And just like that, football season is over. No more NCAA, no more NFL.

I will have to turn to video games — like always — to get my football fix from now until August.

On the bright side — and contrary to the beliefs of some — football is not the only sport in existence. I will be able to watch baseball soon, and March Madness is right around the corner.

The men’s and women’s U.S. national soccer teams have some games coming up, and local sports around Franklin County are played year-round.

I like playing games made by EA Sports. They are the best on the market, in my humble opinion.

However, I wouldn’t do very well as their spokesman. EA Sports titles have a nasty habit of glitching, messing up or downright cheating in order to keep the two teams in balance.

My brother has MLB ’09 the Show, and he thinks that the game decided at the beginning of each contest which team will win, and no amount of skill at the game will change the outcome.

I tend to agree with him, because I have seen more than one Madden, MLB and FIFA game go all one-sided in a team’s favor, especially if it is losing, and especially if the computer team is losing.

I imagine this is done to try and simulate how a losing team won’t give up.

All it actually ends up doing is messing up the gameplay and making me angry.

I played a lot of Madden ’08 when it came out.

On more than one occasion I angrily watched as that game made me drop obvious interceptions and had passes magically go through my receivers hands. I don’t me he dropped the pass, I mean the ball went THROUGH my player’s fingers.

On more recent installments of Madden and NCAA football EA successfully made it impossible to throw over the middle of the field — for me, anyway.

Anyone in the general vicinity of the football can make an interception, despite the fact that the laws of physics make it impossible for a human being to catch a ball on a parabolic course that’s well above his head.

I’m talking about past the point of a good vertical above his head.

If you have ever seen a rage quit online, that it pretty much what EA games end up making me do every time I play them.

J.R. Tidwell is sports editor for The Franklin County Times. He can be reached at (256) 332-1881, ext. 31.