NCAAF
You had so many questions about College Football 25 that we turned a mailbag into two parts. Here is Part 1. Let’s get into Part 2.
So much sounds great, what is your biggest worry about the game from what you have seen so far or something surprising left out?
Gd H.
I’m glad this was asked. There has been nothing but praise for the game thus far because of the excitement, but we admittedly have only seen a tiny window. A select group got a three-hour trial in May, but that was only for gameplay. We haven’t played Dynasty. We haven’t played Road to Glory. There is so much we didn’t get to try out. It’s why I made sure to say within last week’s stories on that trial that I wasn’t making an official review of the game, because I haven’t played most of the game.
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A lot of gamers have grown frustrated with EA Sports over the years. The rise of microtransactions and other attempted revenue streams, paired with various game bugs, have led to a loud anti-EA group. I hear you all.
If I had to pick something, my biggest worry is that the game ends up buggy. The game was already pushed back a year from its original target release date, and there is just so much being put into this as a brand-new title, there are bound to be things that don’t quite work as intended. Patches and downloadable content (DLC) can make up for that and fix issues, but several high-profile video games in recent years have turned out to be very buggy at launch, like Cyberpunk 2077. I hope it’s not the case, and I know the people working on this game absolutely love it and are trying to put out the best game possible.
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Will FCS teams and even D2 teams be added in future games or DLC?
Dan G.
Several FCS schools have been outspoken that they want to be in the game, and of course they do. The NCAA Football games used to have them many years ago before eventually moving to the generic directionals in place of real opponents. Those generic FCS directionals are back in the game, but the specific schools are not.
This is for a few reasons. One, it’s a lot more work to add 120-plus additional teams, doing so would increase the file size of the game, and there’s already so much that had to be rebuilt for this game to come out on time. Two, it would be harder to add these schools because of the NIL factor this time around. EA could get the team licenses, but it wouldn’t want to provide a North Dakota State team without real players, and it would cost millions more to license these additional FCS players. It’s part of the reason the game went away in the first place.
Those discussions have taken place. Adding HBCUs and the Celebration Bowl separate from the rest of the FCS season has been informally talked about as something some people at EA would love to do. But that would be a very time-consuming and potentially expensive process. Perhaps down the line.
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Will you be able to play every game in dynasty mode, even with non-user teams? As an example, if I’m playing a dynasty with Texas, can I still play the Iron Bowl or The Game?
Brandon S.
You cannot. I know this was something you could do in the old games, but I checked with EA Sports, and your Dynasty in the new game will only let you play with your selected team(s).
GO DEEPER
I played two hours of College Football 25. Here’s what I learned
The greatest thing about the last NCAA game was the option game. They left players unblocked that you could read for the mesh and pitch when running triple option plays. Is that still a feature?
Jay BM
The option game and the variety of playbooks have always been what made NCAA much more fun than Madden, and I can confirm it’s a blast and better than ever. I spent a good amount of time as Air Force and Wake Forest to work on the option game. It’s deeper than ever before, with four different types of RPO plays. It takes some work to get used to, but it’s a lot of fun. Fear not, the option game is very much still a feature.
Can you mention any other traditions that seemed to have or not made the cut (i.e. more recent ones like Utah’s moment of loudness or other relatively recent ones)? KU’s current stadium is even more torn down than Vanderbilt, is it the old Booth or is it the updated one?
Zach S.
I can’t speak to all the traditions because I wasn’t able to go through every team, but I would say the traditions that involve licensed music are most likely to not make the cut. “Enter Sandman” and “Jump Around” are not in the game because it’s really expensive to use those songs. Stuff like that.
As for stadiums, Vanderbilt’s renovated stadium is in the game, Kansas will be at its pre-renovated stadium at launch (the hope is to update it later), and Northwestern plays at old Ryan Field.
The way you described dynasty recruiting sounds very similar to recruiting in the most recent games. Other than a bit more of an emphasis on the transfer portal, are there really any big changes to this feature?
Dan M.
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It depends on your definition of “big,” but there is a lot more attention to detail in this newest game, such as how inviting multiple quarterbacks to visit on the same weekend could actually hurt your standing. A loss against a bad team or a win against a good team can hurt/help you with official visitors more than before. Athletes are back as a position group, and recruiting pipelines can include cities.
Personally, I’m curious how good the computer-generated recruiting is. I’ve never been someone who wants to spend more time recruiting than playing the actual games. My golden era was in the mid-2000s when recruiting only took place in the offseason and was simplified. But a lot of people love going deep into recruiting. There are more features in recruiting, like the portal, but the basic setup remains the same.
In dynasty, how do they treat protected rivalries? Can you change the annual opponents or edit them if you expand the conference?
Sam H.
You can set the amount of protected games you want and who they’re against. As part of customizing the conferences, you can customize who is in them and how they work, from the number of conference games to who hosts the championship game. Dynasty mode begins with the actual protected games for each league, but you can go in and change those, both the number of them and who they are, even if you don’t expand the conference.
When it comes to custom scheduling while you’re in Dynasty mode, you cannot change your conference games year to year like you can for the nonconference games.
GO DEEPER
What’s in College Football 25’s Dynasty mode? Everything we know
I know up to 20 teams per conference but can you organize in various ways such as pods, divisions, protected opponents with no divisions/pods?
Matthew P.
To expand on the above answer, you can create divisions in a conference where they do not exist. You can also remove divisions for the few conferences that still have them.
Can you edit playbooks or create your own plays? I commented on one of your other articles and assumed the answer was no since I don’t remember it being an old feature, but it would be great if that’s an option. That would be next level.
Zach C.
There will be custom playbooks and custom audibles. That drew applause from the hardcore gamers who were in the room with us during the presentation. It sounds like custom audibles may not be available at launch, but the plan is to get that in the game, as it has been in the past for both NCAA Football and Madden. We were not told anything about creating plays, and it’s never been in NCAA or Madden before, so I believe that’s a no. But you have a huge pool of plays to choose from to put in your custom playbook.
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But I agree it would be fun to create new plays, perhaps from a given set of formation and route options.
Is the playoff format customizable? Number of teams, locations, etc.?
Brian S.
I believe this is a no. When the presentation ran down the CFP’s role in Dynasty mode, the idea of customizing the format did not come up. The game’s CFP will be on the actual location rotation as far forward as is known, meaning Atlanta won’t always host the national championship game, for example. And further into the future after what is known, the stadiums will rotate in a way EA Sports has assumed could play out in real life.
Can we change the coaches names to let’s say Lane Kiffin or will the game block that as well like they do with trying to change “Random Player on Texas” to “Arch Manning”. Essentially could we go into the game and change all the names of the coaches to the actual real life coaches in CFB?
Dylan J.
You can only name your individual coach in Dynasty, not all the other coaches, so that’s not a situation you’ll come across. The old option of naming all the coaches is gone, because EA Sports didn’t want to get into licensing legal trouble for the same reason there are limits on players. Now, could you name yourself Lane Kiffin and be the Ole Miss head coach? Probably. The coach detail is not the same as players. But it won’t be a situation where you can name all the coaches.
If you take a coordinator job, do you only call plays for that side of the ball?
Oliver G.
Yep. That’s how it was in the old games, and it will remain that way in the new one.
Are you able to hire position coaches and support staff or just a head coach and offensive and defensive coordinators?
Brendon F.
Just coordinators, but this is the first time this will be in the game. The possibility of poaching coordinators from other schools sounds really fun to me.
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Does the wear and tear on players carry over from game to game in a Dynasty mode? If a player develops a nagging injury but can still play, could that be a season long problem?
Ben Y.
We don’t know yet about Wear and Tear’s weekly impact in Dynasty, but the game obviously has long had injury reports and nagging injuries that can impact players’ availability throughout a season.
Wear and Tear will play a big role in Road to Glory for your individual player. It will follow you throughout the season. If you’re a scrambling quarterback, you’ll want to avoid hits more than you would otherwise. Maybe hand the ball off more on those option plays.
If player fatigue is a real factor in the game, does this mean player substitutions are important/valuable enough to bog down the gameplay (I’m sort of thinking of D-Line rotation, etc)?
Jonathan D.
That will depend on how long of a game you play. If you’re on five-minute quarters, it won’t be as much of a factor. But if you’re playing longer games, substitutions will be more important.
What bowl games are included, and is there a create-a-bowl feature?
Nina F.
Every bowl game will be in the game, as I first reported back in March. Yes, even the Pop-Tarts Bowl, which announced its inclusion. The Arizona Bowl also announced its inclusion in March, but it was sponsored by Barstool Sports at the time. It has since changed to the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl by Gin and Juice, and the game will have that updated branding in place of the Barstool stuff. EA Sports even made sure the Gin and Juice reference wouldn’t impact the game’s E for Everybody rating.
There is no create-a-bowl, which has not been a feature in the past either.
(Screenshot courtesy of EA Sports)
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Chris Vannini covers national college football issues and the coaching carousel for The Athletic. A co-winner of the FWAA’s Beat Writer of the Year Award in 2018, he previously was managing editor of CoachingSearch.com. Follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisVannini
