Being named as the cover winner of EA Sports' popular video game NCAA Football is an honored tradition. Past winners include Mark Ingraham, Tim Tebow and Robert Griffin III. Fans battle out in Internet votes to get their favorite player to be on the cover for the calendar year. This year the winner of the NCAA Football 14 cover is Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson. He beat out Texas A&M's Ryan Swope to earn the cover.
Voting for the cover star began in mid-December and the decision was not made without a bit of controversy. In an effort to boost voting and attention to the game, EA Sports created Facebook polls as a method of collecting votes. EA Sports hoped fans would vote so many times until their guy won and in return it would boost sales of the game. While that did happen, there was also a large amount of cheating reported as fans found loop holes in the system. Fake Facebook accounts were created in an effort to pad the votes around certain players. Robinson had the lead from the start; however Swope suspiciously closed a 7,000 vote gap to come within a few hundred votes of winning.
EA Sports was forced to investigate but vows to restore legitimacy for the winner. There is no word on how the company plans to verify the votes placed.
Robinson is the third Michigan player to earn the cover. Former Heisman Trophy winners Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson have also graced the cover of the video game.
"I want to say thank you to all the fans at Michigan for getting behind me. Michigan has one of the best fan bases. It's an honor to go to Michigan, and for us to be on the cover of NCAA Football," Robinson said after being announced the winner.
Robinson led the Wolverines with 1,266 yards rushing in 2012, averaging 7.2 per carry. This is the third consecutive season he has recorded over 1,000 yards rushing. No other FBS quarterback has more career yards rushing.
Ryan Swope was a deserving candidate of the cover having a record setting career of his own. He is the Aggies' all-time leading receiver with at least 800 yards in each of his last three seasons.
