For the first time ever in the NCAA series, I just played a game where the CPU actually won the all important time of possession battle. Anyone that follows my exploits will know that this is damn near impossible! Not only do I tend to play games where I ground things out on the ground (3 yards and a cloud of dust and all that jazz), the CPU seems to always pick up a few quick scores on long TD strikes or some such broken play.
Last night, I managed to beat Troy 28-3. North Texas has two studs at HB (plus yours truly at QA) so I like to give those guys the ball as much as possible. Say what you will about North Texas and my style of offense, but Patrick Cobbs and Jamario Thomas have led the country in rushing the past two years, so it would be fairly ignorant of me to just start chucking the ball all over the field. Besides, I am a Heisman hopeful, and a scrambling QB to boot, so I have to keep the ball on the ground as much as possible.
I am getting completely off track here. At the start of the 4th quarter, despite being up 21-3, Troy still had me beat by 3 minutes in overall TOP. By the end of the game, Troy was up 9:30 to my 8:30. I find that simply shocking, but in a good sort of way.
I did fumble twice, including one time at the 1 yard line – I leaped into the endzone, but apparently I forgot to take the ball across the goalline. I also hit one of my TEs for a 71 yard TD strike (about 50 yards after the catch). I also held Tory in check with a fumble recovery, an INT, and I stopped one fake punt attempt.
I am still not sure how I managed not to win the TOP battle, but I am pleasantly surprised that NCAA 2006 is giving me something different. My pride has been wounded, which means I am going to try to beat the crap out of Arkansas State later tonight!
