The Collegiate Esports Commissioner’s Cup kicked off on Thursday in Arlington. Photo credit Rachel Olsen-Cooper
It’s officially Day 1 at the Collegiate Esports Commissioner’s Cup (CECC) and we’ll be here all weekend with update to date news, recaps, and highlights coming from the Esports Stadium in Arlington, TX. Teams will be participating in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, Overwatch, Rocket League, and Valorant.
The weekend kicked off last night with media day, where the students participated in team and individual photos, as well as conducting interviews and mingling with their fellow competitors. The Collegiate Sports Management Group (CSMG) then provided each player with commemorative jerseys, sponsored by McDonald’s.
CSMG also announced that in 2025, Street Fighter would be coming to the schools for official tournaments. More on that as the news becomes available.
Here’s some of the teams that we’ll be keeping an eye on as the weekend progresses:
FISHER COLLEGE (All Games)
There was a bit of an audible dissent from the crowd for Fisher, who has two squads and one top 4 team in each of the featured games, other than Rocket League. As we covered in Esports You May Have Missed Week 1, Fisher was removed from the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) due to alleged incidents of ringing in a few of their games. Many were surprised to see them at CECC.
However, Fisher has proven in the past in LAN spaces that they can be dominate in all of the games they participate in. So, with the added pressure from the last few weeks that has fallen on the students, it will be interesting to see if that affects their gameplay and mental state going into the weekend.
LUBBOCK CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY (Super Smash Brothers)
In a twist of fate, the removal of Fisher College from the NACE championships last weekend in Winter Park, FL allowed for Lubbock Christian University to be added to the NACE Grand Finals.
And they won.
They come into this weekend’s tournament as a number 7 seed. No doubt they will be riding the momentum of last week’s championship win into CECC, hoping to add more hardware to their shelves.
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS (Valorant & Super Smash Brothers Ultimate)
We’ve been following the UNT Valorant team since last year as one of the few all-female based teams in the collegiate scene. At the time, the team had finished 2-4, but have been dominating ever since. They battled through Aurora Series: First Light to go undefeated into the Grand Finals, ultimately falling to the Waterloo Warriors. But they bounced back to take the Aurora Series: Emergence and Aurora Series: New Dawn crowns.
They’re currently ranked 18th going into this weekend and will also be featured on Saturday in an Aurora Series LAN battle vs the University of Houston.
Meanwhile, the UNT Smash Brothers team, currently ranked 20th in their brackets, will be looking to Skinny the Pooh to lead them to the Grand Finals. Skinny is currently ranked as the 5th best Smash player in Texas.
Both of these teams may be the sleeper teams of the weekend.
ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY (Overwatch)
The Redbirds are also coming off of a big weekend at NACE, where they took the trophy home in Overwatch 2. ISU is currently ranked 6th in their Overwatch bracket, so we’ll be looking for them to also try and repeat this weekend.
UNIVERSITY OF AKRON (Rocket League)
Photo not available.
The Zips are coming into CECC with a loss against West Virginia University in the NACE Grand Finals last weekend. However, they had to play their matches online due to last minute flight cancelations. Ranked 5th in Rocket League this weekend, it will be great to see how well they dominate in a LAN setting.
THIS GUY
We know that, as journalists, we’re supposed to be partial when it comes to reporting. However, this guy has the best gamer tag of everyone here, so we’re silently rooting for him to play well so that the casters have to say NOOOO THIS IS PATRICK over and over again.
We’ll have a Day One recap tonight! Make sure you follow @the_spawnroom on Twitter for news as it happens!
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