EA Sports College Football 25 review — A love letter to college football fans

It’s July, the summer of 2013, you’re out of school for summer and waiting outside of your local game store. As we all sit there with our favorite team’s colors talking trash to the people down the line, we’re all there for one reason, NCAA 14. You go home and play for hours and hours taking your team as high as you can go. Nobody knew at the time this would be the last time we had that feeling for almost eleven years… but now… drum roll intro, please

College Football 25 is HERE and I’ve never seen so many adults cry on TikTok before. This has to be one of the most anticipated games I’ve seen and definitely the most anticipated I’ve had the chance to review. I’m going to go into a few different areas about the graphics and the way the game plays, and then we’ll get into the four main game modes for College Football 25. EA Sports, it’s in the game.

Graphics // Sights and Sounds

This game plays night and day better than NCAA 14 – that should be without saying – but some I’ve heard seem to be shocked by that statement. Yes, College Football 25 looks absolutely amazing. As I said in my preview of the game, the team at EA Sports clearly had passion for this project because every detail has been thought through in my experience so far.

Each team’s stadium feels different, looks different, and plays different. For instance, in my first crack at Dynasty I played as the coach of two smaller schools. Going from a small school where you can barely keep people in the stands to a location like Kyle Field in Texas or Vaught Hemingway Stadium in Mississippi becomes a shock to the system. The stadium noise has a bar system from green being calm and tranquil as people are mostly there to cheer on their kids or eat a hot dog, versus red where you have the crowd screaming and yelling. On top of that, some stadiums get a numeric power level of the noise. I believe the highest I got to was 13 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville during my first game playing as an SEC team.

As a marching band kid myself, I was so excited when they announced we were getting every fight song, specialty songs, and more from the marching bands in the game. There’s nothing cooler than seeing the Tennessee Vols running onto the field behind Smokey with the marching band around them in the Power T as you see in the cover photo of this review. Each team I played as had a slightly different band formation, which was really fun. After every big play, first down, on third down, after a field goal, touchdown, pick-6, your band will be playing their hearts out. Something I found really interesting is scoring a touchdown in a hostile environment. You’ll hear your fight song play, but it’ll be so quiet that you may just barely hear it over the noise of the crowd. It creates such a fun environment and adds to the college football atmospheric experience.

The mascots are also a lot of fun throughout your journey. Not only will you see the mascots like Smokey the Dog for Tennessee, but you’ll see the costumed mascots as well. Each mascot has their own signature moves they do for their team. Again, it’s the attention to detail that’s truly fun about these college football atmospheres.

Your team will probably have everything you could want gear wise. Each team has MULTIPLE uniforms and the combinations add even more fun. As a Tennessee fan, I love seeing the black uniform with orange lettering. I’m excited to hopefully get the Smokey Grey added after the newest Tennessee uniform announcements this season. I am curious if the team will be changing player numbers as the season goes on. There are A LOT of players in this game, and I’m not sure how feasible it is to keep up with every player and the changes. For instance, there are already two players on Tennessee’s offense whose number has changed. While it’s not a huge deal, it’s something worth keeping an eye out on as the season progresses.

Let’s get this out of the way, you will not be able to change the information for players who are real players. For instance, you will not be changing the numbers or hometowns of a player like Arch Manning. This was told to us months ago, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been waiting for this game. This is due to the NIL deals currently. That is also why you CAN take your Road to Glory character into Madden NFL 25, but you CANNOT take your Dynasty class into Madden NFL 25. While this may be a bummer for some, again, it was told to use months ago and isn’t because the team didn’t want to add it. It’s for legal reasons beyond their control.

If you have been to a specific stadium before, you’ll be able to see everything you saw at that stadium in the game. For myself, I could see the building I took classes in behind the MTSU stadium. During our head to head match, myself and David both were giddy as we watched the Vols run through the Power T the marching band made while Rocky Top was playing loudly. David also loves that the V.O.L.S. white signs were up at the top of Neyland Stadium. The team for College Football 25 went in with the mindset that “every team is someone’s favorite team.” That level of love and attention is clear with how each individual stadium and the atmosphere around the stadium feels so close to real life.

Now, to the gameplay itself. The gameplay is FAST. Plus, depending on the school you are and the schools you’re playing, it might even seem faster. The difference between Auburn and Southern Mississippi is shown by the speed in which plays happen. You can play an entire season of Dynasty in the Sun Belt and never lose a game, but gosh, as soon as you get to the playoffs and run up against Alabama, Ohio State, etc… you’re in for a humbling experience.

I have yet to have any issue graphically that stopped me from playing the game. As of writing this, I’ve played two full seasons of Dynasty, one full season of Road to Glory, and two games against my friend. The only crashing issue I had was playing against my friend, we lost connection at the very end of overtime. I’d like to point out though, that this was before early access when the servers were not fully up and I’ve not seen many playing early access have troubles like this themselves. Other than that, there are a small number of clipping moments of players going through each other, or a player not appearing during a touchdown celebration. However, neither of these things took away from my experience.

Running the ball has never felt better in college, I have found myself running more than passing in Dynasty with my smaller schools, as it always seems to get me just enough yards to keep the chains moving. Make sure you’re keeping an eye on the wear and tear of your players throughout the modes you play. Don’t let a running back carry the ball too many times or you risk them long term. I learned that the hard way in my first season of Dynasty, losing my star running back due to injury during the final three games of the season.

Passing the ball takes a little bit to fully get a handle on due to the new dynamic passing mechanic. Your goal is to keep the bar blue for the most accurate pass you can do. If you get to the yellow or red, the receiver might still catch it, but it’ll be just a bit off target. Imagine your QB throwing a little behind or in front of the receiver and you’ll understand how off a yellow pass can be compared to an on target blue pass. I am very excited to watch the pros play College Football 25 to see this passing accuracy idea at its highest level.

Defense is really where you feel the speed of the game go against you. If you’re a middle linebacker in Road to Glory and you choose to walk on to a big school as an underdog journey (explained later in the Road to Glory section) you’ll get smoked big time. For fun, I attempted to go to Tennessee as a cornerback with the underdog journey, and I didn’t even make it through practice before I realized this wasn’t going to work. The receivers are just so much faster as a four or five star recruit versus a one star. One of the best parts of playing defense for me was the hit stick animations when you get the timing just right. Especially in the second year of a dynasty where you know the players better, landing a hit and causing a fumble feels so good.

Overall, the graphics and audio production for College Football 25 is everything I could have hoped for in action. From the amount of uniforms, to the number of new head models, and every stadium being so unique and special, everything the team talked about in the preview for College Football 25 was here in the final product. This hits every little part of my brain it needs to and I can finally pack up my NCAA 14 and Xbox 360 and let it rest after going for 10 years.

Dynasty

Dynasty was everything I could have asked for from a long term coaching mode. You choose one of three starting archetypes. Each one gives you different abilities you can choose from. Will you be a Recruiter (bonuses to recruitment, a huge part of Dynasty), Motivator (program developer, building up your team XP wise), or Schemer (boost to on the field abilities)? Each one drastically changes how you start your career. For instance, I found that Recruiter was the most helpful early on for a small school because you’ll need as much recruitment help as you can get for a rebuild and small schools have so little time to recruit compared to bigger programs. Meanwhile, if I was starting with a solid school, I would want to use either Motivator or Schemer to make the teams I already have better. It will be all about the story you want to tell.

Recruitment has actually been one of my favorite things about this mode. You start the season with an empty board for you to fill. Thankfully, the game tells you your general needs on the prospect board allowing you to focus on positions of need quickly. With smaller schools, this will be huge as you need to start filling your team with players quickly to be able to use the time spent on some players on others. For instance, if your team needs a QB and you find one you like, you might want to throw everything at them with the hours you have available to you to help him commit faster. Once he commits, you’ll be able to use those hours on another player. So you want to make sure you’re spending time with a varying number of players and ranking so you are getting the commitments you need for your program.

I have found myself spending quite a lot of time scouting players to find hidden gems while focusing on 5-10 players on the board with higher ranking while spending a small amount of time on 1-2 star recruits to keep my roster filled.

Wear and tear will change the way you play the game drastically in Dynasty. If you run a running back too hard too fast in the season, his body will wear down and there’s a higher and higher chance of injury. I lost my starting running back for the final three games of year one by failing to switch him out often enough and he got hurt. The wear and tear system works on every single player on the field, so watch out for players that are in the red, as their chance of injury is higher.

The statistics side of things has been a lot of fun. I played as the coach of four teams as of writing this section. Each time, the first thing I do is go over to the team stats section to see the records for the specific school to know what I’ll need to do to make my mark on the college. College Football 25 also brings back showcasing when a player breaks a record. If your player breaks a single game or season record, they get a little moment where the honor is shown in the bottom left. I’ve been waiting on this with Madden for years, so I’m glad College Football 25 brought it back here. It means more when a player breaks a record to see the game celebrate it in game as they would in real life.

You’ll be able to play the full season with the goal to make the college football playoffs. Near the end of each regular season you’ll see the playoff bracket start to show projections. Of course, ranked schools tend to be the schools involved in the playoffs, so the goal is to be ranked by the end of the year. However, if you’re a small school, you may get crushed really quickly in the playoffs (I’ll discuss in my Dynasty article). Be ready to take a slice of humble pie when you get to the end of the season.

Overall, this is my favorite game mode and will be the area I’ll be putting the most time into during the next months as I continue my journey with College Football 25.

Road to Glory

Road to Glory has a lot going on and it’s quick to jump in and enjoy yourself the way you want to play. There are four starts to your journey, Elite, Blue Chip, Contributor, and Underdog. Each one starts you at a different overall, changes which schools offer you a position on their team, and how many mental abilities and skill points you start with, so choose wisely. You start by creating your player, and can choose from QB, RB, WR, MLB, or CB. Each position will have its own set of styles that make each playthrough a little different. I chose QB Improvisor for my first playthrough and it has been great so far.

The thing I enjoy the most about Road to Glory is the two parts of leveling up your player: the ratings and the agenda. The ratings are pretty simple: you’ll take skill points you get doing practice, playing games, etc and use those to boost everything from your IQ to your accuracy, power, quickness, etc. The player’s Agenda is the perfect addition to Road to Glory, allowing you to use your energy tokens every week to boost one of five areas.

Academics requires you to keep at least a 2.0 GPA to continue playing for the team, if you don’t put energy into your academics, you can lose your starting spot. Leadership grants you everything from passive bonuses to coach trust to XP multipliers. Spending time with teammates and taking deals that allow your teammates to benefit from them, will boost these stats. Health needs to stay high so you don’t get injured. Every week, you’ll take hits and every week you’ll need to put energy into making sure your body is right. Don’t forget to prioritize your health.

You can also use your energy tokens to add to your XP, but I found myself doing this the least as you can get a lot of XP just by playing well. It’s best not to waste too much energy adding XP when you have practice and games every week. Finally, your brand. NIL has taken College Football 25 by storm and we’ll be making some NIL deals ourselves. The first one I got was with a barbershop, which gave me a boost to leadership because all of my position group got free haircuts from me taking the deal. However, if you put too much into brand, you’ll be losing out on some energy in other areas, so the balance is key.

Replayability becomes a factor when you start trying things out. What happens if you put everything you have energy-wise into NIL and leave everything else to the wolves? You might be a legend, but will you have the starting job if your academics struggle? What if you put everything into XP so that you can be the best player in the country but nobody knows you because the brand is so low? Not only can you do different players at different initial rankings, but your choice in school and the way you use your points to upgrade will change every story making the mode extremely fun in different ways.

Road to the CFP

Road to the CFP is a mode that I don’t see myself playing much of, but I’m glad it’s available for those who like ranked head to head. You have 7 Divisions, or ranks. From lowest to highest, you have recruit, freshman, sophomore, upperclassmen, all-conference, all-american, and heisman. You’ll have on the Global Leaderboards, your Ranking Points, win percentage, wins, losses, streak, championships, points for and against, and the differential.

Players who like to play head to head but also want to have ranked games, this mode is for you. I can see this getting extremely popular very quickly for the competitive scene allowing for clear statistics for every player. If you stream College Football 25 and say you’re the top 50 player in the nation, your viewers will be able to see and prove if you’re lying or not. It’ll lead to some heavy competitive play, and I cannot wait to see the high ranked players against each other.

Ultimate Team

Ultimate Team makes its way to College Football 25 with a similar vibe, but different enough to have its own feel compared to Madden NFL 24 and previous Ultimate Team style game modes. You’ll have packs of cards representing players from all over the college football world. At first you’ll start with an extremely low 66-68 overall team. Once you join and do the tutorials, you’ll gain a pack for free and it’ll raise you just enough to start the Challenges, Solo Seasons, Solo Battles, Head 2 Head (H2H), and House Rules game modes.

Challenges provide you with quick solo challenges that aim to help you get better at the game, learn new schemes, and I assume will eventually lead to weekly challenges based on what’s happening in the college football landscape. Solo Seasons you’ll use your Ultimate Team to play seasons against the CPU. You’ll be able to choose from Freshman, Varsity, and All-American season difficulty and your rewards will go off of those difficulties. Solo Battles are ranked 1v1 matches against opponents with different schemes and players. You’ll get rewards per your rank.

Head 2 Head is the basic online matchmaking for Ultimate Team. Similar to Madden NFL Ultimate Team, you’ll try to win enough H2H matches to get to the playoffs. The deeper into the season / playoffs, the higher rewards. Finally, house rules, which I first played in Madden Ultimate Team allow you to play special events with different rule sets. For instance, the first one I saw was OT Rules, “each team gets one drive to score a touchdown or field goal. Top score wins.” It’s a fun change of pace for those needing to lay back a bit after tough H2H matches.

Final Thoughts

When I previewed College Football 25 down in Orlando, I was blown away by the level of passion from the staff working on this game. Scott O’Gallagher, Christian Brandt, and the entire team were so proud showing every aspect they did. I came back from the event with the highest of expectations. Some would say, too high expectations (as you can see in my preview)… well… they exceeded my expectations! As a fan of video games, as a fan of the Vols and Blue Raiders, and as a fan of football; College Football 25 hits everything at the highest level I could have asked for during the return of a beloved sports franchise.

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