After an 11-year absence, EA Sports’ college football video game franchise is back.
The long-anticipated “College Football 25” became available Monday to EA Play subscribers and fans who pre-ordered the deluxe edition, and was released to the public Friday.
A lot has changed in the worlds of college sports and video games since the last release.
The most notable difference is that college football players were paid for their participation in the game under new name, image and likeness rules. Every player who opted in received $600 and a free copy of the game.
The game includes 134 football programs, featuring their unique stadiums, uniforms and game day atmospheres.
But several eyebrow-raising ratings and other flubs drew the ire of Maryland fans online.
Ratings and rankings
With an overall score of 80, Maryland is one of the lowest-ranked Power Four conference teams. Ohio State and Oregon are tied for the best school in the Big Ten with a ranking of 93.
Despite beating Rutgers in three straight seasons and having a better 2023 record, the Terps have the same ranking as the Scarlet Knights.
Half of Maryland’s 2023 victories came against teams with better in-game rankings. Maybe EA Sports is down on the Terps with the loss of quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, one of the best passers in school history.
But on-field rankings might not be the only place the Terps were underestimated. They earned a C+ for the academic prestige category, even though the university was recently named one of the top 20 public universities in the country by U.S. News and World Report. The publication ranked Maryland 46th overall.
A majority of the A+ schools are top academic universities such as Stanford and Northwestern, but Alabama is also considered an A+ school, despite having a much lower ranking on the list.
Welcome to the Shell
The game is successful in re-creating the atmosphere of SECU Stadium and game day festivities. But there are a few small mix-ups that will stand out to Maryland die-hards.
One is the song played as the Terps run on to the field. While the virtual band plays the school’s fight song, the victory song is typically played during real-life games.
Another is a pregame ritual involving a statue of the school’s mascot, Testudo. Before coming on to the field, the virtual players touch the turtle’s shell. Any former Terp who worried about midterms knows the traditional way to receive luck from the mascot is to rub the statue’s nose.
To be fair, the game gets a lot of details right, down to the visiting fans section being in the correct place. And it features the script uniforms that were hugely popular with fans when the Terps brought them back during the 2023 season.
Game play
Players have the opportunity to join the Terps in two game modes. In Dynasty mode, they can become Maryland’s new head coach and bring the program to the next level by drawing recruits with official visits and targeting local players to build a strong pipeline. But in the game Maryland doesn’t have its own DMV region to draw from. It is lumped into the much larger Tidewater region stretching all the way to Virginia Beach.
The DMV, which includes Washington and its suburbs in Maryland and Virginia, is growing into one of the best hotbeds for talent in football. Maryland head coach Michael Locksley has made it his mission to recruit as many players from the region as possible.
Any of Locksley’s would-be virtual replacements faces a similar challenge to turn Maryland into a juggernaut in “EA College Football 25,” but it’s not accurately reflected in the game.
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