1997 Florida State (CPU) 37
1997 Michigan (myself) 27
Griese was 10 of 36 for 258 yards, 2 TDs and 3 INTs
Busby was
32 of 40 for 352 yards, 3 TDs and 1 INT (he could not be stopped)
Sebastian Janikowski was 5 for 5 with a long of 53-yards. He was always in great field position. They scored two touchdowns off long passes, and another off a 10-yard run following an interception.
My halfback Howard averaged 0.5 yards per carry! Sam Cowart was unstoppable. He sacked me twice in the first quarter alone. If I could get the pass off, my receivers would drop it. WR Shaw dropped three or four first down balls alone. Late in the fourth quarter, I forced a fumble inside my own 20-yard line. After back-to-back sacks (my left side of the line was horrible), it's third and long on my own 2-yard line. I send WR Knight on a fly route. I see him open at the first down marker, throw it to him, and he drops it! Knowing there is not enough time to force a stop, and down by 7, I went for it, and of course it was dropped.
I felt like the refs were working against me the whole time. There was rampant defensive P.I. on the CPU that was never called. I would estimate as many as six or seven that should have been caught if it wasn't for the CPU's P.I. (holding my guy back, bumping him out of his route and away from the ball). On top of all the drops, that explains Griese's low completion rate. That, and Sam Cowart was like the wind!
Overall a good game, however, extremely frustrating. They were 9 of 15 on third down conversions while I was 2 for 12. Charles Woodson took a kickoff return to the house but two plays later they got their seven back. I felt like I just could not win this game: they stopped the run, my guys weren't catching anything, the refs were not calling penalties in my favor (yet I had 12 for 120 yards), turnovers (some were ridiculous... ball batted like 10 yards and caught by a linebacker), I picked one off at the goaline and fell into the endzone but they spotted me at the 2-yard line, and of course, I could not move the ball (running was out of the question, I was getting stopped at the line of scrimmage AT BEST whenever I ran the ball).
If my girlfriend wasn't asleep, the expletives would have been heard on the East Coast. Losing ain't bad, I do not have a problem with that, but when it's you against everything in the game, you just want to beat someone over the head with a baseball bat, jab a kitchen knife into their chest, run over them with a car, and shoot them in the head at point blank range! Argh!
By the way, after I punted the ball to their half-yard line, they formed in an I-Formation. I came out in a goaline set to try to force a safety and they picked up on the blitz and audibled into a shotgun formation, but not really. QB Thad Busby dropped back into the shotgun but his HB Feaster and FB were still lined up in the I-Formation. Here's a couple pictures:
I also have a video. You have to pause it at the very beginning to tell. I was having trouble holding the camera steady and rotating the instant replay camera correctly.