Rose Bowl Sim

Saturday, November 26th 2005
Uncategorized

I let NCAA 06 have a shot at simulating the Rose Bowl after I tweaked the ratings of both USC and Texas.

You can watch it.

I’m not real pleased with the A.I. involved. Texas stuffs Reggie but Leinart and Dwayne Jarrett go off and Jarrett ends with a couple touchdowns and just around 150 yards recieving.

In any case Vince has a terrible day, throwing three interceptions, the last one with just under two minutes to play. USC picks up one first down, but Texas uses all three of its timeouts and a tough situation arises:

There’s a minute ten left, you’re in the lead, it is third and long, you’re just on your side of the field, and the other team has no timeouts left. Do you throw for the first down or run the ball knowing you’ll probably be stopped short and the other team will get the ball back with about 50 seconds left?

For me the fact that Texas needed a touchdown to win (USC was up by 5) means I run the ball and try to waste the clock. The game had Matt Leinart try to throw for it, and he was picked off. The ball was returned to USC’s 35 setting up Vince Youngs game winning touchdown throw with 3 seconds on the clock. They went for the 2 pointer and failed (as if USC was going to get within field goal range in 3 seconds).

Texas 27, USC 26