40 Acres Sports

Brian Orakpo will be an 82 rated defensive end for the Redskins in Madden 10.

Roger Goodell and Brian Orakpo were still on stage at last weekend’s NFL Draft and EA Sports already had Orakpo’s Madden NFL 10 Washington Redskins player card ready. The EA experts love his speed and power and rated him as an 82 overall. Both in real life and in the game, Rak is going to have a chance to contribute and flourish early on as a rookie playing next to Albert Haynesworth.

Related Links

• First round player cards
• Rookie Rating Superlatives

ESPN has posted several good videos and articles on the future Longhorns participating in this weekend’s Under Armour All-America Game. Players like Garrett Gilbert and Mason Walters are getting the chance to impress on a national stage and according to Bobby Burton of Rivals.com Gilbert in particular has done so. With five future Longhorns in the game they’re also getting an early opportunity to hang out together, something that will help the group hit the ground running once they get onto the 40 Acres.

ESPN got each of the guys to say a few things about the experience of playing in this game and about choosing to go to Texas. In the first few seconds of the video future LSU athlete Russell Shepard (who seems like a really good kid) passes by and tells the interviewer that future Horn Gilbert is the best QB in the country. I guess the Texas coaches got it right at quarterback after all. Watch below:

The players seem to get along well, which is particularly key for the three offensive lineman. It’s also great to hear that they’ve already got their eyes on a national title:

Mason Walters is 6-foot-7 and nearly 300 pounds. Still, the physically imposing offensive tackle is dwarfed by the larger-than-life expectations that constantly surround the football team at the University of Texas.

As one of five Texas commits participating in Sunday’s Under Armour All-America Game (ESPN, 7 pm), Walters is a principal member of a Longhorns recruiting class that is tall on talent. He says despite each individual’s ability, the group puts a single goal — a collective goal — at the top of its New Year’s resolutions.

“We want a ring,” Walters said. “That’s not a question. We don’t care about awards and stuff individually. I think that the guys want the team to win a national championship in the future. It’s something you can say, but it’s a lot of hard work.”

Under Armour All-Americans Garrett Gilbert, Paden Kelley, Thomas Ashcraft and Barrett Matthews will be joining Walters in Austin next year. Together, they constitute the core of a class that has nine players in the ESPNU 150 and was ranked third in ESPN.com’s most recent breakdown of the top recruiting classes.

Walters also shared his quick personal New Year’s resolutions which include his Halo 3 rank and getting fellow future UT linemate Paden Kelly to cut his hair. Mason certainly looks and sounds like a man already. Watch Mason below:

Love to see the kids bonding as this group of guys along with the players at the US Army All-American Game will make up the core of future Texas teams. You can catch Under Armour practices on ESPNU this week and the game will air live Sunday night at 7pm.

Video game website IGN.com reviews NCAA Football 09 and thinks this year’s version is pretty impressive. The game continues to increase the overall college atmosphere in the game every year and this season the additions of online 60-year dynasties with your friends/enemies makes the game definitely worth a purchase.

Watch the video below:

Go buy the game from Amazon.com and then add HookEm722 to your Xbox Live friends list if you want to take me on. We’ll be trying to organize an online dynasty on the site soon, stay tuned.

From Kotaku.com:

About two weeks ago we reported that this is crunch time for the independent roster editors for NCAA 09, which goes to the street today. But as this video — of NCAA 09’s roster screen — shows, using a third-party edited file can can corrupt a team’s depth chart and its overall rating, if not delete the team entirely, until EA can patch the game.

For roster editors, this is a setback in a niche that has prided itself on near-instantaneous turnaround of complete roster files by the date the game drops. EA, we’re told, is working feverishly on a patch to resolve this problem. But for now, anyone who downloads any roster file should avoid editing it; and those who do choose to edit it should do so offline, as doing so online risks corruption and can crash the game, according to our source.

Conversations with that source tell of an entire, crucial weekend of work essentially lost. One early-bird editor, working off of a devkit and not a final copy of the game, already got a file out through EA Locker. Other roster editors used it as source for their own files, and discovered the glitch. Even though the original author removed that file, there is still some residual viral spread that could affect unwitting others. It and anything going around right now should be considered suspect until the game is patched.

“I was assured that when I release my rosters on Friday there shouldn’t be any problems wth them,” one editor, who demanded anonymity because of a close, unofficial relationship with EA, told Kotaku. A day-three release of a custom roster file was, to now, considered very late. Now it’s the earliest that a reliable file can be produced.

The corruption — and this could be a total shot in the dark — appears to involve nonstandard ASCII characters in certain players’ names in the roster file, such as the infamous A’Mod Ned of Florida International, who memorably waded into a melee between FIU and Miami in 2006 on a pair of crutches. Indeed FIU is one of several teams that go missing, for inexplicable reasons, after changes are made to a roster file that was already created and shared by one editor. While that editor has already removed the file from EA locker, others who downloaded it continue to send it to friends unwittingly.

If you intend to game with custom roster files on NCAA Football, you probably should not use them until you see that the game has downloaded a patch from Electronic Arts.

…Stephen W. out of Cedar Park.

Congratulations to Stephen for being randomly selected as the winner of a copy of NCAA Football 09 courtesy of Bevo Sports. Stephen entered our game giveaway contest simply by sending in his name and email address and now he’s being shipped the Xbox 360 version of the game. He’ll have the game soon and should be playing in a new online dynasty as the Horns by the end of the week.

Thanks to everyone for entering the contest and for reading the site. Keep tuning in here for more great content, all new features, and the chance at free stuff. Hook ‘em!

NCAA Football 09 (finally) comes out Tuesday but you have less than 48 hours remaining to sign up to win it from Bevo Sports. No strings attached, no purchase necessary, just fill out one form with your name and email address and you can win the game.

Game will be shipped via Amazon.com two-day shipping so it will ship Tuesday and you should have it in your hands for free by the end of the week. The contest ends at 11:59 pm Central time on Saturday July 12th. Go sign up to win now and let Bevo Sports hook you up with your virtual football fix.

A friendly reminder that you now have less than a week to sign up to win NCAA Football 09 courtesy of Bevo Sports. We’re giving away a copy to one lucky reader for the system of their choice. Whether you have a Wii, a PlayStation 3, or a Xbox 360 we’ll hook you up with the goods.

The contest ends at 11:59 pm Central time on Saturday July 12th. Enter to win now and let Bevo Sports fill your summer with joy.

NCAA Football 09 isn’t even out yet (and we’re giving it away!!) but I’m also getting excited about Madden 09 thanks to some new video and screenshots that have hit the web.

Operation Sports has up a ton of new images including the great one above of Titans’ Vince Young diving for a beautiful touchdown at the pylon against the Jaguars. I love the flashes going off in the crowd. It’s accurately catching what really happens, despite the fact that with most cameras that probably means you just took a photo of the guy’s head in front of you.

Word from the guys at IGN and Gamespot is that Madden 09 is more than just a roster update, hopefully they’re right and there are some cool new features. Other than last year’s version (which I bought just because Vince was on the cover), I’ve been buying NCAA and renting Madden every year for a while. There will have to be more than a rewind/cheat feature to make me purchase the game this year.

Check out the screenshots.

Congrats to our winner Stephen W. out of Cedar Park, TX.

Had July 15th marked on your calendar for months? Us too. Games don’t begin until the end of August but for many college football fans the season begins in mid-July when NCAA Football 09 by EA Sports is released. This year Bevo Sports is going to help you get your fix, we’re giving away a copy of the game to one lucky reader for either the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or Nintendo Wii.

We will randomly select one winner from entries submitted to this form and the winner will receive NCAA Football 09 free for the console of their choice shipped on launch day. No strings attached, just cool free stuff from your favorite Texas Longhorns website.

Comments on this post are open only for questions about the contest, you must fill out this entry form to win. Only one entry per person (and per IP address) is allowed. Game will be shipped via Amazon.com Two-Day Shipping so winning mailing address must be in the continental United States.

The contest ends at 11:59 pm Central time on Saturday July 12th, so have your submission in by then to win. We’ll notify the winner Sunday morning and the game should be in the mail on the way to them Tuesday and in their grubby little hands by the end of the week!

Note: This contest is not endorsed or sponsored in any way by Electronic Arts or EA Sports.

Contest has ended. Buy NCAA 09 from Amazon.com.

Update: Bevo Sports is giving away NCAA Football 09, enter to win!

NCAA Football 09 is less than a month away, the demo is up on Xbox Live and the Playstation Network, and player ratings are starting to make their way on to the Internet. EA Sports released the team top 25 and player ratings for all those teams.

I went through the list and put the players’ real names in where possible. I had trouble with a lot of the true freshmen in the game so if you know who any of the blank names are or if I made any mistakes please let me know in the comments. It really looks like EA did a poor job this year on the roster and depth chart. Hopefully it’s a little more accurate when the game is released.

You can download Excel files of the player ratings at the bottom of this post or check out the overall ratings for the Texas team below:

Downloads

• Texas player ratings
• Full top 25 player ratings

Just a reminder that if you’re interested in getting a free copy of NCAA Football 08 for the Xbox 360 you need to contact us before the end of the weekend. Check out this post for a few more details.

The new game is only a few months away but you can win NCAA Football 08 from Bevo Sports today! One of the best football games of the last few years and a must play for the obsessive compulsive college football fan. Like recruiting? You can spend hours in the game calling the top players in the nation and telling them what Texas has to offer.

Okay, really I just forgot to eBay this 6 months ago which means its now not worth it. But if you’re interested in the game it still sells for $40 at retail so getting for free isn’t so bad! Simply fill out our contact form and mention you want the game and I’ll select a winner at random at the end of next week.

I am giving away the Xbox 360 version of the game so please make sure you’re capable of playing it before entering. Keep visiting Bevo Sports, we’ll be giving away more stuff (including NCAA 09 in July) to lucky readers throughout the year!

GameSpot has posted their early first look at NCAA Football 09. Just checking out the screenshots gets me hyped.

The next big video game in College Station? iSheep, the bleeding edge in simulated shepherding technology.

For our geekier readers this is a cool video of the Cal band’s halftime show against Washington State earlier this month. A musical tribute to video games featuring theme music and scenes from games like Super Mario Bros., Zelda, and Tetris. Check it out:

Hey their team may suck and the actual music was pretty mediocre, but that was definitely a cool idea and they did a great job with their routine. (Is that the right word? Routine?) Certainly a lot more interesting than a band that just does the same exact thing every single time.

Microsoft adds ESPN programing to the Xbox 360. I might pay $4.50 for a game in HD if I could have it on more than my Xbox.

EA Sports’ NCAA Football 08 has been out for a couple of weeks now and the game is fantastic. This year’s version on the Xbox 360 is definitely a big step up from last year’s disappointing next gen appearance. The game isn’t perfect (excessive turnovers, bad ESPN integration, a few strange quirks in the menus) and I’ll have a review up after I’ve had more time to play, but so far my biggest issue is Jared Zabransky’s mug on the cover.

Don’t want someone who will soon be working in an autobody shop on the cover of your game? That’s where the site EA Custom Covers comes in. They’ve got high quality custom covers with your favorite players from all your favorite teams for whatever version of the game you own. Check out their Texas gallery including covers for Colt McCoy, Jamaal Charles, Limas Sweed, and Selvin Young. If you passed kindergarten it’s easy to print out the cover you want, cut it out, and replace the picture of the Boise State QB Sooner-killer with someone more deserving.

Matt Leinart is still whining about losing to Texas in the 2006 Rose Bowl, but now it’s actually kind of amusing in a pretty decent new commercial for NCAA Football ‘08 from EA Sports:

They could have rewritten the ending of the game a little more realistically, instead of Leinart suddenly becoming a scrambling dynamo. Or for ultimate accuracy, they could have shown him quietly sobbing on the sideline.

This is actually part of a series of commercials for the game with players talking about how they’d rewrite history. Others include Texas beating Oklahoma in 2004 (haven’t seen that one yet) and OU stuffing Boise State’s Statue of Liberty play to win the Fiesta Bowl. NCAA Football ‘08 will be in stores on July 17th for current and next-gen game systems.

(via)

I was just thinking the other day, with the NBA Draft coming up on Thursday I figured I would be seeing more Kevin Durant commercials. Thankfully EA Sports has granted my wish. Starting today, Kevin Durant (along with Gilbert Arenas) will be featured in 3 different commercials for EA Sports’ upcoming NBA Live ‘08 video game.

The first commercial will feature Arena giving Durant dunk tips when Durant clanks one off the rim. “No, no, no! Who’s teaching you this stuff? Left stick, right stick, towards the basket, then the square button when you get close. Wait on the square!”

Here is the second commercial:

And the third commercial will feature Durant stealing the ball from Arenas and going up for an uncontested lay-up. When Arenas tells Durant he hasn’t taught him that yet, Durant replies, “I have my own go-to moves now.”

Can’t wait to see the others.

Big changes coming for NCAA 08 dynasty mode and recruiting. Sounds a lot more interesting and challenging.

The Oklahoma Sooners lost to Boise State in historic fashion in last year’s Fiesta Bowl, and it looks like EA isn’t going to let them forget it. One of the biggest features they’re touting in NCAA Football 08 (due out in July) is all the new trick plays they’ve added to the expanded play books. To highlight the feature, they’re using a clip of Boise State using the Statue of Liberty play to beat OU as the latest trailer. See the video below:

I’m not sure how well the new trick plays will work in the game, even the simple reverses that have been in previous games didn’t work very well. Even if the plays are useless, at least it’ll make Oklahoma fans relive the game a few more times.

Check out the rest of the article.

It’s still early in the NFL Draft and lots of college superstars are finding out which mediocre NFL team they’ll have to spend at least four or five years with, but for Texas fans the only interesting thing so far has been the debut of the new Vince Young commercial for Madden 08:

Decent commercial but not too exciting and no video of the game. EA hasn’t shown any actual gameplay footage at the draft the last few years so we’ll likely have to wait to learn more about the game in the coming weeks.

IGN has a hands-on preview of NCAA Football 08 up. Still no video of the game.

IGN.com interviews Vince Young about Madden, the curse, and the Titans.

Here’s a short video of Vince Young’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night to announce what everyone already knew, that he was going to be on the cover of Madden 08.

This is just the first couple of minutes from Joystiq where he’s talking about the curse, I’ll get the whole interview off my TiVo tonight and post it.

The full video of the interview is now posted below:

Update: I’m having some trouble getting the TiVo file to work in any video editor after I strip off the DRM. Works in Windows Media Player so I’ll try to upload that version in the morning if I can.

Update 2: Vince’s full appearance has now been uploaded and I replaced the video in this post.