Headlines

- We've reached the final days of voting for the NCAA Football 12 cover athlete. At last word, Alabama RB Mark Ingram still held the lead despite hard campaigning by the UFC for Oklahoma RB DeMarco Murray and frequent tweets from Auburn DL Nick Fairley. With no social media presence, Washington QB Jake Locker is relying on the west coact vote to carry him through. Voting ends April 4 with the winner announced April 19 on ESPN's "First Take." Click here to vote via the EA SPORTS NCAA Football Facebook page.

- More new plays have been announced for NCAA Football 12. Click here to view the announced offensive plays and to see the unveiled defensive plays, click here.

- Don't get bogged down with fake stories around the web on April Fool's. Bookmark our world-famous NCAA Football 12 Information Central for all of the latest game-related news, information and media. Share this easy-to-remember link with your friends: http://www.tinyurl.com/NCAA12info

Continue on for more news. ...

Machinima Sports has posted a Skype interview NCAA Football 12 Art Director Jean Adams and Producer Ben Haumiller. The interview reviews the previous announced visual improvements, but also discloses a new small, but authentic addition to the game: Pylon Physics. Continue on to see the video interview with Adams & Haumiller. ...

On the NCAA Football 12 information front, Erin Andrews is in studio today to record new lines for this year's game. Erin said, "NCAA Football 2012 is sounding gooooood!!" The question is, does this mean that she's in to record new lines for her portion of the 'Road to Glory' mode or is she going to be a larger part of the broadcast crew in NCAA Football 12? Let us know what you think in the comments. Click here for a picture of her in the studio.

The first week's worth of 25 new plays coming to NCAA Football 12 is completed. To discuss the new offensive plays, go here. To discuss the new defensive plays, go here.

Last week Kotaku reported that EA SPORTS will no longer be shipping physical paper manuals with their titles; instead, the manual will be available in-game. The first of their titles to do so was Fight Night Champion... the question is to you, do you read the manual? Will you miss them?

Today EA SPORTS unveiled their plans for the Madden NFL Football 12 cover athlete. This year, instead of the vote being a selection of only three candidates, they are taking notes from college basketball and going with a March Madness style tournament featuring a candidate from each team. Among the candidates are Drew Brees, Michael Vick, Maurice Jones-Drew, Adrian Peterson, and Julius Peppers. Voting is already underway so go to http://www.ESPN.com/MaddenVote to cast your vote; the first round continues through March 27th with the final two pairing off from April 18th to April 26th.

With the first two rounds of the NCAA Basketball tournament completed, Hawkfan leads The Gaming Tailgate's pickem group. Good luck the rest of the way to everybody. ...

EA SPORTS has posted a new blog and video featuring Art Director Jean Adams & Designer Ben Haumiller discussing some of the significant visual upgrades coming to NCAA Football 12.

Continue on to read the full blog from Jean and to see the video showing off the improved game visuals. After viewing the video & reading the blog, share your thoughts with The Gaming Tailgate community! ...

Here is the very first screen shot of NCAA Football 12, courtesy ESPN Video Games' Jon Robinson. Please post your thoughts on what you see in the screen shot and share any new items you notice.

We won't have to wait long for more info as another screenshot and video will be released Tuesday from EA SPORTS. ...

In addition to the first screenshot for NCAA Football 12, the EA SPORTS NCAA Football Facebook Page has released the first of 25 new plays that are coming to NCAA Football 12. The next five weeks will feature a new play each day, with the offense on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and the defense on Tuesday and Thursday.

To join in the discussion on the new Offensive Plays, visit this thread.
To share your opinions on the new Defensive Plays, visit this thread.
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March Madness is here! Show your basketball prowess - or supreme guessing ability - in The Gaming Tailgate Tournament Challenge on ESPN.com. Make your picks beginning 6 PM ET Sunday, March 13.

There is no entry fee and all entrants are welcome, so feel free to get your friends into the group as well. The winner will receive a prize which will be announced at a later date. Continue on for full group details. ...

Voting has gone live on the EA SPORTS NCAA Football Facebook page for fans to vote for the NCAA Football 12 cover athlete. The candidates are Auburn's Nick Fairley, Alabama's Mark Ingram, Washington's Jake Locker, and Oklahoma's DeMarco Murray.

Fans can vote for their favorite candidate once a day starting at 9:00 am PST each day for the duration of the campaign (ending April 4th). At the end of the campaign the athlete with the most votes will be on the cover of NCAA Football 12. The winning cover athlete will be announced on April 19th.

Who will you be voting for? After voting, come back and share your thoughts with The Gaming Tailgate community. ...

The official NCAA Football 12 product website is now live and is located at ea.com/ncaa-football. The site has the standard placeholders for Media, News & Blogs, Community, and links to Pre-Order the game. Currently, the only news on the site features the cover athlete vote.

Worth noting is that the only versions of NCAA Football 12 listed available to pre-order are the X-Box 360 and PlayStation 3 versions. This may suggest that there will be no PlayStation 2 version. The iPhone & iPod Touch versions of NCAA Football 11 were not announced until near the release date. ...