Insider Reveals New EA Sports College Football Details

When the Name, Image, and Likeness rules were instituted by the NCAA in 2019, many fans were hoping that would mean the return of developer Electronic Arts’ NCAA Football series. In 2021, the studio announced that it was officially coming back with EA Sports College Football. Since that announcement, we haven’t heard much from the studio outside of a 2022 report, largely because of various lawsuits that put the future of the game in doubt. Fortunately, those lawsuits have all been resolved, and EA Sports College Football looks primed to release its first game next summer. Recently, a college football insider was interviewed and revealed a few key details about EA’s new college football game that will leave fans very excited about what’s on the horizon.

This interview comes from a YouTuber named C-Weyzey. They sat down with Matt Brown who works on Extra Points, a college sports newsletter. Through his connections in the college football world, Brown claims to have heard some intriguing details about EA Sports College Football. Of course, all of this should be taken with a massive grain of salt until EA makes an official announcement. That said, much of this lines up with what fans were expecting, with a few important differences.

EA Sports College Football Available Teams

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In the video above, you’ll note that Brown says that EA expects to have every single Division 1 FCS school in the game, as well as the majority of players. There will, of course, be some holdouts (particularly with players from the service academies because those players can’t get NIL benefits), but EA knows how important licenses are in sports games. The company has essentially built a monopoly in pro football and soccer by vacuuming up licenses, so it’ll try to do the same with EA Sports College Football.

Interestingly, Brown thinks that FBS and Division 2 schools might come in a future update. Obviously, those teams have fans, but they likely won’t be the driving force for why someone buys a college football game. If those teams do come, it’s likely that EA will only get the teams and not go after the players due to how much that would cost.

It’s also worth noting that user-generated content will seemingly be in the game. That’s an important feature for anyone who was hoping for a team builder, which was a very popular edition in the original run of the franchise. We don’t know exactly what you’ll be able to do, but it’s going to be an option.

EA Sports College Football Features

Having player and team likenesses is one thing. Fans want to know how the game will play and what modes will be included. This might be the most exciting part of this update. Brown said the game “has been built from the ground up,” emphasizing several times that it is not just a Madden reskin. The team includes developers who worked on NCAA Football 14 and College Football Revamped, which will make many fans very happy.

Obviously, we can’t know how different the game will be from EA’s flagship football game until we get a gameplay trailer, but this is encouraging to hear for anyone who hasn’t been happy with the state of Madden for the last several years. The team is also working to make recruiting “more realistic” than it was in the NCAA Football franchise. It’s not clear exactly what that means, but it was said that EA brought in current coaches to better understand both recruiting and the returning coaching carousel feature to make it feel more like the real-world frenzy we see play out every season.

EA Sports College Football doesn’t have an announced release date outside of next summer. With that in mind, we may see something announced during the College Football Playoff early next year. Millions of eyes will be on the college football world at that point, so it would make sense for EA to unveil the game then if it’s ready.