The long-awaited EA Sports College Football 25 has finally been released, ending an 11-year streak without a college football video game.
As a football video game addict, I pre-ordered it the moment it was announced, jumping on the early release on Monday evening, and have been up until 2am every night since, playing an embarrassing number of hours.
I've put in many hours already, but with the full standard edition of the game being released on Friday, I wanted to share some tips, especially for those who haven't played a video game since NCAA Football 14 .
Try different path settings
The 'Improved Passing' system gives you more options in how you throw the pass.
But “Improved Passing” is the default option, but I changed it. I'm originally a Madden player, and last year's NFL game introduced something called “Placement and Accuracy”. This setting is defined as: “Control the placement and power of your passes by enabling a timing element that allows for bullet-pass perfect accuracy over visual targets.” It's basically a timing method, but you can also hold down the left trigger when throwing a pass to give it more lead.
Below that initial setting is a “Path Lead Increase” setting that lets you specify how far you want the path lead to move – I have mine set to medium, but I think a small setting is best for beginners as it eliminates user error.
You can try out the new system. I've been using it for two days and haven't noticed any big changes. It's more about placement and precision, and I think it gives you more freedom in placing your passes.
Should I fake my coverage?
New this year is the ability to fake your coverage with the touch of a button, which is useful if you're playing online or against a friend on your couch.
When you come out of the huddle on defense, you are given the adjustment to rotate your safeties however you want. For example, you come out in Cover 2. You can disguise the coverage as a Cover 3 or Cover 1 look with a 1-high safety. The goal is to confuse the opponent.
This does have a downside: if you run Cover 2 and disguise it as Cover 3, and someone streaks down the sideline, your safety will be out of position, allowing a big play.
I'm not a big fan of this mechanic, I think it's better to adjust your defense yourself or just leave it as it is, most of the time your opponent won't be so confused and you'll end up conceding a touchdown by trying to hide something that doesn't need to be hidden.
Going deeper
I ran 25 simulations of the 2024 season on College Football 25. Here's what I learned:
Yes, kicking is harder than ever
The first thing I noticed when I booted up the game was the new kick meter. In recent years, kicking has been too easy in Madden. In that game, you can kick without looking.
College Football 25 uses a two-click process. To be accurate, you need to keep the moving line as close to the center as possible and maintain that line as the power meter rises. Unless it's a long field goal, try not to get close to the top of the bar, or the red. Too much power will affect your accuracy.
Unfortunately, no matter how accurately you time your field goal meter, it's going to be pretty tough to kick on the road, especially in one of the toughest stadiums. I didn't like that at first, but it's realistic. There's a reason #CollegeKickers is trending so often on Twitter on Saturdays.
Kicking isn't impossible, but it's definitely a challenge that requires practice and patience.
Simplify your strategy in big road games
The first thing I did when I got the game was to build a dynasty at my alma mater, Bowling Green. I was playing at Heisman caliber and two of my first three games were road trips to Penn State and Texas A&M. That was a wake-up call for me.
On the road, the play art doesn't always show up correctly on the field and the screen always shakes when you try to watch the play. If you put a lot of hot routes on the field, like I did, it's still possible, but there's no guarantee the player will run the correct route. I couldn't even block for the running back against Penn State. We lost by 3 to the Nittany Lions because the running back ran the wrong route and I got sacked on 4th down.
Add in the fact that it's hard to kick, and you're going to have a hard time on the road. The best thing to do is keep things simple.
After losing to Penn State, we had to play Texas A&M, and in that game we won easily because we focused on running the ball and controlling the clock, running a lot of RPOs to make easy reads, and if we had to pass, keeping the route combos simple.
A concept that works well is orbital movement. Find some orbital movements in your playbook and gain some easy yards against the computer.
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Wait for the sprint
If you haven't touched the game of football in 10 years, you might be inclined to sprint with your right trigger when a running back receives the ball. Don't do that.
Instead, when you receive the ball, run without sprinting across the backfield, find a hole and hit it, and once you're in the hole, press the right trigger to move away.
The sprint button is best thought of as an acceleration button really. If you hold it down quickly, you'll struggle to hit the right hole, your movement speed will slow down, and you'll get bounced off linemen. Often, when you start to sprint, there's coding in the game that will trigger defenders to start unblocking you.
It won't make you better instantly, but if you take the time to actually try it out in your games you will see the difference.
The best skill move in the game is the juke
This is another thing College Football 25 gets right as a nice change of pace from Madden.
In Madden, the best move in the open field is to release the right trigger, dodge, then press the trigger again to escape the defense. In College Football 25, you need to hold down the right trigger to get the best move.
If you're in the open field, you're probably already holding down the right trigger to accelerate, so all you have to do is flick the right stick left or right to decide which way you want to juggle. If you want to get a little more advanced, you can juggle to the right. Once you've performed that move, press the spin button and lead the left stick in the direction you want to move. This allows you to juggle away from the defender in front of you, and then spin away from the defender you jugged, allowing you to progress down the field faster.
Think of it this way: if you don't press sprint after the ball is handed to you and keep the ball in the open field, your jug and spin will be greatly improved.
If you're playing Road to Glory, be patient as you'll be sitting on the bench for a while.
Two years ago I entered a Madden tournament, competing in a week of qualifiers for two days of tournament play. The tournament started on a Saturday and I went 3-0 in the double elimination tournament to qualify for Sunday. I was playing great until a last-minute emergency occurred and I found out I couldn't play on Sunday. Despite putting in four hours of the tournament and hours of practice and qualifying, I withdrew. At that point, it was the biggest waste of time I'd ever spent playing a video game.
Until I booted up Road to Glory on College Football 25 .
I love this game mode in general, but if you go into it thinking the story of a 1-star underdog team is interesting, you're wrong. I spent hours practicing and training, trying to compete for a spot. It wasn't until my senior year that I saw any sign of grabbing a starting spot. It was a waste of time as I spent more time studying than playing on the field.
If you have the patience, then by all means, give it a go, but my suggestion to you guys is to go for a 3-star or blue chip prospect, it will give you a much better gameplay experience.
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You're Not Alone: Defense is Hard for Everyone
When you first start the game, you're probably thinking, “Wow, I can't buy stops.” But don't worry, no one can. EA has created a game that is played at an extremely fast speed with free-flowing movement that favors offense over defense. It also allows running backs to turn into Barry Sanders or Emmitt Smith in their prime and randomly run through tackles and around everyone. It's hard to make a tackle in the game.
There are three ways to make a tackle: dive tackle, conservative tackle, and hit stick. We recommend not pressing the hit stick button too often unless you know the tackle is perfect. A successful tackle may result in a fumble, but the penalty for a missed tackle in this game is too risky.
Dive tackles also aren't as good as they have been in years past. For anyone who's played Madden, suction tackles were annoying, but EA got rid of them in College Football 25. When you dive, you either get tackled, flip the running back, or miss. I've noticed that dive tackles get broken far more often than other tackles, even when lined up. There is a right time and place for a dive tackle, but you shouldn't do it every time.
I recommend getting used to the conservative tackle. It's less flashy but gives you a better chance of catching the ball carrier or at least sparking a tackle battle. It's the A button on Xbox and the X button on PS5. It's the safest way to tackle in the hole or out of space, as a missed tackle on the sideline or at the second level gives the offensive team a better chance of scoring.
The focus is on making tackles and forcing the offense to score in the red zone. Rely on a “bend but don't break” strategy that doesn't allow big plays. If you can do that and find the red zone defense, you'll win a lot of games.
Using the Switch Stick
This is an advanced tactic so I won't go into it for long, but the new Switch Stick is a very cool concept from EA.
While many of you probably have control over your defensive linemen, I prefer to use my linebackers and safeties to cut off passing lanes. Previously, your coverage had to be perfect because it was nearly impossible to switch to another player until the ball was thrown.
This year, EA developed the Switch Stick, which allows users to switch which player they're controlling before the ball is thrown.
Playing Cover 2 and noticing that the far right side of the field is wide open for a corner route? Before the ball is thrown, simply press the Right Stick in the direction of the player you want to control to switch to safety and cover it yourself.
This, like some of the tips above, takes time to master, but is worth using, especially when playing online or against friends, as it confuses the attacking side as to where they should get the ball.
Going deeper
NCAA Football 14 avid fans have spent hundreds of hours updating their rosters. How do they feel now?
Be realistic when recruiting in Dynasty Mode
One of the biggest problems with Dynasty is that you want to recruit as quickly as possible, and in College Football 25 that's not possible.
Recruiting starts during preseason by setting up your board, and each week you have a set amount of time you can spend on recruiting. After you progress each week, the points you spent on recruiting stay with you unless you adjust your plan by moving points.
It's similar to NCAA 14, but recruiting is much harder overall this year. Coming out of my first year at Bowling Green, I had three commitments going into bowl season, and I realized I was overextending my hours trying to get too many recruits.
My advice would be to focus on the 15 or so freshmen you really want, give them your all, and then adjust based on whether you get them or not. If you're taking over a smaller school, you're not going to be able to sign 4- or 5-star prospects right away. You'll need to land 3-star prospects and be patient until your program's reputation grows and you start to see interest from top players.
If you are going to take over a smaller program like me, you have to be patient and realistic in the recruiting process. Don't do what I did and compete with Notre Dame and Texas for players while missing out on other players that are actually available.
(Illustration above: Dan Goldfarb / Athletic)
