College football is here. It REALLY feels like it this week.
No, the season doesn’t start until toe meets leather in that leather helmet game against Clemson inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
But that feeling has arrived early. No, it’s not the real thing but it is a “DGD” simulation.
It is a feeling we haven’t felt since July of 2013. That’s when long-time fans of the EA Sports college football video game remember when that game last came out in July of 2013.
The big question is whether it was worth the wait. It had better be, right?
The easy answer: Yes.
To the umpteenth power.
That feeling will hit you first when a digitized Sanford Stadium appears. You’ll hear announcers Rece Davis, Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit, among others.
Georgia football legend David Pollack is back in the game, too. The game gets you in the feels when you first hear Pollack calling games.
I don’t know how to explain it other than it feels like this video game franchise managed to take our college football minds back to two different points in time. EA Sports put Pollack back where he was supposed to be on Saturday mornings.
It gets better when the Dawgs run through that West End Zone tunnel on Dooley Field, that’s when that feeling turns to chills.
The developers got Sanford Stadium right. The crowds. The way the Dawgs run through the Power G through the middle of the field and then veer to the home sideline.
It makes you want to look on your arms for the chilbumps.
There’s a lot to unpack as the game releases in a few hours today for those who bought the “MVP” bundle for three days of early access.
Let’s get to it. What’s in the game?
- Carson Beck? Yes. Although it doesn’t quite look like him. Too much hair. Too Hollywood. Not enough Jacksonville.
- That said, Beck is an absolute damage dealer in the game. The opinion here is the pixellated Beck becomes the best Georgia football quarterback to ever appear in a video game. He tops the previous incarnations of Aaron Murray and Matthew Stafford.
- That’s easy to say because those two have never been in a game officially. They had generic “QB No. 7″ or “QB No. 11″ identifiers. That’s one area where this game is different from what we have seen in the past. Nobody has to load up rosters from a memory card. Or recreate all the players themselves anymore.
- There’s a lot of pressure on this game to hit, but there is not a high bar to clear. Let’s face it, there could be graphics that take us back to PS3 and Xbox 360 games and we wouldn’t care. But having played a little off-and-on Madden in recent years, this game looks like a faster and more sophisticated version. It feels like the developers did put years and years into it.
- Beck is good, but the digital versions of Travis Etienne and Mykel Williams play like cheat codes. I’m betting there will be times when having both of those guys feels unfair while surrounded by the rest of the talent on the Georgia offensive and defensive units. These are the “Create-A-Player” 99 overalls that everyone used to have.
- UGA XI? Yep. He looked like he’d already had two breakfasts on gameday with those healthy jowls.
- Black jerseys? Yes.
- When Georgia plays Florida in Jacksonville, the stadium is split down the middle as it should always be. The game menu even depicts it as the “War for the Oar” in the pregame menus.
- White helmets? Red pants? Black pants? No, no and no. It is like real life and Kirby Smart still has full control over those elements. It is a true “No uniforms variants for you” moment.
- Kirby Smart? Nope. You’ll have to create him and start as a rookie coach in Dynasty. If you want to get the full benefits of the two-time national champion coach, you’ll see a rather chubby fellow as the level 45 coach of the Georgia Bulldogs.
- You can create your own Smart. But if you do, you’ll have to deal with recruits questioning your experience level and stability as a first-year coach. If you don’t want that, it is a digital “Neil Hobbs” for you to be able to own every living room and close recruits like you are the “Kang” of recruiting.
- Is the famed 4th quarter “Light Up Sanford” celebration with “Krypton Fanfare” blaring in the game? No. Sadly.
- But the game does feature some folks holding cell phones in the cutscene that begins the fourth quarter of play. It might be a licensing issue with “Krypton Fanfare” to get it right. That’s the same reason why Smart is not in the game. EA Sports has an agreement that broadly covers every player. Unless they get a special endorsement, each player receives $600 and a copy of the game.
- There’s no such agreement with Smart or any other coach in college football. That’s because there isn’t a way for the game designers to negotiate with every coach like they broadly can with every NCAA player in the FBS. I’m told that’s why some NFL coaches have been in Madden over the years and others have not.
Those are a few rapid-fire hits. What do you really need to know about the game?
That follows below.
The 10 things Georgia football fans need to know about the new EA Sports College football game
Georgia football fans will enjoy playing this game. That’s because they have the highest-rated offense and the highest-rated overall team in the game and we’ve never seen that before except for maybe the 2008 season.
This game offers that and does what it is supposed to do. It will fill the gap between the middle of July and the start of the college football season the same way it always used to.
We touched on some hot-button topics earlier that the game doesn’t have. Now’s the time to chronicle the standout elements that it does have.
There’s a lot under the hood here to make die-hard enthusiasts of the game return to glory, so to speak, to pick up the controllers again.
That’s just what has been happening since this game was announced.
There have been at least 20 people who played the game back in the game that have told me they went out and bought a new next-generation system to play EA College Football 25. I’d love to see a marketing stat that one day shows how many first-time purchases were of those systems to play this game.
I’ve heard those say they happily paid the $150 “MVP” bundle price and then bought a next-generation system which costs approximately $400 or $500 beyond that to play this game.
If you did, it is worth it.
If you plan to, it will be.
If you don’t own an Xbox or a PS5, go get one. Quick. There could be “Black Friday” runs on those systems this week.
If you have kids, then you don’t have to do that. We will now have to deal with making your children mad by taking over the game.
“Mom,” our kids will say. “Dad’s is the chair again. Playing the game.”
“Oh no,” I can hear wives everywhere saying. “I’ve lost my husband and our binge-show-watching for this week. Maybe the whole month. The new NCAA game just came out.”
This is better than binge-watching. It will wake up the echoes of a generation of college football fans who binge-played seasons late at night.
What truly stands out? Here’s a grocery list of things DawgNation has learned about the new EA College Football game.
- The gameplay and animation is fast and yet also very smooth. The detail for tackles and sacks is extremely punishing and satisfying to the eye. The combination of that with the new “wear and tear” feature adeptly simulates the physical nature of football.
- What’s wear and tear? Well, in the instance that Williams continually sacks Jalen Milroe over and over, his body will begin to break down. An in-game graphic pops up to reflect which body parts have been affected. Let’s say it is his shoulder and right arm. As a result, his ability to throw and throw on the move will be reduced and his risk of further injury will go from green to yellow to red indicating a severe injury is on the way.
- The physicality is felt when Georgia plays the “FCS Southeast team” in the second week of the 2025 season. While the Bulldogs play Tennessee Tech in week two this fall, that FCS program is not included. That means the “Fighting Pandas” or something close to that come to Sanford Stadium for the game. That’s a bad matchup for the Pandas in the trenches.
- That’s because Georgia’s OL has more players with stars below their bodies than one would expect to see in a college football video game. The star icon indicates an ALL-SEC or All-American level player. During gameplay, one will believe a Panda can fly. That’s because they are getting tossed aside by the Georgia offensive line. There were so many one might have expected to see PETA protesters pop up in the middle of gameplay.
- During moments like this, the game will feature in-game scoreboard “ticker” messages pop up that reflect injured players for the other side during every drive.
- The Georgia offensive line was throwing Pandas out of the way creating running lanes for Etienne. Earnest Greene III, Tate Ratledge and Jared Wilson all had 20-plus pancakes in the game. That stat is even tracked in the game stats, too.
- Is the “Spike Squad” in the game? Alas, no. Maybe next year with that revered piece of the Georgia football gameday tradition.
- The gameplay is elevated by the sounds the same way a Hollywood classic uses its soundtrack. The Redcoat band shows up in clutch moments of the game. When third down comes up and “Choker” comes across your screen, you will feel that, too. There are also a few popular hip-hop stadium anthems that have made their way into the game.
- There are a lot of “Dynasty” fans out there. The immersive levels of the recruiting and all the behind-the-scenes elements of the game were always a major draw. There’s so much here that the dynasty player will get lost. But that’s what dynasty fans want to experience.
- There are some recruits that not even Kirby Smart can get because they have “dealbreakers” in their recruiting like location from home, brand exposure or playing time. If your team doesn’t have a high enough grade in those areas, there is no way that 5-star prospects will consider your school. (NIL won’t even help out either.)
- Players are rated, but the game goes further than that. Those 5-stars have to be scouted over and over by the coaching staff to determine whether they are indeed legit gems or busts according to those rankings.
- Recruitniks will also definitely appreciate the level of detail that stands out when it comes to special teams. As in real life, don’t expect to see any 4-star or 5-star kickers or punters in the game. That reflects reality. The national recruiting services never hand out those grades to specialists. This game presents special teams recruiting just the way it is.
- By and large, I’d say 90 percent of the 2024 roster is there for the Georgia Bulldogs. While I anticipate the game to update players as the season progresses, 5-star freshman DL Joseph Jonah-Ajonye is a notable omission. I also didn’t see freshman RB Nate Frazier or OT Marcus Harrison, among a few other members of the 2024 recruiting class.
- Freshman CB Ellis Robinson IV is in the game. He’s also got an “83″ rating which puts him just behind what would be an elite starter in the game. As a comparison, Georgia starting CB Daylen Everette had an “87″ rating. the type of representation that Robinson should have in the game. He’s been ranked by services as the second-highest-rated UGA recruit all time by 247Sports.
- There’s a “Road to Glory” feature here where players can create their character and sign with a college program. They can pick their star rating. The only stipulation is they can play just QB, RB, WR, LB or CB. When they start, they have to build trust with their coaches. That means they can only see limited plays to call early on as a QB. The better they play, the more freedom they will have in the game as the playbook expands.
- After their first season, there’s the option for a player to transfer. If Miami didn’t offer enough playing time, they could transfer to a Vanderbilt or another smaller school on the NCAA food chain to get on the field faster. If they excel with the Commodores, they can portal up the food chain to a Top 10 school.
There’s a lot here. The one word to describe it all would be immersive.
There’s so much to uncover here that we probably haven’t gotten to a thimble’s worth of what’s here in the game. That’s for fans of every team. EA Sports has replicated the Georgia football experience across every FBS program.
This is a vast and layered college football simulation that fans will experience again this week.
The wait was far too long, but it will feel good to be back again. It will feel like we’re hanging out with an old friend again we haven’t seen much of since college.
What more could one ask out of a video game than that?
SENTELL’S INTEL
(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
