With the Top Draft Pick, EA Sports Selects WR Larry Fitzgerald for NCAA Football 2005 Cover

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 20, 2004--Electronic Arts announced today that former University of Pittsburgh Panthers wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald will appear on the cover of the newest iteration of EA SPORTS(TM) best-selling college football franchise, NCAA(R) Football 2005. Fitzgerald is entering the NFL after two record-breaking seasons at University of Pittsburgh and his image will appear on all of the game's packaging and merchandising. NCAA Football 2004 sold 1.6 million copies last year and is the second best-selling football videogame behind only EA's Madden NFL(TM) 2004.

"It's a huge honor to represent NCAA Football 2005, since this is the game my teammates and I always competed on in the dorms," said Fitzgerald. "To grace the cover of the most intense and exciting college football videogame is a dream come true for me. I am fired up to be part of the EA SPORTS family."

Fitzgerald was named the winner of the Walter Camp Player of the Year Award, becoming the first sophomore to earn that prestigious honor. He also won the Biletnikoff Award as the country's top receiver and was named a unanimous All-American, finishing a close second to Oklahoma quarterback Jason White in the Heisman Trophy balloting. This past season Fitzgerald set three NCAA receiving records and tied another, including consecutive games with a touchdown catch (18), touchdown catches as a freshman and sophomore (34), receiving yards as a sophomore (1,672), and most games catching a TD pass in a season (tying Marshall's Randy Moss with 12). In just two, years he set eight Big East receiving records: single-season receiving yards (1,672), single-season receptions (92), single-season TD catches (22), career TD catches (34), career 1,000-yard receiving seasons (two), career 100-yard receiving games (14), single-season 100-yard receiving games (10), and catches per game (7.1 avg.).

NCAA Football 2005 is all about home field advantage this season, where, for the first time in football videogames, gameday atmosphere directly impacts players' on field performances. With the new match-up stick you can track the crowd's impact on your players to see if they can withstand the pressure and find key personnel mismatches. NCAA Football 2005 is scheduled to ship in July on the PlayStation(R) 2 computer entertainment system, the Xbox(R) video game system from Microsoft, and the Nintendo GameCube(TM). The game's official website is www.ncaafootball05.com.