With a swift “ping” from my cell phone on Friday, my weekend plans changed in an instant.
EA Sports had contacted Eleven Warriors to see if it was interested in obtaining an advance review copy of EA Sports College Football 25. Frankly, I don't know if I've ever responded to an email faster.
Like many of us, I grew up playing old college football video games and jumped at the chance to play the first of its kind released within the last 11 years three days ahead of its worldwide launch. But I also have this thing called a job, and I wanted to find a way to produce a review that would be of particular interest to our main readership, Ohio State fans.
So, I attempted to approach my weekend with the game the way I figure a lot of Ohio State fans will once they get their hands on it.
Immediately, I launched a standalone exhibition game featuring Ohio State and Michigan. What better way to start the first virtual college game in a decade than playing a rendition of the greatest rivalry in college football, right?
From the start, I was blown away by how much of Ohio Stadium's pageantry was presented. From Script Ohio to the school's fight song, the bells tolling when an opponent is facing a third down, the triumphant sound of the band when they fail to pick it up and the O-H, I-O chants breaking out, the game pretty much nailed it. They even show a clip of the Buckeye players performing “Carmen Ohio” when the clock hits zero.
As for the gameplay itself, EA Sports College Football ran pretty smoothly for the most part in a still “work in progress” version. The new passing and kicking timing mechanics take a little bit to get used to (I must have booted at least four kickoffs out of bounds), but once you get the hang of it, they're pretty easy to handle consistently.
While it doesn't hurt to have some skills with the sticks, players with adept football acumen will receive an ever bigger boost, as the game can play as simple or as complex as you make it. For example, the protection adjustment options are flat-out insane. It got to a point where in my playthrough against Michigan, Mason Graham was destroying my right guard nearly every play, so at one point, I said, ‘Enough, it's time to double team this guy.’ Once that change was made, it opened up a lot more things on that side of the field.
In case you were wondering, OSU took down Michigan in the exhibition, 34-17.
NCAA might be the best video game of all time pic.twitter.com/VqlhNJgcxB
— Dean Davidson (@Coach_DDavidson) July 14, 2024
Each FBS team has its own individual offensive and defensive playbooks in the game, and Ohio State's is represented pretty accurately offensively, and on defense, it properly utilizes Jim Knowles' 4-2-5 defensive scheme. If you want to get really crazy, you can adopt another team's playbook and try a double-reverse pass. Every time I ran that play, it resulted in either an eight-yard loss or a massive gain.
I also wanted to see what the difference would be playing as a road team, so I booted up another exhibition, this time against Penn State in Happy Valley. Just as the pageantry was on-point for Ohio State, Penn State was also well-represented, with a ton of “We Are” chants, the defense beginning its series with the song "Mo Bamba" and a Nittany Lion roar after every first down.
Emeka magic
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) July 13, 2024
@emeka_egbuka x @EASPORTSCollege pic.twitter.com/cHKxbulrwi
I must have checked out at least 20 different stadiums in the game to see how they were represented. Florida State, Clemson, Texas, Colorado, LSU, Notre Dame and lots of other programs all had unique entrances and traditions akin to their stadium. Hell, even Ohio's stadium was pretty on the money with the dorms in the background. I also played a Rose Bowl, a Cotton Bowl and a Pop-Tarts Bowl, which sadly did not feature an edible mascot roaming around on the sidelines. That part definitely has to be the biggest letdown of the playthrough, which is saying a lot!
Dynasty Mode
Dynasty has been the bread and butter of college football games since their inception, and EA Sports College Football 25 is no different.
While the game now features real players, no real coaches are in the game, so each school has a randomly generated head coach, offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator. In Dynasty, you take on the role of one of those three positions at a school of your choice, then choose a coaching background: Motivator, tactician or recruiter. Each background offers different perks and skills, and your choice of coordinators can either balance out your weaknesses or heighten your strengths.
To align with fan interest, I signed up to be the head coach at Ohio State. It's definitely not the type of school I'd typically start with, as I prefer to build a team up from the ground floor first, but there was something alluring about taking over a squad built to win now.
Ohio State's new coach, Eleven Warriors, signed a three-year contract, with an expectation of making the College Football Playoff every season or risking termination, which as you know is a pretty accurate expectation. On the flip side, if you took over Kennesaw State, your goal for your first year would be to win four games.
You can customize conferences before every season up to 20 teams, so if you wanted to add Florida State and Clemson to the Big Ten, you could. If you wanted to say to hell with this new wave of realignment and put everything back the way it was, you could do that too. You can change your nonconference opponents and hand-pick the matchups you'd like as well, though I kept both conferences and schedules the status quo for the 2024 season playthrough.
While recruiting is often the focal point of a dynasty mode, it's worth noting that if you simply want to play through seasons and nothing more, you can set recruiting to automatic and let your, *ahem*, assistant coaches (AI) handle it for you.
That said, you can manually set up a recruiting board before each season of up to 35 prospective targets in a recruiting cycle. Each recruiting class has more than 3,500 randomly generated athletes, each with a different "dealbreaker" that means the most to them (pro potential, playing time, proximity to home, etc.). The better suited your school is to handle that athlete's top need, the more likely you are to land that target.
Even more helpful, you can always look at what exactly you need to recruit on a yearly basis. For example, with Ohio State likely expecting to lose TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins after 2024, the game suggested I sign three running backs in the 2025 class. Considering that's how many tailbacks the Buckeyes hope to sign in real life, it felt on the nose.
There is a "recommended" group of targets the game hand-picks for you that is based on a player's starting interest in your school based on region or how well you align with their dealbreaker, but I decided to say screw it and just put the top-ranked recruits on my board to start and go from there. In the preseason, you can allot resources on scouting players, and eventually uncover who is either a bust or underrated in comparison to their recruiting ranking.
Full disclosure, my recruiting strategy was terrible because I struck out on the high-end players more often than not. By the time I circled back around with my backup options, it was too late. I ended up signing the No. 11 recruiting class because I had to pivot to other developmental players late in the cycle instead. I can see the Eleven Warriors forum posters ready to send me to the Gulag as we speak.
On a positive note, despite simulating a good chunk of games while manually recruiting, Ohio State etched a perfect regular season, complete by getting revenge against Michigan in the home finale and then, in turn, beating USC (yeah, I know) in the Big Ten championship game. Will Howard even won the Heisman Trophy!
In this playthrough, the Buckeyes were the No. 1 seed in what had to be the strangest 12-team playoff bracket of all-time. The field consisted of OSU, No. 2 Oklahoma State, No. 3 Florida State, No. 4 South Carolina (your SEC champion!), No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 6 Kansas State, No. 7 Michigan, No. 8 Arizona, No. 9 Oregon, No. 10 Texas, No. 11 North Carolina State and No. 12 Bowling Green.
Ohio State drew a rematch with Oregon in the Rose Bowl in the CFP quarterfinals, then faced South Carolina in the Cotton Bowl in a semifinal matchup. Both games were decided by one possession. The national title came down to Ohio State and Oklahoma State, so once it was certain everyone drove down to Atlanta safely, the Buckeyes had a chance for their first championship since 2014.
The title bout wasn't particularly close, and Ohio State walked away with the title with little resistance.
Once the offseason hit, you could view your players' NFL draft results, which saw three Buckeyes get taken in the first round. You're given the option to attempt to convince underclassmen to return for another year, but the only underclassman who declared was Quinshon Judkins, and since he was a projected first-round pick, the game gave you zero chance of successfully convincing him anyway.
In the offseason, you have a chance to change jobs if you prefer in the coaching carousel, and you can fire/hire coordinators if it tickles your fancy. You're also tasked with finishing off your recruiting class, but this time, that extends to both players in the transfer portal and in high school. Only one player transferred out from Ohio State, so honestly, a pretty dang good year.
Once your class is pretty much set, you can "encourage players to transfer" to make room if needed, which is essentially a polite way of going Deion Sanders and cutting them. You can play up to 30 seasons in Dynasty Mode.
Road to Glory
Because I had to eat and sleep at some point this weekend, I didn't get to spend as much time with this mode as I would have liked to. But I played enough to know what it entails.
In Road to Glory, you essentially take on the role of an individual player seeking glory at the collegiate level and can choose to come into college ranked anywhere from a five-star prospect to a two-star player, which is essentially the game on hard mode. For expedience, we went the five-star route.
You can play one of five positions in the game: Quarterback, running back, wide receiver, linebacker or cornerback. Because I'm basic, I chose quarterback and donned No. 7 in honor of C.J. Stroud.
When looking at the five-star programs in the game, each had a varying level of interest in our hot-shot quarterback, Eleven Warriors. Michigan wanted me as its starter, Notre Dame as its backup, and Ohio State, Georgia and Alabama as its third-string quarterback. I rolled with the Buckeyes fully expecting to sit on the bench in the first year.
Within the first week, I already had a chance for a position battle with Devin Brown to be Ohio State's backup quarterback. The way position battles work is essentially a best-of-three mini-game competition, with challenges such as passing skeleton, pocket presence and option attack used in gameplay.
In a given week, you'll have to choose where to spend your time between academics, leadership activities, training, recovery and branding, which helps lead to NIL opportunities. Each category has its own rewards the more you grow, but each also has negative consequences if you neglect it for too long.
After winning the position battle, I was No. 2 on the depth chart for Week 1. The first game came and went without me seeing a snap. Apparently, Will Howard got hurt in the middle of Week 2 against Western Michigan and Eleven Warriors was thrust into action.
Upon seeing the camera angle, I both loved how close up and personal it felt taking control of a single player on the field, but also immediately regretted not choosing the No. 11 to go with the last name Warriors on the back of the jersey.
Anyhow, I apparently played well enough that the coaching staff gave me an opportunity to challenge Will Howard for the starting spot the next week, which 11W won and was in turn anointed QB1 far sooner than expected. That was about as far as I made it.
Other Notes
- Even though the gaming community will scorn at the thought of mentioning it, I briefly checked out Ultimate Team Mode. The concept seemed mildly interesting enough: Collect a plethora of different playable athletes, both current and former legends, across a slow grind that involves challenges, solo battles and online play. The mode is probably at its best when EA's servers are up and running, which will likely be Monday at 4 p.m. when the game releases for those who bought the Deluxe Edition. For that same reason, I avoided the Road to The College Football Playoff mode, which is essentially a structured online head-to-head competition.
- While my experience with the game was mostly positive, I do have a few things to nitpick. Probably the biggest is the inability to skip cinematics in team introductions or at the end of contests. I watched them all the way through intentionally the first few times, but once you've seen the entrance to Ohio Stadium four times, you probably don't need to see it a fifth time before jumping into the action. Secondly, there were rarely a few minor glitches, such as Will Howard being introduced in a graphic wearing Penn State colors, or an Ohio State assistant coach essentially being cut off at his stomach in the middle of a trophy presentation. Neither of these impacted my enjoyment of the game, and both may be fixed right away after a Day One patch from EA, but the more you know the better.
- Wrapping up, I have to say EA delivered the authentic college football simulation fans have been waiting more than a decade for. Whether you’re looking for a 10-minute game or a dynasty playthrough that runs 30 seasons, there’s something here for every college football fan. EA Sports College Football 25 is available at 4 p.m. on Monday on PlayStation 5 and Xbox X/S for those who ordered the Deluxe Edition, while the Standard version drops on Friday.
