here comes a time Brethren, when every good minister must address his congregation with a good old fashioned hellfire and brimstone kind of sermon. Here doth be mine for thou good disciples of our beloved NCAA Football 99:

Beat them without mercy or longsuffering! Do not be kind or patient with thine incompetent foes saith the Gods of NCAA Football '99. Of whom do I speak dear Brethren? I speak of our friends, Buddies, girlfriends (would one of my Deacons please wake up Brother "Last Bengals Fan", for I fear he hast faltered - again), or even the casual acquaintance with whom we have shown mercy. Never again I say!! Yes, yes, surely thou doest know of what I say to thee. If your friend comes by and doth pick up a controller and say to thee: "Hey, let us play that, um football game you have" (clue number one that an offering of a fresh blood sacrifice is about to take place), then send thine friend home to his wife, girlfriend, or mommy with weeping and gnashing of teeth. When you turn on the game and the banner breaks and those Wolverines and Huskers burst onto thine screen and thine opponent says, "Wow dude, check it out, that is really cool" (clue number two), hold tight to thine commitment to excellence. Do not ever run from adversity or challenge (Brother Scarlet Knight we miss you from our beloved message boards). Do not be timid or shy to administer a gridiron crucifiction even to thine own mother if she dare pick up a controller.

I shall now lay out for thee my dear Brethren some of the pitfalls of satanic evil (Gamebreaker Players), to watch out for:

If you ask your potential opponent who he wants to be and he says, "oh, it does not matter to me" - Throw this Demon of hell out of thine abode, for any good Patriarch of our beloved game doth always use "his" team during any given opportunity to crush someone. (remember what hath already been said - no mercy!! - use thy best squad). If you ask him, "Which playbook do you prefer?" and he says, "oh it doesn't matter, I can score with any play" - after you stop laughing thineself to death, thrash this pretender to within an inch of his football life. If he says to thee, "now what did you say about that juke move thing?" - Beat him about his mere mortal head with a swim move/head slap combination. If he doth ramble aimlessly through the potential defensive formations and then say aloud in a proclamation of his own ignorance "where's my blitz man, I wanna blitz?" - take thine halfback draw play, thine quick out, thine quick pitch (both weak and strong), thine deep post, thine hail mary with five wideouts, thine option left / right from the wishbone, flexbone, or even the split back set and burneth his linebackers and safties like thine cheap cigar. If he says to thee after watching thine halfback dodge, perry, spin, and thrust his way for a long touchdown run, "Good run man, that was awesome!" (true competitors never ever admit to being a piece of toast) - line up in thine Power I next time sending thine tight end on the glorious deep post as he will probably do something stupid like line up in a goal line set on first down. If thine opponent says to thee, "Man I just cannot get used to this controller, dude" - offer to trade with him and insinuating that maybe it must be thine magic controller that is causing you to be winning 42-0 in the first quarter. If thine opponent begins to curse his polygonal players and say that his team "Sucks and cannot do anything right" - offer to pause the game, go to the controller select menu, take over his team, give him control of yours and defeat him one hundred-something to 42. (for those of you who may be slow, that is how many points you had already scored on him,...stay with me Brethren)

Alright Brethren, I agree, enough already - this truly could go on forever, so let us just do this: Before playing a potential opponent, let us give them a pretest first to clarify whether or not he doth be "worthy" or should possibly be drinking beer with some other morons playing gamebreaker, NFL Blitz, NFL Quarterback Club, or Tecmo Bowl for beginniers. (no offense to our beloved forefathers of football simulation)

Here are a few sample questions for this pretest:

1. What two teams come out during the introduction sequence?
a. The Knicks and Bulls
b. Nebraska and Michigan
c. Cal Poly State and Southwestern Louisiana Technical Institute
d. Joe Cane's Eastern University and Goldie Hawn's Wildcats (see the movies, you'll understand)

2. From what famous game do we get our stadium play by play announcer?
a. The skins game
b. Checkers
c. The Rose Bowl
d. Monday night football

3. What is a "Global Playbook"?
a. The plan for the destruction of our atmosphere
b. Created plays sent in by John Glenn (please tell me Brethern that you got that one)
c. A playbook that enables you to use all plays and formations from all of the team specific playbooks
d. Plays from the World League teams

4. What is a user profile?
a. A portfolio on drug addicts
b. Anything from saved plays to custom playbooks to all time records, or created players, etc...
c. Side view of a junkie
d. Article about men who treat women badly

5. Do you enjoy playing Gamebreaker 99?
a. Yes I do, please go ahead and thrash me
b. I rule on Gamebreaker (easy to please young lad, isn't he)
c. Be serious, I only play real football - NCAA Football '99
d. I only jab, no haymakers

6. Have you ever went undefeated in a season, held all of your opponents to less than 14 points a game, won the National Championship (tournament mode), and took home the MVP (Heisman Trophy)?
a. You can play a whole season?
b. Uh, um, uh, um not exactly (not only a loser but an illiterate one at that)
c. Oh man check this out, I was using (insert favorite team), and I ran the table, I averaged (prepare to hear huge exaggeration) points a game, and (yes another exaggeration cometh) so many yards rushing, and this many (now comes a blatant lie) yards passing and...
d. you mean you haven't? (true disgust as shown only by a real player)

7. Do you know any cheat codes that do cool stuff?
a. I do not need cheat codes (this person has obviously not explored the full gammit of parameters of this or any other game)
b. Are you kidding? (see comment about disgust in above question)
c. They have cheat codes?
d. Uh, um, uh...(not you again)

8. Do you spend much time on the practice field with your team?
a. You can practice? How cool! (LOSER)
b. Don't we all? (disgust once again)
c. I do not need practice (cough, laugh, gag, pointing and gestures of humiliation)
d. My version of the game does not have that feature (alrighty then)

9. Have you ever visited Da Birk's website and posted a message on his message board?
a. Who is he? (have this mortal executed)
b. What is a message board?
c. Da Birk is "Da Man" and that "Reverend Mad About The Mounties" guy is hilarious
d. Uh, yeah, I love MTV (?) (Sooner Fan?) (Ohio State Alumni?)

I would provide you with an answer key Dear Bretheern, but if you need one, I suggest to thee:

"Keep thine head low, lest hellfire and brimstone doth fall upon thine head."