Hours spent in front of TV playing NCAA Football 2007 finally paid off for Mohamad Bazerbashi.

Friday, the junior in micro- and biochemistry won an all-expense-paid trip to the Citrus Bowl in Orlando where he will compete against 15 other video game wizards from colleges across the country for a chance at $10,000.

He was one of 66 people who competed in a preliminary round of the NCAA Video Game Challenge Friday on the South Oval.

The event was hosted by the Ohio Union Activities Board and EA Sports.

“Out of me and two other buddies (who competed), I knew one of us was going to make it,” Bazerbashi said.

His friends Omar Salama and Mohamad Azzam played each other in the first round.

“I went out first and it kind of sucked, but it was fun,” Salama said, who is a senior economics major.

“I might go to grad school here and then I can try it again next year,” he said.

Azzam, a first-year grad student studying public health, made it all the way to the semi-final round, where he lost to Bazerbashi.

Ashley Busa, special events chair for OUAB, said the turnout for the event was good, considering they had to change the date because of bad weather on Thursday.

She said she was contacted by EA Sports this summer about whether OUAB would like to hold the event.

“It was such a success last year that we were like, of course we would,” she said. “We got a lot of positive feedback.”

Last year’s winner Mark Stetson, a sophomore in journalism and pre-law, got knocked out in the semi-finals by runner-up Jordin Humpherey, a senior in psychology.

Last year Stetson went to New York City to see the Heisman Trophy presentation and compete in the national contest, where he lost by three points in the semi-final round, he said.

“I was a lot better last year than I am this year,” Stetson said. He had only played the latest version of the game on an Xbox 360 system, but in the competition the original Xbox was used.

Different controllers didn’t hold back Bazerbashi, who usually plays NCAA Football 2007 on a PlayStation 2.

“I think a lot of people were in the same situation,” he said. “So it was kind of a level playing field.”

Players had to stick with the same team throughout the tournament, and Bazerbashi was the only one in the final four who didn’t pick Ohio State.

“This game is all about match-ups,” he said. “I knew a lot of people would be playing with the Buckeyes, and I thought West Virginia was a good team to play against Ohio State.”

Bazerbashi said he’s looking forward to the national championship, and thinks he has a good shot at winning.

“Ten-thousand dollars is a lot of money for playing a video game,” he said.