San Jose State Esports took part in its first ever Madden competition with junior Bobby Rodriguez representing the Spartans in the LevelNext: Fall Championship Series for Madden NFL 21.
The competition took place over several weeks from Nov. 23 to Dec. 16 with playoffs being held from Jan. 4-9.
Rodriguez finished the tournament with a 3-12 record and was unable to make it past the regular season.
He said that looking back, he felt that he could have performed better in some of his matches.
"I thought I was gonna do better, my first couple games my mentality wasn't there," said Rodriguez. "I should have done better and the way I'm playing now, I should have won at least four more [games than I did.]"
He also said that he recognized some players he was matched up against.
"I'm playing against guys that are world champs," Rodriguez said. "I scored two touchdowns on [one of them] and it made me feel good to know I can keep up with these guys."
This was the second major collegiate Madden tournament that Rodriguez has competed in and he said that this particular competition featured larger universities and tougher competition.
He has been playing Madden since 2002, but said that he only began playing competitively last year.
"I always played football, so I have a love and passion for the game and playing it virtually is cool too," said Rodriguez. "When I started playing competitively and it got really fun that's when I started taking the game seriously."
At first, he said he didn't realize how large the tournament was and how large the prize pool was.
He also was surprised at the social media competition that accompanied the tournament, where the first place university will be awarded $15,000.
Points are awarded based on interaction with tweets with the hashtag #LevelNextChampions.
Currently, Spartan Esports is in second place behind South Dakota with two days left in the competition.
"I'm definitely trying to get people to retweet and like stuff for the Twitter competition to get more likes and points," Rodriguez said.
He said that although he didn't do as well as he had hoped in this tournament, he's looking forward to future competitions he can participate in.
