We simulated Mississippi State vs. Alcorn State in EA College Football 26, sort of

EA College Football 26 doesn’t include FCS teams, so we had to get creative. But will Bulldog fans mind seeing Akron lose in Starkville instead?

Mississippi State Bulldogs head coach Jeff Lebby reacts with quarterback Blake Shapen (2) after a touchdown during the fourth quarter against the Arizona State Sun Devils at Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field. | Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

Maybe we should be paying more attention to how these EA College Football 26 simulations play out.

Our sim of Mississippi State at Southern Miss was fairly accurate. And last week’s sim of the Arizona State game wasn’t exactly accurate (10-7 final score) but did nail the Bulldogs winning in a close game.

However, don’t expect to use this week’s sim to predict what happens at 5 p.m. Saturday at Davis Wade Stadium.

There’s a problem with this week’s opponent, Alcorn State. FCS schools aren’t included in the game.

ICYMI: Jeff Lebby preaches urgency as Bulldogs prepare for Alcorn State

In Dynasty mode, this problem is fixed by having generic FCS teams with different combinations of compass points (e.g., FCS Southeast, FCS Northwest). But in “Play Now” those schools aren’t available to be used and Dynasty mode games can’t be spectated.

It’s possible to create a version of Alcorn State (and, yes, there are more already created than you'd guess...go ahead guess, we have the answer down below) using the “team builder” website, but users can’t adjust the player ratings beyond some preset choices. The lowest rated preset is “cupcake” and that still makes Alcorn State too good for an accurate sim.

In the game, Mississippi State’s ratings aren’t high enough to guarantee a created Alcorn State cupcake will lose.

So, what to do?

Maybe there’s a FBS team with low enough ratings to use in place of Alcorn State?

Then it hit me.

Akron is a team people use as a challenging rebuild in Dynasty. Surely, it has low ratings, right?

Bingo. And I bet some Mississippi State fans wouldn’t mind watching their team beat Akron and its head coach, Joe Moorhead.

It’s still not a good sim for Alcorn State, whose ratings would be in the 40-50s if they were in the game. So, we make do.

Here’s our usual reminder about the game settings we used: the difficulty is set to Heisman, five minute quarters, matched the start time and gave the game clear weather conditions. We did not adjust any rosters (the game won’t let you) or move players around on the depth chart and neither team had a player controlling it.

Video Game Summary

Full disclosure, we only run one sim for each game. Whatever happens, that’s what happens.

But I almost broke that rule because of this one. Akron was leading 3-0 and I was getting nervous because Akron winning is a terrible plot twist.

Alas, the Bulldogs hit a couple of big pass plays and the defense made some key stops. The one exception to that is a defensive pass interference penalty that wouldn’t have been called in real life.

The final score ended up being 21-3. Don’t expect Saturday’s game against Alcorn State to be that close.

Trivia answer: 55