led the team with 112 tackles and 15.0 tackles for loss. It was the first time an Auburn defender made over 100 tackles in a season since [autotag]Johnathan Ford[/autotag] made 118 in 2015 and only [autotag]Zakoby McClain[/autotag] has done it since.

Other worthy candidates include [autotag]Nick Coe[/autotag], who led the Tigers with 7.0 sacks to go with 13.5 tackles for loss. [autotag]Derrick Brown[/autotag] also made his presence felt along the defensive line, making 48 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss and constantly eating double teams to free up his teammates to make the play.

Before you take a look at the best photos from each of the contenders, here are the previous hypothetical covers.