Let me tell you a little story about Brian Austin, the best college football player you couldn’t possibly have heard of.

Austin grew up on the mean — or maybe they were only impolite back then — streets of Chicago. He was a good, but not great, running back in high school. Listed as a three-star recruit, he signed with Arizona State as part of its 2009 signing class.

It didn’t take Austin long to blow right past those humble origins, though.

Austin rushed for an NCAA-record 8,044 yards and 146 touchdowns during his college career. He won the Heisman Trophy among a slew of other awards and records.

Why have you never heard of Brian Austin? Because, with all due to respect to Marcus Dupree, Brian Austin really was the best that never was. He didn’t exist, except as a collection of bits and bytes on my Playstation 2 many years ago.

Brian Austin was an auto-generated recruit in my long-running NCAA Football 08 dynasty. The game was from 17 years and three console generations ago, but it and others in the series have remained nostalgic fan favorites.

The games were outstanding. They had every FBS and FCS team, and if you wanted to throw in Division II and III teams all it took was a little work with the create-a-school feature. It had all the little touches of college football like fight songs, mascots, and deep customizable playbooks.

There was a dynasty/franchise mode like with all modern sports games that tracked your records for as long as you kept it going. It even kept a running top 10 list of your “classic” games that had memorable finishes.

Playing a long dynasty mode gave you a weird attachment to your virtual players. You recruited them, cultivated them as players, and enjoyed their success. If they transferred or left school early for the NFL — or the “Madden” franchise, in this case — you felt a little hurt. Success stories like Brian Austin stuck with you for years.

I started with Arizona State, then moved on to Minnesota, South Carolina and Iowa State without resetting and gained an appreciation for each school’s traditions while becoming the Nick Saban of a mythical college football universe.

My NCAA 08 dynasty went on hiatus after the 2037 season, when I “retired” by moving on to another game and never got back to it. The Iowa State Cyclones, my team at the time, have been waiting in their memory card locker room for more than seven years.

The NCAA football series was discontinued in 2013, following a lawsuit that eventually led to the rise of the current NIL era. The same lawsuit is allowing for the game’s return. Thanks to new licensing deals and legalities that have all been sorted out, College Football 25 was released with much fanfare this past week.

The videos and game play previews that have been released so far look amazing. The same features from those long-ago classics appear to be included, with new wrinkles and modern updates. If you’re a college football fan it’s hard not to watch them and get fired up at the thought of seeing your guys run out of the tunnel.

I’m not sure when I’ll be able to pick it up. Ironically, the approach of real-life football season is going to keep me busy for a few weeks. Maybe, if I get a minute, I’ll fire up the old PS2 and warm up with one more season or two with Iowa State. They’ve been waiting long enough.

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Ernest Bowker is the sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com