• Stat Box Stories Introduces the Bowl Blitz Invitational

    As some of you may already know, Stat Box Stories is a great community site that uses NCAA Football 12, Madden NFL 12, NHL 12, and FIFA 12 to play games, record statistics, post video highlights, and tell the stories of games played every week. With Bowl Season beginning next Saturday, December 17th, Stat Box Stories is trying to rally some interested guest writers to the cause of trying to create statistical write-ups of all of the Bowl Games for this 2011-2012 season.

    If you have yet to read a write-up over at the blog site, here is the most recent example of work done using NCAA Football 12: the Army-Navy Game. Here also is the link to the guide for guest writers--Write a Guest Story--to give you some idea of what is looked for from guest contributors. Our own psuexv here at The Gaming Tailgate actually contributed the first guest story for the site this week, which you can read here: New York Islanders at Pittsburgh Penguins in NHL 12.

    Continue on to learn how to help write a guest story for Stat Box Stories for any of the great bowls this postseason and to sign-up.

    If you think you might be interested in contributing a Bowl Game write-up for publication at Stat Box Stories, consider the following guidelines below and then comment on this post with the game you would like to play:
    • Bowl Games in NCAA Football 12 can be played on whichever difficulty you like, so long as you specify it.
    • Bowl match-ups should be played in the designated bowl (obviously), and try to replicate the time of day for the bowl game.
    • Quarter lengths on the blog so far have been 7 minutes, but as long as you're playing at least 5 minute quarters you'll be fine.
    • Even if you use named rosters, the write-ups and statistical tracking should reference the player's position and number as though you were playing the game right out of the box. It takes a little bit of extra work when you're collecting the information--trust me, I do it every week--but it's not difficult.
    • If you sign up to do one of the Bowl Games, it must be completed and submitted before the game is played in real life so that it can be posted before the game.
    • Submissions will be emailed to paakaa10@gmail.com.


    For the list of bowl games looking for volunteers, visit this post.


    If Stat Box Stories can get a write-up and statistics for every single Bowl Game, they will consider awarding a prize for the guest contributor whose game result (final score) most closely matched the actual result of the game in real life. In the event of a tie, the tie-breaker would be whichever game had the closest offensive yards for each team in the game compared to the real-life statistics.

    If there are any questions, please comment and paakaa10 will try to answer them; otherwise, sign up for the game you're interested in playing, and good luck!
    Comments 126 Comments
    1. JeffHCross's Avatar
      JeffHCross -
      Awesome job, Brian, organizing all this. And great job with everyone chipping in.
    1. Paakaa10's Avatar
      Paakaa10 -
      Quote Originally Posted by JeffHCross View Post
      Awesome job, Brian, organizing all this. And great job with everyone chipping in.
      Thanks Jeff! I'm still overwhelmed by all of the people who have contributed their time and effort to this project. Definitely means a lot to me.

      Some real close results in the Bowl Games so far today, as Chris' Texas A&M score was 1 point off from their actual score and Tommy's Georgia Tech score was also 1 point off from the actual score. Unfortunately, the scores for the opposing teams weren't quite so close, meaning the closest result for the Bowl Blitz Invitational so far remains my playthrough of the 2011 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl; 7 points total.
    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt -
      I would have been in great shape had Al Groh had enough sense to call a proper defense on 4th & long. Instead Utah scores on a fade route to send it into overtime. Before that I was +1 & -3 for the scores.
    1. Paakaa10's Avatar
      Paakaa10 -
      Quote Originally Posted by gschwendt View Post
      I would have been in great shape had Al Groh had enough sense to call a proper defense on 4th & long. Instead Utah scores on a fade route to send it into overtime. Before that I was +1 & -3 for the scores.
      I was thinking for a while there that my "record" would be shattered with the Sun Bowl score today. At least we both did better than JB did with the Alamo Bowl result .
    1. Paakaa10's Avatar
      Paakaa10 -
      Well, psusnoop just got our first EXACT SCORE from the Chick-fil-A Bowl, as Virginia scored 24 points in both his playthrough in NCAA Football 12 as well as in real-life against Auburn. Unfortunately, Auburn's score was 30 points off .
    1. Paakaa10's Avatar
      Paakaa10 -
      Today's early Bowl Game action brings a new "clubhouse leader" in the race for whose playthrough in NCAA Football 12 will most closely match the real-life score. psuexv's time with the 2012 Gator Bowl resulted in 19 points for Ohio State and 24 points for Florida; the real-life score had Ohio State finish with 17 and Florida with 24, meaning that the Florida score was perfect and the Ohio State score was only TWO POINTS OFF!

      It'll definitely be tough for anybody else to top that unless they manage to get the exact final score of one of the remaining games.
    1. psuexv's Avatar
      psuexv -
    1. psusnoop's Avatar
      psusnoop -
      Quote Originally Posted by Paakaa10 View Post
      Well, psusnoop just got our first EXACT SCORE from the Chick-fil-A Bowl, as Virginia scored 24 points in both his playthrough in NCAA Football 12 as well as in real-life against Auburn. Unfortunately, Auburn's score was 30 points off .
      LOL just a bit off on that Auburn score
    1. Paakaa10's Avatar
      Paakaa10 -
      After a busy weekend of entries, today we go back to only a single entry as there is--sadly--only one college Bowl Game on the schedule. At least it's a BCS Bowl Game.

      2012 Allstate Sugar Bowl -- Michigan Wolverines @ Virginia Tech Hokies by Paakaa10
    1. Paakaa10's Avatar
      Paakaa10 -
      Another day, another BCS Bowl Game entry; today is the last BCS Bowl Game before the national championship game:

      2012 Discover Orange Bowl -- West Virginia Mountaineers @ Clemson Tigers by Paakaa10
    1. psuexv's Avatar
      psuexv -
      Playing around with You Tube's video editing. Threw together a highlight reel of all of the Bowl games that I played

    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt -
      Quote Originally Posted by psuexv View Post
      Playing around with You Tube's video editing. Threw together a highlight reel of all of the Bowl games that I played
      You should do an audio swap to set it to music of some kind.
    1. morsdraconis's Avatar
      morsdraconis -
      Quote Originally Posted by Paakaa10 View Post
      Another day, another BCS Bowl Game entry; today is the last BCS Bowl Game before the national championship game:

      2012 Discover Orange Bowl -- West Virginia Mountaineers @ Clemson Tigers by Paakaa10
      Not to be a negative nancy or anything, but, you ran the ball with WVU WAY too much. Smith is gonna throw the ball 45 times tonight. He's gonna have to cause we can't run the ball worth a shit.
    1. psuexv's Avatar
      psuexv -
      Quote Originally Posted by gschwendt View Post
      You should do an audio swap to set it to music of some kind.
      Good idea G, it's processing now. Are there only certain tracks that I can use?
    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt -
      Quote Originally Posted by psuexv View Post
      Good idea G, it's processing now. Are there only certain tracks that I can use?
      Yeah, Youtube has a library to pick from, though there are a fair number. Most aren't too recognizable but you can probably find something to suit your needs.
    1. psuexv's Avatar
      psuexv -
      Quote Originally Posted by gschwendt View Post
      Yeah, Youtube has a library to pick from, though there are a fair number. Most aren't too recognizable but you can probably find something to suit your needs.
      Cool, it now has audio
    1. psuexv's Avatar
      psuexv -
      I will say the video editor is pretty cool. Reminds me of iMovie.
    1. Paakaa10's Avatar
      Paakaa10 -
      Quote Originally Posted by morsdraconis View Post
      Not to be a negative nancy or anything, but, you ran the ball with WVU WAY too much. Smith is gonna throw the ball 45 times tonight. He's gonna have to cause we can't run the ball worth a shit.
      Yeah, it wasn't an entirely "sim" effort on my behalf haha. A good chunk of the rushing yardage for the starting halfback and for the team in general came on that one ridiculous 96-yard touchdown run anyway. The carries always get a bit inflated too because I don't kneel on the ball even if I have it at the end of the game; I just call HB Dives and Power O runs to keep entertained until the clock runs out if I have the final possession and the lead.