EA Sports College Football 25 launched to critical and commercial acclaim, quickly becoming one of the best-selling games of 2024. Now that the team at EA has a year under its belt with the rebooted franchise, fans have been eager to see what they’re bringing to College Football 26. A newly leaked image shows off the Deluxe Edition cover for CFB 26 and might confirm that a few fan-favorite features are making a comeback. Most notably, it looks like we might be getting coach likenesses this year.
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The image in question comes courtesy of The Athletic, who posted it on social media. The leaked Deluxe Edition cover shows several modern players, legends of the game, coaches, and mascots. If this image is legitimate, it would stand to reason that EA Sports has done the work to add at least a few real-life coaches to the game this year.
The four coaches on the leaked cover are Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Penn State’s James Franklin, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, and Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin. EA may have only signed a deal with those specific coaches, but it’s reasonable to assume the developer has gone to every team and any coach who signs up will be in CFB 26.
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Another, slightly less likely, potential feature this cover seems to hint toward is Mascot Mode. The developer might just be using the mascots to fill in the stands; however, EA knows fans want Mascot Mode back. With that in mind, the developers probably aren’t putting them on the cover if they don’t play a major role in this year’s feature set.
As far as the players on the cover, this year’s Deluxe Edition appears to include at least a dozen notable current players, along with a few legends. Before diving into the players, it’s worth noting that the image isn’t the best quality, so we might be missing a few players until we get an official image. That said, here are the players we spotted:
- Jeremiah Smith – Ohio State WR
- Ryan Williams – Alabama WR
- Nick Singleton – Penn State RB
- DJ Lagway – Florida QB
- Jeremiyah Love – Notre Dame RB
- Caleb Downs – Ohio State S
- Garrett Nussmeier – LSU QB
- Sam Leavitt – Arizona State QB
- Dylan Stewart – South Carolina Edge
- Tyler Venables – Clemson S
- Bryce Underwood – Michigan QB
- Denard Robison – Michigan Alum QB
- Tim Tebow – Florida Alum QB
- Reggie Bush – USC Alum RB
Thankfully, we should get a better look at EA Sports College Football 26 relatively soon. The next game in the franchise should be released in July, so the developers will need to start talking about it within the next few months.
