EA Sports knows its football

While so-called experts are making preseason picks about WAC champions and dark-horse BCS candidates, EA Sports is speaking the plain truth. And nothing says credibility like a video game.

Fight Fight BSU brought us news of Bronco Stadium being one of the toughest places to play in NCAA Football 09, and today we find that the team rankings in the game are optimistic, too. EA Sports lists Boise State and Hawaii as the best teams in the WAC with Fresno State a distant third. Here is the predicted order of finish judging from the total team rankings (in parentheses)

1. Boise State (77)
2. Hawaii (77)
3. Fresno State (74)
4. New Mexico State (74)
5. Nevada (69)
6. LaTech (69)
7. San Jose State (62)
8. Utah State (60)
9. Idaho (60)

We were also pleased to find out that EA thinks Utah State has the worst offense in college football and Idaho has the worst defense in college football. We haven't felt this good about a video game since we went undefeated in Madden 05 on the Gamecube.

NCAA Football 09 rosters [EA Sports]

Thursday: Links with politics

Story of the day:

Yahoo/Rivals starts rankings countdown [Rivals.com]

Starting with the bottom of college football and working their way up, Rivals.com will be unveiling a countdown of all 120 teams over the next few weeks. And there's no surprise whom they chose for the bottom.

Numbers 118 and 119 out of a possible 120 are the WAC's Utah State and Idaho. Only Florida Atlantic was deemed worse.

RE: the Vandals:

THE BUZZ: It's tough to succeed in the WAC when you can't throw the ball effectively. Playing in a league that featured five of the nation's top 40 passing offenses last year, Idaho is going to continue to lag behind until it shores up its passing attack.

Well, we don't know if we would call it "buzz." More like sad, depressing truth.

Their take on the Aggies started awfully optimistic, but quickly turned south.

Utah State enters the season on a two-game winning streak. They haven't won three in a row since 1996-97. But a 1-4 start looks likely, and unless the Aggies win at home against Idaho on Sept. 20, a winless season is a possibility.

Too bad Florida Atlantic isn't on the schedule.

Other links:

Face of Boise State football [Bronco Nation NOW]
Our vote rhymes with "Schmadman."

WAC expansion with...Utah Valley State? [Parsing the WAC]
They don't have a football team, which is a far more honest assessment than that of the University of Idaho.

Utah State pretty geeked up about Phil Steele [Utah Statesman]
Take comfort in the small victories, Aggies.

Still no Jeremy Childs [Idaho Statesman]