Battle for NCAA Football ‘09 cover

Monday, February 25, 2008

An online vote is giving Jayhawk fans the opportunity to vote for Big Jay to grace the cover of NCAA Football ‘09 on the Nintendo Wii.

The EA Sports Mascot Challenge, a promotion for the NCAA Football video game series’ return to the Nintendo lineup, allows college fans to vote for the mascot they want to be featured on the game’s cover.

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How to vote for Big Jay What: Vote for Big Jay to be on the cover of Nintendo Wii’s NCAA Football 09 video game Where: easports.com/ncaa09 When: Fans can vote once a day until March 14 Winner: The results will be announced March 18

Fans can vote for any NCAA Division-I Football Bowl Subdvision school’s mascot. EA Sports hasn’t released an NCAA football game for Nintendo systems since 2004.

“One of the great things about NCAA football is the tradition and how those fans are attached to their mascots,” said Kendall Boyd, product manager for NCAA Football ‘09.

Steven Griswold, Forsyth, Ill., junior, started a group on facebook.com to encourage fans to participate in the competition and get Big Jay on the cover.

“Right after I found about it, I searched the Web site, noticed we didn’t have a facebook group for it and started it,” Griswold said.

More than 1,200 people joined the Facebook group on Feb. 17, the day Griswold created it. As of Sunday afternoon, the group had more than 7,000 members.

“If we were to ever make the cover, this year would be our year because we did so well this season,” Griswold said.

Friday, Boyd said that more than 200,000 votes had been cast in the competition so far. EA Sports Big did a similar promotion for their NFL Tour video game. That promotion received only 60,000 votes.

Boyd also said that Kansas was in the top 15 in the competition.

“I think the Facebook craze really boosted the votes,” Boyd said.

Griswold was surprised that Kansas was ranked that high in the competition.

Big Jay participated in the Capital One Mascot Challenge, another online voting competition, in 2005, but did not win.

“We did pretty well in the Capital One Bowl contest, and we’ve had considerable success on the field since then,” said Associate Athletics Director Jim Marchiony. “Our fans are energized, and Kansas has been in the limelight all fall. I think we have a good shot to do well.”

Fans can vote once a day at easports.com/ncaa09. Voting began on Feb. 14 and will end on March 14. EA sports will announce the winner on March 18. NCAA Football ‘09 will be released on July 15.

— Edited by Daniel Reyes

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