College students putting off their responsibilities to play video games is nothing new, but this might be the first time a coach has blamed them for his team’s poor performance. Following Louisville’s 21-14 loss to Pitt last weekend, Cardinals head coach Charlie Strong said the loss was partly due to his players spending too much time playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 instead of preparing for the game.

Strong said he complained to his team about a lack of focus during the week and that he knew many of them had been spending inordinate amounts of time playing the video game.

“I said, how can you allow a video game to take control of what you have in your hand and what’s ahead of you… Call of Duty, the new video game out, so it was a call to duty and they got called to duty Saturday,” Strong said. “It’s young people. We’re dealing with young guys who see something new, they want to try it and it just engulfs them. I heard them talking about it all week.”

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was released last week and sold 6.5 million copies (more than $400 million) in its first 24 hours after release.

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