Former Husker Sam Keller is suing Electronic Arts, the maker of the video game ‘NCAA 2008', and the NCAA, for using his likeness without consent. Keller's lawsuit points out some striking similarities between the player alleged to be him, and the real him.
The lawsuit points out, for example:
Virtual player number 5 has the same height, weight, skin tone, home state, handedness and facial features of Sam Keller. Virtual number 5 is also the starting quarterback for the University of Nebraska.......
There's no comment in the lawsuit about the fact that the alleged video game likeness of Keller can't throw the ball any further than ten yards downfield, consistently freaks out and hits the check down receiver and because of his high injury stat, can never play a full season. What's even more eerie about NCAA Football 2008 is that Sam Keller's alleged video likeness throws a plastic cup instead of a football.
About Keller's career, the lawsuit contains this tidbit:
As a junior in 2005, Keller played well in his first four games of the season. He had 461 yards against LSU, followed up by 409 yards against Northwestern. He continued with 300-yard performances against USC and Oregon State. In just four games, he passed for 1,582 yards.
Unfortunately, he suffered an injury that limited him to only three more starts. Nonetheless, he finished the season with 2,165 yards and 20 touchdowns in just over six full games. To put this in perspective, over his six and one-half games, he averaged over 3 touchdowns per game. This average would be higher than the averages of all quarterbacks playing a full season that year - this includes Matt Leinart, Michael Vick, Brady Quinn, Vince Young, Jay Cutler and Colt Brennan. If he wasn't injured and his performance stayed at this level, he would have likely entered the NFL draft as a highly touted quarterback with almost 40 touchdowns and close to 4000 yards.
No idea what that has to do with the outcome of a lawsuit, but it's a matter of court record (or something like that) that Sam Keller could have kicked the asses of all those quarterbacks if he had only played well throughout his career.
We wish Keller luck on winning his lawsuit against the conspirators of industry who would rob college athletes of their likeness.
In another related story, several Husker fans who own Electronic Arts college football games are alleged to be considering their own class-action lawsuit.
They are seeking to have a new release issued that will "remove or randomize" Keller's likeness on conditions that he fraudulently represented himself as a real Nebraska quarterback and they have no desire to be reminded of him again.