14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher Electronic Arts has announced that Mark Ingram, who played as a running back for the University of Alabama, has been chosen to be the cover athlete for the upcoming college football level simulation game NCAA Football 12.
The athlete was the winner of a Facebook-based vote which invited fans to nominate their favorite players and cast a vote.
The “U Want ME” campaign was the first one for the NCAA Football series to use the power of social networks and has seen more than 140,000 come in from fans of college football.
The other players that came close to winning the cover spot in NCAA Football 12 were Nick Fairley, who is a defensive lineman for Auburn University, DeMarco Murray, playing as a running back for University of Oklahoma and Jake Locker, the quarterback at the University of Washington.
Ingram is seen by sport watchers as having dominated the college football season of 2009, taking the Heisman Trophy and leading his team to victory in the 2010 BCS National Championship.
The player was hit by injury in 2010, but he still managed to log 42 touchdowns in his college career and has announced that he plans to enter the National Football League draft.
NCAA Football 12 is being developed by the usual team at EA Tiburon and the company plans to launch it on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and on the PlayStation 3 from Sony.
The developers are saying that they are aiming for a more realistic game but also want to give different types of players a varying level of involvement in the game through a layer of in-game options.
Electronic Arts has not announced a launch date for NCAA Football 12, but tradition says that the game will be launched around the middle of July.