#30: 2011 MAACO Bowl Las Vegas — Arizona State @ Boise State in NCAA Football 12

Spurred on by the contributions of guest writers here at STAT BOX STORIES for the BOWL BLITZ INVITATIONAL, I am excited to share the tale of my second Bowl Game using NCAA Football 12 today: the 2011 MAACO Bowl Las Vegas, set to be played between the Arizona State Sun Devils and the Broncos of Boise State.  Though Boise State has to be disappointed to settle for a lower-tier Bowl Game instead of getting into a BCS Bowl Game after a one-loss season, Arizona State is a team in turmoil as they face the coming installation of a new head coach and likely changes for the program.  With a significant rating disparity between the two teams, it was an easy decision to suit up in the new uniforms of the Sun Devils as they took the field against a team in the BCS Top Ten.

Even though I had yet to lose a game of NCAA Football 12 for STAT BOX STORIES since the beginning of the blog series, this was a game that I knew would be an incredibly tough contest when the game booted up.  Could I win against all odds?

Week 7 Recap & Week 8 Preview

With the close of STAT BOX STORIES Week 7, a lot of exciting things are happening here at the blog.  The beginning of the week saw the announcement of the BOWL BLITZ INVITATIONAL, a community project organized by this site to try and get entries for every single Bowl Game of the 2011-2012 NCAA bowl season.  For more information–and to see which Bowl Games are still looking for contributors to cover them–visit the organizing forum post at The Gaming Tailgate here.

As a result of the beginning of the BOWL BLITZ INVITATIONAL, we got more entries than usual.  Here’s the quick recap:

Monday, December 12th: Vancouver Canucks at Toronto Maple Leafs in NHL 12

Tuesday, December 13th: Aston Villa hosts Liverpool in FIFA 12

Wednesday, December 14th: 2011 New Mexico Bowl — Temple Owls at Wyoming Cowboys in NCAA Football 12

Thursday, December 15th: Pittsburgh Steelers at San Francisco 49ers in Madden NFL 12 Online Team Play

Friday, December 16th: Bowl Blitz Invitational #1: 2011 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl — Ohio Bobcats @ Utah State Aggies in NCAA Football 12

Saturday, December 17th: Bowl Blitz Invitational #2: 2011 New Orleans Bowl — San Diego State Aztecs @ Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns in NCAA Football 12

Expect the coming weeks to be just as busy here at STAT BOX STORIES as Bowl Games continue to be played both in real life and in NCAA Football 12 by members of this blog project community.  Next week will be the last “normal” week of entries here at the site, as the week of December 25th, 2011 and the week of January 1st, 2012 will be solely filled with entries using NCAA Football 12.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves; here’s a look at Week 8 in STAT BOX STORIES:

Monday, December 19th

USA hosts Mexico

Tuesday, December 20th

2011 MAACO Las Vegas Bowl

Arizona State at Boise State

Wednesday, December 21st

Cleveland Browns at Baltimore Ravens

Thursday, December 22nd

Buffalo Sabres at Ottawa Senators

Be sure to come back next week for another set of STAT BOX STORIES entries as we get into the 8th week of this series!  This promises to be one of the busiest weeks of the blog project so far, so you won’t want to miss a single day of the action!