Tag: 2017

Imagining a Patrick Mahomes EA Sports College Football cover that never was

Our friends at @College_Wire recently pondered which players could have been cover athletes on EA Sports’ College Football games in each year since 2014.

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Fans will soon get a new NCAA college football video game with, EA Sports College Football reaching an agreement to compensate athletes for the use of name, image and likeness.

That means a whole new era of college athletes will get an opportunity to see themselves in a video game and perhaps even as the cover athlete before reaching the NFL. But what of the players who should have had their moment and opportunity over the past 10 years?

The last game from EA Sports, NCAA Football 2014, featured Michigan Wolverines QB Denard Robinson on the cover. Our friend Patrick Conn of College Sports Wire recently explored which athletes could have since been the cover athletes. While he thinks the 2017 edition of the classic video game franchise would have featured Lamar Jackson on the cover, he also considered the possibility that Mahomes could have landed on the cover too.

Mahomes’ team might not have won very many games, but he put up those ridiculous video game numbers in 2016. Not to mention who can forget the number of NCAA records set in the Oklahoma-Texas Tech matchup that season. Mahomes finished 2016 with 5,337 yards of offense and was responsible for 53 touchdowns.

Mahomes certainly had the statistical numbers to garner consideration, but the fact that his team didn’t win a whole lot of games and didn’t compete for championships really would have hurt his cause. Conn certainly isn’t wrong about that barnburner with Oklahoma, though. That would almost certainly be the game that a moment worthy of the video game cover would come from.

The record-setting performance saw 125 total points, which was the second-most all-time between ranked opponents. Mahomes came a yard shy of the record for the most pass attempts in a single game (88) and tied the NCAA record for passing yards in a single game (734).

With what we’ve seen from Mahomes in the NFL, he’d gladly trade all those stats and numbers for the win.

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Where Texas’ 2017 recruiting class is now

Four years ago, Tom Herman was hired to be Texas’ coach. The transition recruiting class was not great. Here is where the ’17 class is now.

Four years ago, Tom Herman was hired away from Houston to become the head coach of Texas. His transition recruiting class was not ideal, dealing with the struggles of Charlie Strong.

On the 247Sports composite, Texas had the No. 25 class in the country and the No. 2 class in the Big 12. It was the lowest-rated class since Strong’s transition class from Mack Brown. Few significant starters were able to be developed and turned into talent ready for the next level.

So far, only four players have made it to the NFL, while five are expected to be on the roster for Steve Sarkisian. COVID-19 allowed players to take a fifth year if they chose to. Of the five, only two are going to be starters week in and week out for the Longhorns.

Here is a look as to where Texas’ 2017 recruiting class is now: