The Shocking Comeback of EA Sports College Football 25

By Kevin Fox Jr. | July 22, 2024 | 10:15am

Video Games Features college football 25

The Shocking Comeback of EA Sports College Football 25

At long last, the wait for EA Sports College Football 25 is over.

I have been an ardent fan of college football generally, and the USC Trojans specifically, since 2005, but I really started paying close attention in 2007, after the Trojans’ national championship peak, but in the middle of their Rose Bowl win streak. It was widely regarded as major college football’s wildest season, and yes, I have watched the 2006 Rose Bowl several times in the past 18 years, hoping, somehow, that this time they’ll tackle Vince Young before he scores the winning touchdown.) Along the way on my journey, as I passed from early adolescence into early adulthood, was EA’s NCAA Football videogame franchise, which helped me learn the game of college football and to love the pageantry associated with the game. EA Sports’ mantra used to be “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game,” a statement of their dedication to a recreational combination of the athlete and spectator experience. They fell short often, but with the NCAA Football series they created something incredible, and with this year’s EA College Football, they’ve brought it back after over a decade-long hiatus.

The PS2/Xbox version of NCAA Football ’06, which came out in 2005, is regarded as the highwater mark of the series, or was until NCAA ’14 came to challenge it almost a decade later, on the PS3 and Xbox 360. The intervening years were not always kind to the franchise, which had a difficult adjustment from generation six to generation seven. It suffered from weird glitches and gameplay that always felt broken a different way from year to year; ’08 to ’11 could almost be considered a fallow period on both generations. I, meanwhile, have put over 1000 hours into ’07 (its cover graced by beloved USC Trojan Reggie Bush), which came out in 2006. Besides ’06 and ‘07, I also own ’09, ’10, and ’11 on PS2 (and Sega’s lesser but still fun NCAA College Football 2K3). I own ’11 in addition to ‘14 on PS3. I have been up deep into the middle of the night convincing computer-generated football players to attend my various college football programs, promising them playtime, and making imaginary promises to virtual mothers that I would keep them out of trouble and make sure they go to class. I have convinced kids to come back for unfinished business instead of chasing their dreams in the pros. I have played a college quarterback’s four-year career and then imported him into Madden, somehow time traveling back to what should have been his freshman year for the NFL draft.

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I have spent hours recreating real-life offenses that some of those games weren’t even designed to run. On the one hand, I was impressed by what the games’ simulations were able to accurately predict (dual-threat quarterbacks became a dominant force in most of my NCAA ’07 dynasties, just like they have been in real life, finally trickling into the NFL level this past decade) versus what’s outdated (the conferences have changed a bunch; Colorado was overrated in 2006 just like they are this year). I have turned schools like Kent State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and UNLV into minor powers; I’ve brought both Southern and Grambling into the FBS. I won the Heisman at Bowling Green in a dynasty where I went on to win national championships at Clemson and USC. I turned Temple (where I tried to combine the 2012 offenses of Kansas State and Alabama) into a major power with two national championships. I have won between 10 and 20 national championships with USC across multiple dynasty campaigns (with a dozen others at Clemson, Georgia, Alabama, and probably some other schools). I have learned the names of so many small towns I will never visit. I’ve spent hours writing out the perfect geographically logical college football conference scheme, balancing the country’s big and small colleges into places they should reasonably travel to. I am convinced deep in my bones that more teams should run the flexbone, and that more teams should run the dang ball in general. Is this because, try as I might, I find passing the ball a bunch like Lincoln Riley demands in USC’s Air Raid offense inconceivably difficult to master? Who can say. What I can say is that there are dozens like me, scores even, who have long waited for this day, for the return of this game. So much has changed to bring us here.

College Football 25

In 2009, former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon noticed that his likeness was being used in that year’s edition of EA’s college basketball game without compensation; the company was profiting off the labor of players they were not paying. He filed an antitrust lawsuit (later welcoming co-plaintiffs like Oscar Robertson and Bill Russell) against the NCAA that was settled in 2015 which helped usher EA out of the college sports videogame business (they were initially a co-defendant, and settled in June 2014). The lawsuit saw the NCAA labeled a “cartel;” EA stopped making basketball games after 2009, while the final NCAA Football game came out in 2013.

For the 118 years that the National Collegiate Athletic Association has managed the highest levels of intercollegiate sports across the U.S., debates have raged over how players should be compensated for their participation in an athletic venture that makes the schools money. A Supreme Court decision in 2021 (NCAA v. Alston) further loosened the NCAA’s hold on player’s ability to profit from their play while they are in school, leading to a new era of “NIL” (name, image, and likeness rights) playing into where student-athletes commit to attend school and play sports, and opening the door for the return of the videogame. And what a return it’s been!

According to Kotaku, the new game hit over 700,000 concurrent players on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network before the official release date thanks to EA’s policy of early access. It hardly occurred to me anyone would be playing this game not on a console. College football and videogame journalists have been writing about their experiences with the old games since they stopped making them. Now journalists I started following my freshman year of college like Bud Elliott and Steven Godfrey are featured in the game’s credits. The wait is over, prayers have been answered.

It’s hard to convey how deep college sports dig into people, even people only vaguely adjacent to the schools they root for, if it’s not something you’re familiar with. For years, that real-life passion combined with games that, even when they struggled with parts of their recreation, helped simulate an experience people could not get enough of, building real memories in imaginary worlds. Now we’re feeling an unlikely joy at this game’s return because for so long it felt like it was never coming back, with the NCAA too stubborn, and EA too busy with the Ultimate Team modes in its Madden and soccer games. Sure that joy is fueled in part by nostalgia, but also by amazement at how the game isn’t just back, but actually very good, too

As much as I tried to temper my expectations, my anticipation was irrepressible, and I am in love with the payoff. Honestly, I’ve been telling myself for months, “You’ve just got to buy it once. If it sucks, at least you’ll have given it a shot.” I’ve exhausted the 10-hour EA free trial and I have some nits to pick but this game is good in a way that feels almost impossible. I am in awe. EA has gathered so much goodwill by executing this project on such a high level. I can’t wait to see them squander it.

Kevin Fox Jr is a writer and critic who loves art, culture, sports, cooking, and the study of history. He writes, mostly about movies, games, TV, and books at his blog PCVulpes, and you can find him @polycarbonfox on Twitter or @phantomcobra on BlueSky.