The biggest locker room issue Charles Huff encountered as Marshall’s head coach last year wasn’t leadership or buy-in. It wasn’t name, image and likeness money or social media.
It was the college football video game.
College Football News: Players came to his office asking why their overall rating in College Football 25 was only 72, or why they weren’t in the game at all, as if he had any control over that. He said the video game’s return was a good thing, but it was a new and unexpected challenge.
College Football News: “Kids in the locker room are like, ‘You don’t even start and you have a higher rating than me,’” said Huff, now the head coach at Southern Miss. “It’s where kids are. It was another thing that draws their attention from going out and getting better today.”
College Football News: After 11 years without a new edition since NCAA 14, EA Sports’ final title before lawsuits and legal uncertainties sent college sports video games to the sidelines, the launch of College Football 25 had a bigger impact than anyone predicted, including EA Sports itself. Industry tracker Circana reported it became the best-selling sports video game of all time in total dollars, surpassing NBA 2K21, though EA has not made its sales numbers public. CFB25 brought together diehard fans who had been clamoring for a new game for a decade-plus, gamers who don’t follow the actual sport and active college football players.
College Football News: “It outperformed all our expectations,” EA Sports senior vice president Daryl Holt said. “It’s become part of the cultural landscape of college football this year. It was exciting and fun and amazing to see. The title became the belle of the ball (within EA).”
College Football News: The game’s next edition, College Football 26, has been in the works for many months and will likely have another July release date. The College Football franchise had the advantage of being new and fresh last year, and it met the sky-high expectations.
College Football News: But can that momentum continue in the ensuing years, or will it fall into the trap of older video game franchises that run out of ideas?
College Football News: “We went into it knowing there was a lot of stuff we couldn’t get into the first year,” Holt said. “So there’s a lot of meat left on the bone.”
Critics, gamers and executives agreed: CFB25 wasn’t perfect, but it was a good starting point. The reviews of CFB25 were solid; Metacritic rated it an 80 (XBox) and 83 (PS5) out of 100, while video game publication IGN gave it a 7 out of 10. Both were higher than the outlets’ ratings for Madden 25. Gamers appreciated that microtransactions, a common feature of newer video games in which players must pay up to unlock special features and skills, didn’t take over the game.
College Football News: “They got the overall fun factor right,” said Kofie Yeboah, a video game content creator and former engagement manager at Secret Base. “They got the basics right. This is Dynasty mode. This is Road to Glory. I can definitely see things being expanded upon.”
James Bordeaux, a full-time CFB25 YouTuber who has more than 454,000 subscribers, concurred. Bordeaux, whose videos take viewers on hours-long quests within the game, was enlisted by EA to show off the first glimpses of gameplay last summer while playing with Michigan running back Donovan Edwards.
“I would say it was great as a foundation for the series,” he said. “There are parts that don’t feel 100 percent polished, but it makes me excited about the future of the series, especially with how much EA has listened to the community.”
College Football News: That community’s most frequent complaints included pass protection issues and the timing/recovery of fumbles during gameplay, a shortage of off-field details in Dynasty mode, limits on what can be customized in the TeamBuilder mode and a lack of playbook and quarter-length options in online play.
EA Sports released several game patch updates after the launch, fixing glitches and updating playbooks, jerseys and stadiums. That technology wasn’t available the last time the college football game was around. Game developers know glitches get more traction on social media than seamless operation, and they monitor issues that come up.
The X account @NoContext_EACFB grew to more than 25,000 followers by becoming a popular landing spot for those game glitches, plus screenshots of funny recruit names (like D.J. Khaled or Diego Manziel). The person who runs the account — a man named Lance who asked that his last name not be used — said it was all out of love for the game.
— No Context EACFB (@NoContext_EACFB) February 11, 2025
College Football News: “There’s going to be glitches like that, but it’s just for a laugh, not meant to go after them or anything,” Lance said. “I was hoping the game wasn’t a Madden copy-and-paste, and it definitely isn’t. I loved it.”
College Football News: That was the most positive thing someone could say about CFB25, according to Holt: It felt different than Madden. Some gamers were worried CFB25 would simply be a reskin of the NFL title’s game engine, but the talent discrepancy between on-screen players was greater in CFB than Madden, as it is in real life.
College Football News: The motto within EA Sports during the game’s production was that every team in college football was someone’s favorite team, and each was treated with care and attention to detail. Every school saw the impact. Schools like Alabama and Miami were among the most popular for online play, but Football Bowl Subdivision newcomers Sam Houston and Kennesaw State were popular Dynasty Mode picks for players looking to start at the bottom of college football’s top level and work their way up.
Sam Houston associate VP for branding & licensing Russell Martinez recounted a vendor who graduated from Texas but picked Sam Houston as his Dynasty team.
“The game put us out there in fans’ minds,” Martinez said. “People who had no connection to the university were building championships. That was pretty cool.”
College Football News: Even schools not in the game made their way in through the TeamBuilder program, which allows users to create teams. The Football Championship Subdivision’s Southland Conference uploaded its own teams — jerseys and logos with generic players — shortly after launch. Southland associate commissioner James Hill said it took him 24 hours to put it all together, and the teams were downloaded more than 20,000 times.
“It was a massive hit,” he said.
IN THE GAME 🏈🎮
We know you needed some Southland Football in College Football 25… so we created all 10 teams.
For PS5 users, look at the user name hillgators32 and download your favorite team!#GasTankLeague pic.twitter.com/v52ILNog06
— Southland Conference (@SouthlandSports) July 19, 2024
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Images via EA Sports)
