South Carolina’s best football players in the NCAA video game series.
EA Sports announced the revival of its NCAA Football video game series last week, which has caused jubilation for middle-aged men across the country. The game has been on a hiatus since 2014, when court battles began to emerge to pay college athletes for their image.
NCAA and EA Sports have reached an agreement with member institutions that allows them to use teams and logos again, but will not have players that resemble the image or the names of current athletes, which makes the game lose some of its shine. Still, the announcement of the series restart has won a cult following.
With that said, we started thinking about the best players that have ever starred in the EA Sports game series. Some are brainless, while others are a little surprising. Let’s look at the best Gamecocks to be featured on NCAA Football.
The game identifies the best players as those with at least an 88 rating. There are 26 players between 2000 and 2014, the last season of the game, to achieve that rating while playing for Gamecocks.
Rating 88-92
QB: Stephen Garcia (’12), Connor Shaw (’13, ’14), Dylan Thompson (’14)
RB: Corey Boyd (’06), Mike Davis (’09)
WR: Kenny McKinley (’09)
OL: Justin Sorensen (’09), Brock Stadnik (’13), Ronald Patrick (’13)
DL: Eric Norwood (’09), Jadeveon Clowney (’13)
LB: Rodney Paulk (’09)
DB: Fred Bennett (’07), Carlos Thomas (’09), Stephon Gilmore (’12)
Interesting notes
- Gamecocks have had three quarterbacks ranked in the 88-89 range over the past three seasons of the game’s existence.
- The ’09 edition featured six players in this ranking range, the largest of any year in the game’s history.
- Jadeveon Clowney was one of the top 5 DEs in the ’13 edition.
Rating 93-98
QB: none
RB: Marcus Lattimore (’12, ’13)
WR: Sidney Rice (’07), Alshon Jeffery (’12)
OL: none
DL: none
LB: Ricardo Hurley (’06), Jasper Brinkley (’08, ’09)
DB: Ko Simpson (’06), DJ Swearinger (’13)
Interesting notes
- Marcus Lattimore was considered twice the second best running back of the game, obtaining ratings of 95 and 97 in two seasons.
- Alshon Jeffery was the second best game wideout in the 2013 edition.
- The medium lineback Jasper Brinkley has twice won the 95+ rating.
- Ko Simpson was the best security of the game in the 2006 edition of the game.
The 99 Club
Jadeveon Clowney (’14)
Only one ex-Gamecock is a member of the coveted “99 Club” and it is no surprise that he is Jadeveon Clowney. In the last edition of the game, 2014, Clowney is the highest rated player in all college football. This comes in the season after his infamous Michigan runner coup, Vincent Smith, and a year in which Clowney registered 13 sacks, 22.5 tackles per defeat, was named All-American and finished sixth in the Heisman vote.