SMU wide receiver Jordan Hudson scores a touchdown on a 73-yard pass during a simulated game between BYU and SMU in the new EA Sports College Football 25 video game. | EA Sports College Football 25
Note: With EA Sports’ College Football 25 bringing college football back to the video game world, the Deseret News is simulating every BYU game against an FBS opponent this season.
BYU is headed into Dallas as a double-digit underdog for its Week 2 matchup against SMU.
It’s an important matchup for the Cougars early in the season — they are trying to get back to the postseason after a year off in 2023, and the Mustangs will provide an early season challenge.
How big of a challenge?
To help us answer that question, we turned to EA Sports’ College Football 25 for some answers.
The Deseret News ran a simulation of Friday’s game — and it was a close matchup throughout.
How the simulation was set up
There were a few ground rules in place: After some testing and tweaking, I adjusted the simulation to 12-minute quarters — with the option to adjust that if necessary in future simulations — then let the computer simulate with no user interference.
Injuries and depth chart changes were also considered.
For the BYU-SMU game, that meant putting Jake Retzlaff at QB1 for BYU — the video game has Gerry Bohanon as the higher-rated quarterback, so I swapped them on the depth chart.
In addition to altering a few backup positions due to injury, the biggest change for the Mustangs was sticking primarily with Preston Stone at quarterback.
In the real world, the Mustangs alternate between Stone and Kevin Jennings, but seeing as how there was no user interference and I could not adjust the depth chart during a simulation, it worked to just allow Stone to play the entire game.
How did the simulation between BYU and SMU play out?
Final…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-football-25-simulation-wins-214940045.html
Author : Deseret News
Publish date : 2024-09-06 21:49:40
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