This is an opinion column.

Consider my hat tipped.

When credit is due, we pay it on time so here’s to you, EA Sports. Some may recall my previous criticism of practically all things related to its new college football video game, but maybe that tune is shifting.

Maybe these guys are pure geniuses.

Take Tuesday, for example.

Just another day on the backside of the moon in terms of the CFP calendar — coaches are on vacation, Tennessee’s winning baseball championships, Nick Saban’s still retired.

Just a whole lot of nothing.

When people make the slow news day, huh? joke, it’s designed precisely for moments like this.

That was until EA Sports struck.

The video game giant began its week of free advertisement generation in the countdown to the video game’s July 19 release. These guys cooked up the perfect bait and sat it on the mousetrap.

They call it Rankings Week and the mice were hungry Tuesday.

The first of four straight days serving the internet’s most fragrant cheese saw EA Sports release the top 25 toughest places to play ranking.

Moth, meet flame.

It’s genius for the following reasons.

• It’s a direct assessment of the very users they’re hoping will drive the debate.
• The date was June 25 and members of the social and/or traditional media are hungry for something, anything to write/engage farm. Slooooooooow news day catnip.
• They made it just the right kind of kooky to really get us talking — primed to get the right fanbases the perfect kind of mad online.
• The criteria listed were just vague enough to make it sound scientific but with the wiggle room to tweak the fragile. EA Sports’ official release stated it used “historical stats such as home winning %, home game attendance, active home winning streaks, team prestige, and more.”

How’d that work?

Yeah … well.

Try and find a sports-related website that sniffed the cheese and kept walking — AL.com included.

And then check the social media trends.

It took just minutes for this to make Smokey the Bear anxious. It caught fire just after the 10:05 a.m. CT initial tweet, with Kyle Field (home of Texas A&M and remarkably atop the ranking) reaching No. 4 on the United States X trending list by 10:30. It was No. 2 by 11 a.m. where it remained for the next two hours.

The EA Sports tweet had 2.4 million views by 4 p.m. CT.

On3 Sports posted a graphic four minutes after the list hit the streets requesting feedback. By late afternoon, it had 1.6 million views and thousands of replies.

Just a masterclass in creating your own controversy, building the buzz, and setting the college football-centric internet on fire.

Want to save money on the advertising budget?

We’ve got you, EA Sports.

The social mediums be that hallway scene from Mean Girls over here for the next month as the college football gospel according to you will make Regina George proud.

The schedule for the rest of the week includes …

• Wednesday: Sights and Sounds deep dive
• Thursday: Top offenses and defenses
• Friday: Overall team power rankings

They’ll all be just the right blend of arbitrary and data-based to rile the masses and possibly even make Fetch happen.

All in the name of a resurrected video game, dead for a decade and now rising to the pinnacle of modern viral marketing.

Cheers to you, EA Sports.

Nailed it.

Except how could LSU’s Tiger Stadium be ranked lower than Kyle Field?

DO YOU EVEN KNOW COLLEGE FOOTBALL?

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.