NCAA Football 14 Cover Vote Appears to be Plagued By Rampant Cheating; EA Sports Now Investigating

For those who have followed the ongoing cover campaign for NCAA Football 14 since it began in mid-December or at any point since then, it has ranged from acting as a mild distraction to being a major annoyance. EA Sports has incessantly pushed it through social media while making huge mistakes along the way by settling on Facebook polls as the method of collection, which was not the way it was originally explained and instead deciding to add even more polls mid-round, along with changing end dates for rounds arbitrarily and expecting fans to vote so many times that fatigue set in and indifference won out. 

That indifference though doesn’t apply to fans of the schools still involved who have a vested interest in winning the competition for “their guys”. So much so that they’re resorting to creating fake profiles and (quicker and more effective) fake fan pages to vote from. A thread on a Texas A&M forum, which has since either been deleted or set private to members only, discussed ways to go about it. Many individuals posting to the NCAA Facebook page have also been pointing out fake profiles that have cast votes and criticized the process for allowing it to happen.

Realistically these tactics have probably been utilized by both sides but regardless it wrecks any credibility of the final result. Denard Robinson had led from the start and appeared to be comfortably ahead as the final day of voting arrived only to have Ryan Swope suspiciously close a 7K vote gap within a few hour period and take the lead. Currently its a dead heat with Robinson up by a measly few hundred votes.

The question now is whether EA ignores the cheating that has taken place or if they approach Facebook about verifying the results by stripping out profiles generated just to place a vote. The likelihood is they announce one as the winner and move on hoping no one cares while they benefit from all the increased activity seen in their Facebook page analytics.

(Update) EA Sports has issued a statement, which to their credit means they’re actively pursuing a solution to the problem, and hopefully will restore legitimacy for the eventual winner.