By Lauren Mullaney

12.11.04 ? House of Blues, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas

Jesse Hanninen overcame the perils of a road game as well as some pretty stiff competition to claim the inaugural NCAA Challenge title and the $10,000 grand prize. The Florida State Junior missed his flight out of Orlando on Friday and drove to Atlanta to catch the next Vegas-bound plane, only to make it well worth his while by winning the championship.

More than 1,000 college students at 16 colleges and universities in the country competed in the first officially sanctioned student-only tournament. The 16 school champs all flew to Vegas to compete in the finals at the House of Blues. And with this tournament being a single-elimination, do-or-die event, there would be no question as to the ultimate national champ here.

As you might expect from a college football tournament, the big-name schools from the big conferences were well represented in the title run. The semi-final round consisted of two ACC schools, one from the Big XII conference and Notre Dame.

In the first semi-final, Michael Hawkins, a 20-year-old junior from Clemson, trounced his Fighting Irish competition, cruising past Notre Dame junior Ben Ramsour, 47-7. Meanwhile, on the other side of the bracket, Hanninen squeaked by his Longhorn opponent with a 17-14 win over Jonathon Kinchen, a 22-year old senior at Texas.

Hanninen and Hawkins took center stage at the House of Blues around 11:30am on Saturday, with the game projected on the big screen for all the Madden Challenge competitors to view during their ?half time? break. The players had to put aside their college allegiance, though, both choosing to compete with USC for this championship title (and for reasons obvious to anyone following the college season.)

Hawkins was actually the favorite going into the championship game, having trounced all his early-round opponents by 40 and 50 points. But in this game, Hanninen game out gunning and took an early 12-0 lead in the first half. Hawkins? game wasn?t as sharp as earlier in the day, though, and he could never close the gap. Hanninen continued to enjoy a safe lead throughout the second half, winning with a final score of 25-6.

After the win, Hanninen said about his competition throughout the day, ?It was good, there were a lot of early challenges. In the end, though, I think the last guy was just over-matched. I had him easily with no big problem.?

Jesse now has to figure out what to do with his $10,000 winnings, saying he probably won?t be spending it on textbooks.