Ohio State 10 Florida State 0 at The Half

I once saw Boomer Esiason throw 5 INTs against the Browns back in the day. Being a Browns fan, I was thrilled. God as my witness I hate the Bengals. Icky Shuffle my ass. Anyway--

5 picks. It was surreal. But it happened.

Playing NCAA after those first two test games reminds me of that day when Boomer was mercilessly picked off 5 times by Hanford Dixon and the boys.

I am currently playing at FSU with my Bucks.

AA lvl, 7 min quarters, CPU Acc at 70 (or 75, I can't recall)
Human INT, KNDWN and DAWR at 0

It's 10-0. FSU can't move the ball at all. Beanie Wells is being shutdown by a very fast FSU defense and the Silver Bullets are swarming to the ball. This is the first time in the history of this series that I can really tell the difference between playing with a good defense and a GREAT defense. Ohio State is all over the field, gang tackling -- getting to the ball, sniffing out screens.

It's a thing of freaking beauty.

Little Animal has 12 tackles -- at the HALF.

FSU QB line: 9/13 70 yards, 2 sacks, 1 INT
OSU QB: Todd is 7/11 87 yds 1 INT (totally my fault...)

Beanie has 28 yards on 12 carries. It's a struggle.

The INT is how I scored. It was 3-0 OSU in the 2nd when FSU calls a screen on 3rd and 10. Freeman read it and was all over the RB. Weatherford (He's still at FSU, right?) was being pressured by Wilson (2 more sacks by him by speed rushing -- getting pressure is NOT a problem in this game, regardless of what anyone else tells you. Speed rushing in fact might even be too effective.) So as the rush is coming he throws the ball to the RB anyway -- and Freeman picks it off at the 10 and walks in. TD. That was the only pick in the half and it didn't feel canned.

By canned -- you know what I mean. So many of the INTs last year were in the middle of the field, almost as if by design, like it was "time" to get an INT. This felt legit -- pressure + forced throw = bad news.

Of course we're about to leave for the fireworks so I had to kill the game...but 10-0! Two great defenses! A game where every yard counts!

Happy happy joy joy. That simply NEVER happens in NCAA.

So, my hope is those first two games were simply Boomer Esiason games. Because every game since then has been very different -- and a hell of a lot of fun.

Now, just fix the damn kick coverage!