Nebraska Football: Making Your EA NCAA 14 Cornhusker Rosters Accurate

Many Nebraska football fans viewed Tuesday as a bit of a national holiday, as it was the day when EA Sports released NCAA Football 14, its yearly college football video game. The game is immersive, giving players the opportunity to play as their favorite teams on the virtual gridiron.

Of course, because EA does not have the license to use actual names for players, Nebraska fans will be going under center with QB #3 rather than Taylor Martinez. And while I would never condone gamers taking actions which might further the lawsuit Ed O’Bannon and Sam Keller have filed against the video game maker, there are a few tweaks that Nebraska fans can make to Nebraska’s rosters for the sake of accuracy. Hypothetically, of course.

Quarterbacks

Quite a bit of tweaking needs to be done to get Nebraska’s quarterback roster accurate.

Change QB No. 4 (Tommy Armstrong Jr.) to a redshirt freshman, change freshman QB No. 13 (Johnny Stanton) to QB No. 5, and change junior QB No. 15 (likely Brion Carnes) to senior QB No. 12 (Ron Kellogg III).

Running Backs

Not much work needs to be done with the running backs, thankfully. Change freshman HB No. 6 (Terrell Newby) to HB No. 34.

Fullbacks

Not only is the EA roster accurate in terms of numbers, it likely has the depth chart accurate, with C.J. Zimmerer and Andy Janovich over Mike Marrow (who doesn’t even make the roster in the game).

Wide Receivers

Although some quibbles could be had on the five receivers chosen (no Tyler Wullenwaber?) in terms of the players the only change needed is to make WR #1 (Jordan Westerkamp) a redshirt freshman.

Tight Ends

Even though the EA roster goes four-deep on tight ends, it’s hard to quibble with any of the selections, and it even gets freshman Cethan Carter’s TE No. 11 correct.

Offensive Line

It probably says a lot about Nebraska’s real-life roster that the game has both of NU’s incoming freshman tackles on the roster. Change LG #60 (likely Mike Moudy) to LG No. 74.

Defensive Line

Again, seeing some of Nebraska’s true freshman in the EA roster is an interesting insight as to the overall level of talent on the team. Change RE #13 (A.J. Natter) to RE No. 45, RE No. 7 (Randy Gregory) to RE No. 44, DT No. 98 (Vincent Valentine) to redshirt freshman and DT No. 72 (Maliek Collins) to DT No. 7.

Linebackers

Change LOLB No. 28 (Josh Banderas) to LOLB No. 52, LOLB No. 33 (Jared Afalava) to a redshirt freshman, MLB No. 57 (Courtney Love) to MLB No. 51, ROLB No. 8 (Zaire Anderson) to ROLB No. 13 and ROLB No. 20 (likely Marcus Newby) to ROLB No. 3.

Defensive Backfield

Change CB No. 2 (Boaz Joseph) to CB No. 12, SS No. 18 (LeRoy Alexander) to a redshirt freshman and SS No. 38 (likely Drake Martinez) to SS No. 36.

Specialists

No changes need to be made, although it is likely that Mauro Bondi (No. 37) will win the placekicking job, rather than the punting job that EA put him in.

Enjoy your virtual football and, remember, not a word of this to Ed O’Bannon’s legal team!

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