Andy & Ari On3 - I played EA Sports College Football 25 | Ask me anything!

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Andy got a chance to play EA Sports College Football 25, which has been a near-constant topic of discussion on the show since the announcement that the beloved video game franchise would return after a 13-year absence. He explains what he learned during a trip last week to EA Sports headquarters in Orlando.(0:00-3:27) Intro(3:28-5:23) Breaking Down EA Sports(5:24-12:50) Differences in Madden and College Football(12:51-18:12) Overall Gameplay(18:13-24:27) Mechanical Changes(24:28-25:37) O-Line Protections(25:38-31:04) Dynasty Mode(31:05-34:49) Road to Glory Mode(34:50-37:44) Wrapping up EA Sports(37:45-39:07) Ask me anything!(39:08-41:21) Crowds in the game?(41:21 -45:28) Equipment(45:29-47:11) Gameplay smooth?(47:12-51:16) Fowler/Herbstreit in the Game(51:17-52:37) Anything not good in the game?(52:38-53:11) Mascots in the game(53:12-54:53) Bands play fight songs?(54:54-57:52) Playbooks?(57:53-1:00:44) Music in the game(1:00:45-1:02:48) Stadium Renovations(1:02:49-1:03:19) Weather Affect Gameplay?(1:03:20-1:04:46) Tennessee - Checker Neyland(1:04:47-1:06:06) Kicking Mechanics(1:06:07-1:06:30) Turn off NIL and Transfer Portal?(1:06:31-1:06:49) Dynamic Crowd?(1:06:50-1:08:43) Coaches in the game(1:08:44-1:09:31) Virginia Tech and Enter Sandman in game?(1:09:32-1:10:03) More Cowbell at Mississippi State(1:10:04-1:11:40) Team Builder Settings(1:11:41-1:12:49) Player Ratings Release?(1:12:50-1:13:24) Crowd Rush the Field?(1:13:25-1:13:49) Neck at LSU?(1:13:50-1:14:50) Realignment Discussion in the Game(1:14:51-1:16:07) Create a head coach(1:16:08-1:17:47) Conclusion - Dear Andy tomorrow!Andy talks gameplay, the college football game versus the Madden NFL franchise, Dynasty mode and Road To Glory mode. The attention to detail is spectacular, and college football nerds will appreciate the care put into recreating the world of each individual program.After Andy explains what he learned from playing the game, he answers your questions about the game.Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube and join us LIVE, M-F at 8 am et!https://youtube.com/live/0M0ZIeNHukYHost: Andy StaplesProducer: River Bailey

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. It's Dear Andy Day. We're kind of doing a Dear Andy. I got to play EA Sports College Football 25 last week. I was down in Orlando at EA Sports. They let us play the game for a few hours on Thursday afternoon. That information was embargoed until Wednesday at 1115 Eastern Time. And that is when we released what we knew. Now, some of you may have seen what I'm about to say already because I basically said, all right, I've got all this in my head. We can now release it. So I'm going to tell you everything I know.

Of course, I realized afterward, it's not everything. There's so much other things. I am looking at some of the questions you've already put in the chat. So many things I didn't get to, but we do want to show you all that because not everybody's seen that. And also our friends who listen in podcast form have not heard any of this yet. So we got to talk about that. But Chris in the chat says, did you accidentally break the embargo rules? It seems like you shared more info than other people who played it and released videos. Not mad at it. No, I think it just comes from me being not particularly polished at YouTubing. We intended to talk for about 10 minutes. I think I went for 33 because there's so much to get in. I wanted to make sure I told you everything I knew about the play now mode, about the dynasty mode,

about the road to glory mode, because everybody wants something different out of this game. And I'm noticing that with the questions in the chat. And Starscreamer Gaming asked, how was the announcing? Did it play to big plays and special moments? Great. And that was a great, that's a great question. And we actually talked to Chris Fowler about that.

And he explained the process of recording his tracks for the game. And so, yeah, there's a lot to discuss with this thing. And yeah, like you're going gonna hear David Pollock again remember David Pollock was on game day he is one on one of the announcers he's on the announce crew with Reese Davis and of course you get Chris and Kirk and Chris who was not allowed to be in the game before his ESPN contract didn't allow it it had to do something with if you were ESPN staff, you couldn't do it. But if you were considered a contractor, you could do it. So Chris couldn't do it before because as he said, ESPN wanted to get into the gaming business back then. And they have now realized that's not really

what they do. They're not going to do that. We all remember ESPN the phone. We remember how that worked out. So he now gets to be in the game and the recording sessions for this thing were pretty, pretty wild, but let us talk about the game, about gameplay, about dynasty mode, about road to glory mode. Any questions you drop them in the chat.

When we're done talking, I will answer. Cannot wait to share this stuff with you. I had it bubbling in my head for almost a week and it damn near killed me because I wanted to tell you guys about it. So now here it is. I played a sports college football 25. This is what I know. It is not often that I get to appear cool to my 14 year old son. Today's one of those days. I got to play the EA sports college football 25 video game. I got to go down to Orlando to EA Sports last week. I got to play this game. Guys, you are in for a treat. It is spectacular.

So let us talk all about this game because I know all of you have different ways you want to play. All of you are excited about different aspects of this game. So I'm going to go over everything I learned and what I learned from about three or four hours playing the game. And we are going to get you ready for the drop in July of EA Sports College Football 25, because we've been waiting a long time for this game. We've been waiting 10 years for this game this game went away it took lawsuits well a lawsuit made it go away then it took more lawsuits to get it back

it took the biggest nil deal in history to get the players in the game the real players are in this game it looks amazing it plays really well It is not a Madden clone. I think a lot of you have asked me about that. A lot of you were worried about that. Is it going to play just like Madden? Is it going to feel just like Madden? There are obvious underlying similarities. They make Madden at the same place.

The engines that power both games are very similar, and they share stuff. But the way they have created this game the way they designed it the gameplay will feel very different and it does because i've played madden and then and i played this one in pretty rapid succession and it it doesn't feel the same so let's talk about what they did and what it looks like. So one of the biggest differences, I think, between the college football game and Madden is the college football game is intended to be a completely immersive experience. You are supposed to feel like you are at the stadium, feel like you're in the tunnel with

the players, feel like you're in the stands watching the game, but also obviously you are playing the game, but also obviously you are playing the game. And the designers are really, I think they understand this because the people who design the college football game, and a lot of these guys, for 10 years, they weren't making the game. So some of them worked for Madden. Some of them went to 2K and made other sports games, but they always loved this one the most. And it was a very much getting the band back together moment so you talk to people like ben howell miller who was a you know a very important part of the old game and is now leading the team with the new game this is a florida state grad

loves his seminoles but loves college football in general. Like he listens to this show in podcast form. He listens to some of your other favorite college football podcasts pretty much every day. Like this is his life. And you talk to him and it just absolutely drips off of him how much this matters. Christian Brand, who's the lead designer in this game, he's a Penn State grad.

He had the Nittany Lion passing out bottles of bubbles at his wedding. So when he says, I got to make the Penn State student section look perfect, that S that you see when you are the opposing quarterback piloting your team toward the student section end zone, like it has to look perfect. They have to play zombie nation after a big Penn State play and they chant, we are in Penn State, back and forth.

That happens in the game. I'll give you one nugget from Christian Brandt before we start talking about gameplay. So there are 134 FBS teams. We can welcome Kennesaw State this year. They figured out exactly how every band gets into formation as the team takes the field 134 bands they are in exactly the the formation they will be in in real life so if you are playing as Tennessee and you were coming out of the tunnel at Neyland Stadium the band will be parted into the tee

so you run through the the vertical piece of the tee until you get to the 90 degree angle. And then you take a hard left turn, go towards your sideline and the horizontal part of the tee. All of that matters. Ralphie runs before Colorado games. Between the first and second quarter, if you play at Iowa, and I did this in the game, this actually happens in the game. They do the wave to the children's hospital. I know some of you don't care about that. You just want to play the game. But I know a lot of you do care about that. You want the details to be perfect. And that's one thing that the designers of the game said over and over again. Every team in this game, all 134, every team is somebody's favorite. Every moment in that stadium matters to them.

If you graduated from Texas, DKR has to look perfect. If you went to Texas A&M, Kyle Field has to look like Kyle Field. They did that. And one thing they did that I thought was really cool that is not something you see in Madden. So when you're playing these games, a lot of times you're not watching replays what's going on between plays you're not really watching but in this game there's a picture

in picture as you're selecting your next play where you see the things that are happening around the game so you'll see the crowd shots like you'd see in a college football game. If the home team has a horrible play that goes terribly wrong, you will see some fan doing a surrender cobra in the stands. If your team gets a turnover, let's say you're playing as Oregon State and you intercept a pass, you will see in that picture-in-picture window as you're selecting your first offensive play for the next drive, you'll see the turnover chainsaw. It's coming. It's in that game. So the immersive experience was really important to them. And it's interesting because you can tell talking to the folks who design the playbooks, they're much more worried about the mechanics of how the read option works but the people who design did the design like they hired stunt people and and crafted a custom-made two-story ramp at the motion capture studio in vancouver to simulate

clemson players coming down the tunnel down the the hill at memorial stadium so you touch the rock you run down the hill and remember there's remember, there's a flat part of the hill that they're always jumping off of. And so they hired stunt people to make that look perfect. It's incredible, the attention to detail. It's one of those things that I think they probably needed the amount of lead time they had. Because remember, they announced this game was coming back about two years ago. and so they needed that lead time to get these details perfect they went to several stadiums if they were close enough to a stadium they went they basically mapped those stadiums out the stadiums they couldn't get to they contacted

the schools 80 schools sent photos in of their stadiums they averaged a thousand photos per school to render these stadiums so they went through 80 000 photos to get these 80 stadiums exactly perfect there's 134 stadiums in the game there no there's no generics 134 home stadiums there are also neutral site stadiums so when you play in the bowl games you're going to play in an actual rendering of that stadium. There's a few they didn't get, like the Florida State Georgia Tech game that's in Dublin. They don't have the rights to the soccer stadium in Dublin. It's actually pretty expensive. Northwestern, and they asked the schools how this is going to work.

So for Northwestern, they should remember Northwestern's not playing at Ryan Field. This year, they're going to modify the soccer stadium on campus and also play two games at Wrigley Field. So they don't have the rights to Wrigley Field. So basically, they said, look, just have us play at Ryan Field. But Vanderbilt, for example, they're in the midst of a big stadium renovation. They said, don't put old Vanderbilt Stadium in the game. Put what it's going to look like when we're done in the game. So they've built that off the models of what that stadium will look like

when it is fully open for business in 2025. All of this stuff matters. All of these details matter. But I know there's a bunch of you that only want to talk about the gameplay. So when we come back, that's what we're talking about. I am wearing my Roebuck performance polo right now. Performance hoodies, polos, joggers, shorts, the most comfortable gear known to man. I love Roebuck.

I'm wearing it constantly. When I flew up here, you know, sometimes it gets a little chilly on the plane. Roebuck hoodie. It's perfect. It's always perfect. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. Use the code Andy for 20% off your first purchase. Roback is, I'm not going to say it's, I think it's my favorite sponsor right now. And I realize you can, every sponsor is your for sponsoring. No, no, no. That dog, it's on me a lot. I got that dog on me. Some people got that dog in me. I got that dog on me. All right, let us get down to the nitty gritty. What does this game play like? What does it feel like when you were playing the college football game?

It is not a Madden clone. I'll tell you that right now. So I have been playing Madden a lot over the last few years. My kid is big into Madden. So every year he gets that game on his birthday. He smokes me at it, but I've obviously been keeping up with that and the gameplay and how the controllers laid out, how it works on a PS5. It does not feel like a Madden when you're playing, and here's why. One thing the designers said, and I think this is an important distinction to make, and it's really an important distinction between actual college football and the NFL. The difference between the best and worst player in a college football game is so much bigger than the difference between the best and worst player in a college football game is so much bigger than the difference between

the best and worst player in an NFL game. And so you notice in Madden, the matchups are usually pretty even. Even when you have a superstar player, that person can't really dominate the person they're playing against. In college football, you absolutely can have domination in a matchup and it will test you like when you're playing against your friends if you are significantly better than your friend you can pick a team that probably has no business playing its real life counterpart that it's playing but you can test your skills that way i noticed that notre dame fans will be very happy charles jagasaw,

the new starting left tackle, they gave him a very, very nice rating and ratings will matter because ratings do determine who wins those individual matchups in the game. Pro football focus helped with the data for those ratings. So how you feel about pro football focus will color how you feel about the ratings, I'm sure. But they tried to be true to the rating when the game is actually being played. Because remember, when you're left tackle, let's say you're controlling the quarterback or the running back, whoever has the ball, the CPU is controlling the left tackle. When that left tackle engages with the defensive end, there's a bunch of decisions that are going on within the game it kind of dice rolls based on traits of the player based on

ratings of the two players that decide who wins that individual matchup and and we'll get to the individual matchups online scrimmage because i think that's important too that's a big difference in the feel of this gameplay but it's it you know, it's still, you're, you're kind of get the, the, the view from the top behind the offense. You're looking at that very similar to the old game, very similar to Madden. The playbooks are much more diverse. They wanted to make sure you can run these odds. So there are air raid playbooks for air raid teams. They're working on the go-go at UNLV. There's a lot of two-back stuff at UNLV. If you want to do that, a lot of two-back stuff at Liberty. I play as both those teams. The option game is a lot of fun with those teams, but they've also changed the throw game a little bit. You have now a power

meter when you're throwing the ball, very similar to when you kick the ball in the old game. And basically how long you hold the button, you'll be able to see how hard you're going to throw the ball. And you kind of need to layer the passing game a little bit, especially as the difficulty level of the game goes up. Or if you're playing a team that is, you know, in terms of rating much better than your team, you need to be able to throw it with some touch to go over the top of the defense. Or if you have a guy who's wide open, you need to be able to laser beam it in there. Now, instead of just saying, I'm gonna press this button hard to throw the laser beam,

you can see exactly how hard you're gonna throw it because that meter's there for you. And obviously the meter changes based on your quarterback's attributes, also based on where you play. Home field advantage is much different in this game than it is in Madden. Madden, it's kind of negligible. In this game, it is in Madden. Madden is kind of negligible.

In this game, it is a massive, massive difference, which you know if you played the old game. They brought that back. And look, when you look at your route tree, when you look at the routes that your receivers are supposed to run, when you are in a hostile environment, like if you're playing at Penn State, if you're playing at the Swamp,

and you're the visiting offense when you check to see what those matchups look like your route lines are going to be all swiggly and in fact some of the times you're going to have a question mark over over different guys where it's not even going to tell you what button that person is now if you have a good memory you'll know what button that person's supposed to be but you get in the heat of the moment you might forget and that's the point they want you to feel the pressure that an opposing quarterback would feel when they are playing in those stadiums they want you to be distracted but also even when you call audibles in those stadiums there are going to be times when certain of your players don't hear it and run the wrong play like they do in real life so you need to be ready for that a couple mechanical changes in the game one that i love and i think some of you are going to

hate this and i think some of you are going to love this but i i like it because i think it is more true to the real life version of this. They've changed the read option. So when you run a read option in the old game, the default would have been the quarterback keeps it. And if you want to hand off to the running back, you have to kind of press X very quick. So you press X to snap and then very quickly would press X to hand off. That's not how it works now. Now the default is a handoff and you press X if you want to pull it and keep as the quarterback, which is more realistic in real life because in real life, the quarterback keep is the less likely option to happen. But if that defensive end crashes on the back, of course you keep it as the quarterback. It'll actually allow you to read the unblocked defender better.

I feel like you have a little more time to read that defender and decide, okay, I'm going to hit X, I'm going to pull and keep. And that's what, when I was playing as UNLV, when I was playing as Liberty, I ran a lot of option and I felt like I had more control over that. They've also changed the pitch on the option where based on the depth of your button press, you can pitch softer, pitch harder, and obviously the harder you pitch it, the more chances of maybe something bad happening, but also if you've got a defender kind of streaking through there, you might be able to

get it past him to the pitch, man. So the option is a lot of fun. The running game, I feel like is a lot easier than in the old game, not necessarily easier, but just more realistic. And you can actually have, instead of running into the line of scrimmage, gaining a yard or two, or breaking a massive run. Like there are those mid-level runs. Like you can have five and six yard carries pretty regularly. So if you play as an offense that is a run heavy offense, you can play a realistic game with that offense. And it actually, because I feel like in the old game and in Madden,

we all love to throw the ball. A lot of us will just default to throwing the ball. But a lot of the times I felt like it was because the run game was not that realistic. This run game feels a lot more realistic where I feel like I can gain six yards on first down. That is going to cause me to think more about running the ball so I can get in good down and distance situations. And this game punishes you if you get in bad down and distance situations, just like in real life. I felt like in the older games, you could kind of just bail yourself out.

Even in third and long, you could always dial up something that's deep down the field and you'd be able to get out of it. This game will punish you, especially if you're on the road, if you get in a bad down and distance. So you can run and to get out of it. This game will punish you, especially if you're on the road, if you get in a bad down and distance. So you can run and stay ahead of the chain. So here's why running in the new game, I think from talking to the folks who made it, feels different.

For years and years, in the college football game and in Madden, the way they handled blocking and the way they handled how the D-line interacts with the offensive line and the D-line interacts with the offensive line and the linebackers interact with the offensive line was that they did it in kind of blocks. So if you ever played actual football, remember at practice you do half-line drills. So you'd have, say, a guard tackle and a tight end working against a defensive end and a couple of linebackers.

Or you'd have a center guard tackle working against a defensive tackle a defensive end and a linebacker that's kind of how the blocking schemes worked in the old game just because computing power also because you know it the the platforms didn't allow for you to do anything as advanced as what they do now. Like PlayStation 5, the newest Xbox, you have more computing power now. You can do more things. They can handle more calculations in real time. So before, you'd have like three linemen

kind of grouped together, and they'd be grouped with three defenders, and they kind of all move as one, and the variables would affect the whole block of players like that whole block of six players now it's much more individual matchups where that defensive end and that offensive tackle will be matched up the decision engine will be making decisions for that matchup then it will be making decisions for that matchup. Then it will be making decisions for the guard versus the linebacker. And I think that makes for a much

more realistic running game. When you have the ball as the back, or let's say you've kept as the quarterback, you can see individual blocks set up and it makes it much easier to figure out, okay, I've got a cut here. I need to juke here. I need to try to spin here. It really makes that easier. And I will say, the tackling in this game requires a lot more effort from the player than the old game did.

The old game, you could kind of rely on the CPU to get the guy down. You need to get to your guy, and you need to tackle him and make sure you lay a good hit on him or you're probably going to get a back who you know glances off a cpu tackler and gains some more yards like you they've made it where the gamer really needs to be involved in the tackle and i think that's a difference that it's probably something that they've wanted to do for a long time. And this is another thing that they've worked on that I think really does add more realism to the game. Because it's easier to break a tackle.

And also, the type of tackle that you choose will depend on situation where you are in the field you can you can hit stick somebody out of bounds if you wanted to hit stick somebody in the in the middle of the field there's a really good chance that you are going to have that tackle get broken or you miss that tackle and all of a sudden they're off to the races so it's it's more in depth in terms of what you've got to do as a tackler speaking of more in depth you o-line nerds are going to love this one you can change protections at the line of scrimmage now so you you bring up the the audible menu and you'll have your play like you can you can if you want to go to y stick you can hit the triangle button uh if you want to run inside zone you can hit the square button and obviously you

can set set your audibles to be what you want you can change protections now where you can you can slide you can do a full slide you can do a half slide you can you know if you see somebody that you think is is coming if you think they're sitting in the house, you can max protect. Now, you may make a mistake. You may slide the wrong direction and get your quarterback sacked. But if you think that they're bringing pressure from one side, you slide to that side, and you know the hot receivers over there, you're probably going to score a touchdown. So it is something that if you've actually played football, that's a piece that was missing from this game.

It's no longer missing. All right, we've talked about the actual play now gameplay, but I know there's others of you that are more interested in other modes. So let's talk about dynasty mode. Dynasty mode is the one where you are the coach, you get to build the program, and this is the one that incorporates

most of the changes in college football. Now, are you meeting with players about their NIL deals or do you have guys hitting you up for bigger NIL deal? No, not yet. And it was interesting the way they talked. It's not because it was some sort of taboo thing remember the ncaa name is not even on this game anymore so that's not the reason for it ben howell miller said it best when he was giving his presentation he said he said

it changes so often it may have actually changed while i was talking to you and in fact, it didn't change while he was talking to us last week. The font versus the NCAA case in Colorado. Everybody thought it was going to get moved to the Northern District, California and settled with the house case and the judge decided to keep it in Colorado. So that thing goes forward that happened while Ben was talking to us. So yes, all of those things do change in real time. And their thought was, okay, we've got a game that's got to last a year here.

So let us incorporate brand building. And that's really what stands in for NIL from the coach perspective. There's the road to glory mode, which where you're the actual player. There's a lot more thought to your NIL deals and that sort of thing. You're thinking about that differently. The coach, you do have to think about that from a team perspective. Like, do you have, you know, the brand, which I think kind of stands in for, do you have the NIL war chest to get the kind of players you want?

The transfer portal is where you're really going to have to work in the off season and decide what you want to do. And it mimics the real life decision that coaches have to make about how much do I devote resources to recruiting high school players? How much do I devote resources to getting guys out of the transfer portal? Some of the screen grabs they were showing us in the presentation,

like you have guys that go in and this is one where it gets a little bit weird because you have real players in the game. So for those first couple of years of the dynasty mode, you're going to be seeing players who are actually playing college football right now. And then of course they get filled in future by guys who haven't come yet. Who knows? Maybe we'll get the elite series to get to strike a deal with

the A going forward so that we can have actual five stars from the next class in the game going forward. But it like drew our showed up in the transfer portal after the season, one of the screen drafts we saw. And of course, Penn State fans know that's probably not going to happen in real life, but it is the sort of that in in the world of the game and then look nope i think after the last day of the season the idea that kyle mccord from ohio state would hop into the transfer portal that following monday seemed a little crazy but that's exactly what happened so you've got to think about that you might lose your starting quarterback to the transfer portal or you might be able to get an upgrade out of the transfer portal. And you have to decide what resources you're going to devote to that. You have to decide how you're going to manage your career.

Do you want to hire or fire coordinators? Do you want to stay at your school? Do you want to accept a job offer at a new school? And that's another thing that I thought was interesting talking to the folks who make the game. Because Ben Bennett asked me a question when we were talking about what did I think was going to happen going forward now that the Big Ten and the SEC have kind of separated into the power too he said do you think rather than group of five coaches kind of moving up or down through different group of five head coaching jobs, would they rather be an SEC or Big Ten coordinator? Does that make them closer to an SEC or Big Ten head coaching job? And I said, I think more than likely, you'll see good group of five head coaches take those coordinator jobs now instead of, say, a better group of five head coaching job those coordinator jobs now instead of say a better group of five head coaching job because it does put them closer to those jobs so that probably gets worked into

the decision engine and not necessarily maybe for the coach that you are playing but in terms of the other jobs that open like i i'm probably gonna do dynasty mode as louisiana monroe i said i said when general booty entered the transfer portal wherever he wound up that gonna do dynasty mode as louisiana monroe i said i said when general booty entered the transfer portal wherever he wound up that's my dynasty mode team so general general booty's going to louisiana monroe so that's the one i think i'm going to try in dynasty mode first if i'm successful there the path for me you think, would be take another group of five job and then eventually take an SEC or a Big 12 job. But maybe not. We'll see. Or the jobs that open.

That better group of five job, I may decide to take that and it may have opened because the head coach became the defensive coordinator at Ole Miss. That's how this is going to work now. The decisions are going to kind of mimic real life, and that's where they've worked really hard. That's where they listen to all these podcasts, trying to make sure they know how the sport works and give you the most accurate experience. But I'm very excited about Dynasty Mode.

I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I think you're going to feel a lot of the same pressures that your favorite team's actual coaches feel. Let's talk about road to glory mode. This is the one that you're the player and you get to make decisions based on that player. So you go through that player's college career and you basically take him through his career. It could be three years, it could be five years. And at the end, you know, hopefully you're off to the NFL draft. But the decisions you have to make, mimic the decisions that we're at the Elite Series here for on three right now. So we've got five-star recruits that are learning about

what life is going to be like as college football stars. The decisions they're going to have to make, same decisions you're going to have to make in Road to Glory. And you're going to have to make, same decisions you're going to have to make in Road to Glory. You're going to have to decide how you spend your time in the offseason. It's not just, do I party? Do I work out? It's, do I work out? Do I party? Do I try to build my brand to get better NIL deals? Do I study the playbook? Do I study my actual books? Because, yes, you can be academically ineligible in this game and if you get academically ineligible you're screwed so you have to be very careful

like there is a mode like it'll tell you you've got a test coming up in two weeks in this class you are clueless about this subject it doesn't mean you're you're an idiot you're gonna fail no matter what it means until you study you're clueless and you have to decide to study for this test well does that mean you don't devote as much time to your brand building which may cost you in IL deals in the long run so yeah these are the real decisions that have to be made if you were a college football star. So that part of the game is going to be a lot of fun. And it doesn't that the thing about this game is it's very interesting because there are some of you who are going to want to just play as every team to see every

stadium, to see all the traditions they put in the game. They said there's a ton of Easter eggs, but basically if there's a, if there are a group, you know, chance that your, your team's crowd does like they're in there. a, if there are a group, you know, chance that your, your team's crowd does like they're in there. I mentioned that we are Penn state, the go Gators. That's in there. The, the war chant is in there. Like when, when you were playing game at Doe Campbell stadium, that game starts with the war chant, with the whole crowd doing the chop, with Osceola on Renegade planning the flaming spear in the field. That's all there. I know a lot of you are good.

You just don't want to go from stadium to stadium to see that. And the way this game is set up, that's going to take you a long time because you're just going to be fascinated by all of the little details that they put in the game. If you're just the – like we talked to Travis Travis Hunter Travis Hunter's on the cover of this game Colorado cornerback slash receiver and I asked him what'd you think of the Ralphie run and he's like I just smashed the X button to get to the game for you it's going to be about being able to slide your protection it's going to be about being able to slide your protection. It's going to be about being able to see those individual blocks setting up.

You're going to be more excited about that. You Dynasty Mode folks, I know there's a bunch of you out there. I know the folks who watch my show, that's what they're excited about. You want to be the coach. I am fascinated to see what recruiting feels like, what the transfer portal versus the high school part feels like, because that's been one of the most interesting things to follow as someone who covers the actual sport and now you

get to make those decisions and i think it'll help you kind of understand where your team's at because you'll have had to make some of those decisions yourself and then of course road to glory where you get to be that person because there's a lot of people who always wanted to be the big college football star. Unfortunately, some of us too small, too slow. Now you can be that person. It's a lot of fun. The game drops in July.

July 19th is the official release date. You can play three days early if you get the deluxe edition or if you get the one that's bundled with Madden. There's a lot to unpack in this game. There's a lot more to talk about. Obviously, EA Sports is going to be releasing more between now and when the game drops, but I hope this has helped you get a little bit early intel, a little bit of early info that helps you decide how you're going to play, what you want to do. I'm more excited about it after getting to see it. I know what you're saying. EA Sports didn't pay you for this ad.

Why are you doing essentially a 20-minute advertisement for EA Sports? Because this game is something that all of us who love college football have been waiting for. Having met the people who make the game, they love it as much as we love it. It shows in the game. They made a masterpiece here. So that's why. If it sucked, I'd tell you it sucked. It does not suck.

This game is spectacular. I can't wait for you all to play it. Join me on the show on Thursday. We'll be talking more about the game. I'll be taking questions live about the game in the chat. This is going to be a lot of fun as we all get to discover this thing together. Because I'm telling you right now, listen,

I got a 14-year-old kid who is dying to play this game. I'm dying to have it in a console at my house. I've been waiting 10 years for this. Me, I've been waiting longer because life got in the way for me. I was a huge fan of the game going back to Bill Walsh college football for my Sega Genesis. And then when, when NCAA football came out on the PlayStation, I played it in college. I played it after college. And then when we had kids, 2009, I just didn't have time to play anymore.

So I missed basically the last four years of the game. And so it's been longer for me to not really have a chance to play this game. And now I get to share it with my own son. Come on. Doesn't get any better than that so if you're new we do a show about college football every day here at the on3 sports youtube channel so subscribe to this channel we love this game as much as you do. Every day. 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. Eastern Time. We're talking college football.

We'll obviously be talking about the game quite a bit as the summer goes on. When we get our hands on a copy of it in July. We'll be talking about it a ton. But I cannot wait for you guys to see this. We'll talk to you again soon. And soon is right now. And you have so many good questions in the chat and I am going to start answering them because they are fantastic. And you know, you've kind of jogged my memory on a couple of things because you learn so much that day down there, they're giving you all this information and then you get to play the game.

And there's, there's kind of stuff you've forgotten like when i was getting they gave us about three hours four hours to play the game but at the same time we're also interviewing people like i got to meet the guy anthony who does the playbooks it's like nerding out is is not even does not even begin to describe it but i'm going to start answering some of these questions as best i can based on what i got to do play in the game which we we got to play and play now in mode so a lot of the dynasty mode questions a lot of the road to glory questions i can maybe answer from what they told us in the presentation because they gave us a lot of nuggets in the presentation about what those are going to be like i didn't get to play them they were just letting us do the play now mode, but it was,

the game was mostly there. I think there were still some players that needed to be loaded in still some, some plays that needed to be loaded in, but pretty much everything was there. That's going to going to ship in July. I say ship with it that you can download in July. All right. You know, all the vibes. And by the way, you know, all the vibes, uh, Ben,

Hal Miller who helps create this game, Florida State grad, told me that the slack for the people who make Dynasty Mode lit up when the Noles got left out of the college football playoff. Because remember, the committee will factor in to Dynasty Mode and how they decide who gets in how they decide who's left out now it's not a four team it's a 12 team playoff and in fact you will have gotten to play the 12 team playoff before it actually happens in dynasty mode but yeah it's that he he had a few choice words

for the committee but you asked how loud do the crowds actually get? And is it truly impactful? The crowd is very loud. Now, how loud it is really depends on your audio setup, your TV, your speakers. Are you playing with headphones? I mean, a lot of guys are playing with headphones. If you are playing with headphones, you will get kind of a truly immersive sound. It is more what is happening and what you feel in the controller. The controller is shaking. When you try to look at your matchups, know we all we all like to look at that screen beforehand where we see the routes

that they're running and we see you know how they look against that particular defense it's it's pretty significant like if you didn't if it's not a play you're very familiar with if you weren't paying attention when you chose your play which receiver is going to be which button if you're very familiar with, if you weren't paying attention when you chose your play, which receiver is going to be which button. If you're on the road, there may be a question mark over the receiver that you like, that you want to throw to. And you're going to have to remember what button that is. So it's a little tricky. And they wanted that to be a big deal. They wanted home field advantage to be a massive deal. So in the time I was playing, I tried to play at as many really kind of home field advantage type stadiums as I could. Uh, I played at Penn state. I played at the swamp. I played at Iowa. I played at Clemson

and yeah, the, the crowd really gets into it. And it is significant. It is difficult to operate your offense. Audibles are tough. And you'll see they have animations of the quarterback trying to say stuff. And you'll see an offensive lineman look back and be like, huh? It's pretty impressive. Joseph says, how's the equipment look? They've done a good job scanning all this stuff in.

They actually showed us how they do it. And it's pretty incredible. So they have this device at the EA studios in Orlando that it shoots a bunch of lasers, essentially. It's a sphere that has what looks like all these mirrors over it. And it actually has, it can shoot these lasers at different things and so you you grip it it has like a pistol grip inside the sphere you grip it there's a trigger when you press the trigger it will start mapping whatever object you're pointing

it at and if you've ever done you ever done invisign, they do this with your teeth now, a much more rudimentary version of it, where they'll map your teeth rather than do all the x-rays. So this device they have comes from the aerospace industry. And I believe it helps them fabricate different parts within planes and missiles and all of that stuff. We asked them how much it costs. They would not tell us, but We asked them how much it costs. They would not tell us, but it is significant how much it costs. So what they showed, the example they had for us, you're in this room and there's a monitor that shows whatever you're mapping. And they had a foot, like a mannequin, lower leg and foot, and they had a football cleat on the foot.

And so they take this device, they pull the trigger and they move it around the shoe. And on the screen comes a perfectly rendered version of that shoe. Every little contour in the material is visible on the screen. And then you can rotate it 360 degrees. You can turn it whatever direction you want. And it's that shoe. It just appeared on the screen in seconds. And so that's what they did with all of the uniforms. And so if you wear Nike jerseys and your, your jerseys are perforated in a certain way, they're going to be perforated that way in the game. And there's a lot more uniform combinations, obviously in the college football game than in Madden, because they don't even have like what one of the designers said, like, what is Oklahoma state's

home uniform? They don't wear the same combo twice. So you can be very customizable in Oregon, Oklahoma State, TCU, those teams that do mix it up quite a bit. And then of course, Auburn, Alabama, Penn State, they're not going to let you be so customizable because those schools don't do that. Josh, Josh Bissett. So how many microtransactions did you have to pay to play? None, none. They did invite a bunch of us down.

And, but yeah, trust me, there've been a lot of jokes about how, okay, well, how are they going to soak us for the DLC in this game? I do think they'll probably figure out some ways to get some more money out of us. Look, they're running a business.

I get it. But no, they invited a bunch of us down. I thought it was going to be initially people who do what I do. A lot of people. And there were, you know, Matt Brown, who runs the Extra Points newsletter, who has been reporting on this game using Freedom of Information Act requests. He was there. Robbie Callen from Uproxx was there. Bud Elliott from 24-7 was there. And so Chris Vanini from The Athletic. But we were kind of the only ones who do what we do. Then there were a lot of, there were some pro Madden players who were there and there were YouTubers who specifically target gamers that, and they are, those guys, it's amazing. Their whole setup is incredible.

And then some of these then some of these gamers, I was looking at the names of some of the people when we walked in and they had them all lined up. And I'm like, okay, I'm not playing a video game with somebody called Yo Boy Pizza. He's beating me 150 to nothing. There's no shot. So it was very fun.

It was interesting seeing their world versus our world. And this game is, is a big, big deal in their world too. Justice says, is gameplay smooth? Are you some feel some things you feel like they can do better before release? The gameplay is very smooth. Now when I played as wake forest, cause I wanted to see the walking mesh. I wanted to see the slow mesh from wake forest. Cause they say it's going to be in the game. I talked to some of the folks who designed the playbooks. They said that part's not in there yet, and they're still working on some of the timing on read option mesh in general. So I do want to see maybe a little bit more time before I have to make the poll decision

as the quarterback to read that unblocked defender. I don't know if they're going to be able to accurately portray that Wake Forest mesh in this version of the game. It seems like that's a little bit more difficult to pull off with what they have, but if they can do it, God bless them. And if they can't, well, I know they're going to make sure they get it in next year, but they're going to try to do it, God bless them. And if they can't, well, I know they're going to make sure they get it in next year. But they're going to try to do it this year. And that part I'm very excited about. So, yeah, day one, I'm probably going to do some Wake Forest gaming

because I really want to see if I can do that walking mesh. Because, yeah, it was crazy. I didn't even think about it when I played as Wake Forest. I played Wake Forest at Boise State just because I wanted to see the blue turf. I didn't even think about it when I played as Wake Forest. I played Wake Forest at Boise State just because I wanted to see the blue turf. I was Wake Forest. And as soon as my offense takes the field, I realized, oh my God, I just brought Hank Bachmeier back to Boise State. Can you imagine the crowd reaction to Hank Bachmeier at Boise State? Dominic, is there a create a team setting? Yes. Team builder will allow you to create a team from scratch.

You can upload it into Play Now or upload it into Dynasty Mode. So that is an option, and it'll be fun. Matthew, was the energy of the commentary with Fowler and Herbstreet like it would be in a real-life college football game? Yes, and they had a lot. And Fowler told us about the recording process because this is something I didn't think about before hearing him explain how all of this works. Yeah, remember, you're not just calling a touchdown.

Like, yes, 134 teams. He did say, touchdown, Kennesaw State. Touchdown, Duke. He did all that. But a touchdown to win the game, second and 26, Chris Fowler had to call this, second and 26 in the national championship game in overtime. That's a very different touchdown call than a touchdown call that puts the team up 38-7 in the third quarter. And he has to call both of those. So they try to get him in and say, okay, here is the situation of

the game. This is the, it's tight. This touchdown puts a team ahead in the fourth quarter. This touchdown helps a team get within one possession. So now they've got an onsite kick it. And so that helps him level up the intensity, figure out where he needs to be voice-wise. Also, what I thought was interesting, he explained those touchdown calls. Cause you got to really get in touchdown. And you know how Chris does it. Touchdown. He said there were a lot of, you know, kind of third and two calls that they would do in between those touchdown calls. Cause if you had to do just 80 touchdown calls in a row, your voice wouldn't make it through half of that.

And I just never thought about it that way. But in those recording sessions that they're, and then what they do is they have, they have a list, essentially a master list of all of the phrases that they need to piece together to make. And sometimes each individual comment from the announcer is maybe two or three phrases pieced together. Well, they have a master list of all those. And when they were doing the recording sessions, they'd have somebody who's got a checklist. Who's just saying, okay, that one's good. That one's good. Need you a little more intense on that one. Need you a little more intense on that one. Need you a little less intense on that one.

Boom, boom, boom. And yeah, it's, it's pretty crazy. So that part was pretty awesome to see. And, and Chris was very excited to be in this game because like he said, like I was talking about earlier in the show, he couldn't be in it before. Kirk could, but Chris couldn't just because of the way their contracts work with ESPN. So he is very, very excited. Joseph says, Dynasty, got to do Wake or UNC, maybe Charlotte, Sunbelt team.

Listen, I'm going Louisiana Monroe with my first Dynasty team. Because General Booty, that's the school he picked. So I decided that is going to be my team. I very much enjoyed playing as UNLV. I took UNLV to Clemson because I wanted to play in the go-go offense. Now look, did my offense just dominate Clemson's defense in the time I played it? Not exactly, but it was a lot of fun like if you're if you're playing as UNLV if you're playing as Liberty those those two offenses that that use a lot

of option principles like go find the two back personnel groupings run run a lot of those plays have some fun with that because that's what they do a lot of a lot of in real life, and it is pretty spectacular. But I'm excited to see Bryant Vincent's offense, but with me as the coach and General Booty running the show. And we'll see if we can. Can we take Louisiana Monroe to the national title? Am I going to have to leave for a better job? Who knows? Who knows? Christopher Jordan going to be Auburn in the dynasty mode. That's a solid choice. You get to watch that War Eagle flight, which is pretty cool. Anthony, what are the lowlights?

What's not good about the game? I don't know that there's anything that I didn't really like. I mean, you know, they fixed a couple of things I didn't like. I didn't like the option decision. I didn't like having to press X when you wanted to hand off. RPOs, I still think, are a little tough. If you want to throw on an RPO, you have to make that decision very quickly. You have to hit the button quick to, to keep and then throw. And so it's a little bit confusing at first,

but I feel like with some practice, you can get pretty good at it, but you know, you've got to remember it's, it's very similar to real life. Like, you know, I think a lot of people think, Oh, I'm going to run these RPOs with these guys streaking down the field. But in real life, most RPOs, there's a bubble screen. And that's the throw you're going to make. The Oklahoma fans love to boo Jeff Levy before he left for Mississippi State about the bubbles. So that's real life. They're trying to make the game realistic. But I do think that button press combination feels a little clunky and I'm hoping they can get that

straightened out in, in future versions of the game. All right, let's see. We got, we got Luke. Do we know if all the mascots are in the game as well as every live? I believe they are all in the game. I've seen Bevo. I've seen Ugga. I've seen renderings of Reveille. I believe all of them are in the game. And then like if you're Colorado, I did play a game at Colorado at Folsom Field so I could see the Ralphie run. And it's very cool.

But Chip, which is the costume mascot is also in there. So yeah, I believe all of them are in there. Sanders, good questions. Do the bands play more than just fight songs? Yes, they play a lot of the same songs they play during the games. Now it's not, it's not all of the songs that you'd want. I saw somebody in the chat a few minutes ago mentioned they've got Zombie Nation for Penn State. A lot of schools use Zombie Nation by Kern Craft 400. I guess it's Kern Craft 400 and the group is Zombie Nation. But a lot of schools use that song, so they license that song.

Song licensing can get expensive like florida plays i won't back down between the third and fourth quarters after they play we are the boys of old florida now we are the boys of old florida old song public domain no problem i won't back down very much copyrighted they're the only one that uses it so that's kind of hard to to justify the one i thought they should have licensed probably they and i asked they didn't license this one is seven nation army because it's and it's interesting because there's a there's a difference here too like most schools don't play seven nation army there's a lot of schools, especially in the Midwest, where the student section just starts chanting it.

Oh, oh, oh, oh. And apparently that's a different license than if you just play the song. But I think that would have been a good one because there are so many different schools where the student section does that. Mr. Brightside at Michigan, I thought would have been a great addition, but that's another one where that's one school that does that. Brian, can you get into the playbooks? Can you create plays? You can customize the playbooks.

It's going to be very diverse. I think there's basically 10 base playbooks based on very common offenses, and they're adding more stuff. What they want to add, and I think this will be great, and this is something that you can do a lot easier now than you could when the game was there before. They're not quite there yet, but they're hoping by the season that they'll be able to do this, that if you see a really cool play on Saturday, that maybe by Tuesday or Wednesday,

that team runs that play in the game. And I hope that's, I hope that comes to pass because that's going to be awesome. Cause again, these guys are as nerdy as we are about all this stuff. And so they're watching the games too. And if they see something cool, they're going to try to copy it. And if they can fly it into the game and you're playing it as that team,

three, four days later, that's going to be pretty awesome. V1 Rotate V2, spring games in dining.. V1 rotate V2 spring games. And I don't believe there are spring games. I'm trying to go back through what they told us about dynasty mode. The, the, the off season and dynasty mode, a lot of it is spent devoted to roster management, which is very similar to what the real coaches are doing right now. As you decide, do I take more people out of the portal?

Do I focus more on high school recruiting? All of the things that we talk about with Deion Sanders or with Dabo Sweeney and the decisions that get made that we criticize, that is the more primary focus of the off season in dynasty mode. Arman 1995. Do y'all realize we went a whole generation console without a college basketball or football game and PS4, Xbox one. That's crazy.

It is crazy. It's wild. If you think about it, think about how much money EA sports left on the table because they, they couldn't make this game. So they got sued in the Ed O'Bannon case. They settled it in 2014. They did back pay to those people. They said, we're happy to make this game, but we're not going to make it with players who are like, QB2 is Johnny. You know,

it's Johnny Manziel. We know it's Johnny Manziel, but we can't make him Johnny Manziel. They said, we're not going to do that. But we'll pay the players. And the NCAA is like, no, can't do that. Against the rules. So basically, they just blocked it for all those years. And then when the NIL rules changed, when the state laws came in that basically forced the NCAA to allow NIL, that's what brought the game back. Cahan, is Dixieland a light in the game when you play it, Brian?

That's another one. They only play it really at one place unless Tennessee is trying to troll them after they beat them. So they did not. The song licensing piece of it will be interesting going forward because talking to the folks who make the game, it's a pretty significant expense. And I mentioned that earlier where they have to license the stadiums as well. So that's why you're not going to see Northwestern playing games at Wrigley, which they are actually doing in real life. But Wrigley Field, they don't have the license for the stadium in Dublin or Florida State's going to play Georgia Tech.

They don't have a license for that. They do have a license for most of the stadium or all of the stadiums that the bowl games are going to be in. So you like you play the Cotton Bowl at Jerry World. You play at Hard Rock Stadium. I almost called it Pro Player. I almost called it Joe Robbie Stadium. You play at Hard Rock Stadium if you're playing in the Orange Bowl. Mercedes-Benz if you're playing in the Peach Bowl. So they do have some neutral site stadiums. If you play the Florida-Georgia game, then you're going to be playing in Jacksonville. It's a lot of fun. SwampMD,

did you play as the Gators? I did. I did. I wanted to see how crazy that Swamp crowd could get, but I did actually control the Gators in that one. I think they're a little high on Graham Mertz. I think they like Graham Mertz, which is crazy because Ben, the guy I mentioned earlier, he's a Seminole. But it sounds like they, or seemed like as I was playing as them, that they made Graham Mertz all right. They made Montrell Johnson very good. I think if you play as Florida, you probably, you may try to have a little bit of a ground-based attack. I tried to get the ball to Eugene Wilson III to see exactly what he could do. But it was one of those things where it was hard to get deep into a lot of games because I wanted to see so many teams. I wanted to see so many different things.

I had to play a game at Iowa so I could see the Iowa Wave. So I had to get through one quarter at Iowa to see what the wave looked like. And it was, it was awesome. Like it, I remember seeing it in the trailer and going, I can't, they did it. They put that in the game. They put that in the game. They put everything in the game. And, and that's, that's really what they did. I mean, it feels like they've immersed you in the experience. If you've been to the games at these places, it feels like they've immersed you in the experience. If you've been to games at these places, it feels like being there. You know, I've been to a lot of games at the Swamp. I've been to games at Clemson.

I've been to games at Penn State. It really does feel like you're there, which I just didn't think that was possible. But with the technology they've got and the care they took, Gator J says, are there stadium renovations and upgrades? It depends on the stadium. If the stadium is new, I mentioned this earlier, like Vanderbilt, their stadium's under construction right now. It's going to look very different in 2025 than it looks this year, than it looked last year, and then it looked in the past. And they basically asked Vanderbilt, which version do you want us to put in? Do you want us to put your old stadium in? Do you want us to have cranes up? Do you want us to put what you are building

in there? They said, go with what we're building. Here's the renderings, use those and create that stadium. They asked Northwestern the same thing, because remember, Northwestern is renovating Ryan Field and they're using their soccer stadium for some games this year where they're going to retrofit it, add more seats, and then they'll play some of the bigger games at Wrigley Field. They said, put the old Ryan Field in the game and then when the new Ryan Field's ready, put that in the game. So it really depended on the school, but they,

they went like, for example, Florida field Gainesville is two hours from Orlando. So the EA crew went up there, mapped it out. I believe they did the same with dope Campbell stadium in Tallahassee. Cause that's a, it's a four hour drive for them.

The ones they couldn't get to very easily. They went to the school and said, Hey, can you send us photos of your stadium? And I don't mean like a couple shots. They wanted to see everything, how every little nook and cranny looks. So for 80 different stadiums, they got 80,000 pictures. And so they were recreating and like Clemson did a really cool thing where they they had people numbering every location and then they sent a map to say okay here's where this is in the stadium and so they could use the note the corresponding numbers to essentially recreate it and, a lot of care went into doing this.

Kevin, how does the different kind of weather look and affect the gameplay? It looks cool. The rain looks awesome. Snow looks really good. I didn't feel like it affected the game. I would like to see the rain affect the gameplay probably a little more. But I don't know. Some people a little more but i don't i it's that's what some people like that some people don't some people kind of want the game to just be the game and not have as many external factors

but that's one of those it's sort of like what's your flavor of choice oh abram mcmahon with a great question. This is one I can't believe I forgot to mention yesterday. Hey, Andy, is checkered in the game? And how good did it look running through the tee and hearing Rocky Top? Okay, you definitely hear Rocky Top. You definitely run through the tee. Checkered Nealon is in the game. Now, I did not see it because it is dependent on the situation,

how special the game is, where it falls in the season. So like Penn State, the whiteout is going to be a really good Big Ten opponent in probably October, maybe early November at night. So I didn't see the whiteout, but it's there. If your school does strike the stadium, like Iowa has done strike the stadium, they'll do strike the stadium. Obviously, the coolest one of these, though, is checker kneeling, where you know how the end zones look at Tennessee.

They've got the checkerboard pattern. You've seen this. They've done it a few times where they tell, you know, if you're sitting in these seats, wear orange. If you're sitting in these seats, wear white. And it looks like a checkerboard. The blimp shot of the stadium looks like a checkerboard. I have not seen it yet, Abram.

I'm so excited about that one. That's one I feel like I got to play a whole season of Tennessee just to make sure I see that. Kai asks, what's the I feel like I got to play a whole season of Tennessee just to make sure I see that. Kai asks, what's the kicking mechanic like? They've changed it this year. So, you know, before it was the if you were playing Madden recently, you'd have the you know, it goes up to get your power comes back down to get your accuracy. Now you've got this arrow that's going, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. And, and, and you've got to like, depending on the situation, like if it's a game winning field goal, or you're on the road in a hostile environment

that they may go or maybe going and, and then you hold for your power meter. So you've got to, you've got to get it where it's going straight. And then the power meter, you want to get it to the, into that sweet spot. Cause you don't want to overdo it or underdo it. But yeah, it's, it's very situation dependent how fast that thing is moving. And yeah, if you are on the road, I didn't again, because I was trying to play as so many teams, I didn't get into a fourth quarter situation where it came down to a game winning kick. But I can imagine what that thing looks like if you were trying to make a game winning kick at, say, LSU. Like it's going to be going.

It will be challenging to say the least. James, can you turn off NIL in the transfer portal? No, that's part of the game. Now you, you cannot turn it off. You you've got to, you've got to deal with it. And so if you're in dynasty mode and you're a coach, you absolutely have to deal with Transfer Portal, NIL. That's part of the game these days. JP Latter-day Saint, will there be dynamic crowd sizes? I assume so, but haven't heard. That's a great question. I did not ask that.

I apologize for not asking that. Because yes, I think depending on game situation, there are certain schools that just sell out every game. But it probably should do that. Stanley is Dion Sanders in the game. This is a great question too. So none of the coaches are in the game, not because they don't want to be. I think right now the EA sports folks are afraid of the coaches agents. Like they're afraid of Jimmy Sexton and trace Armstrong and, and, and Clint Dowdle. And they probably don't need to be because like I've asked Lane Kiffin about this. Lane Kiffin told me he would be in the game for free. He understands the marketing value of being in the game. Now the question is what Jimmy Sexton

say, Lane, what are you doing? You can make some money off that. I will say actually knowing Jimmy Sexton a little bit, I don't think he would say, Lane, you got to squeeze some dollars out of these guys. I think Jimmy would see the marketing value in this for his clients. So I think they're going to find a way to get coaches in the game. Madden has coaches in the game. I believe they're going to have all 32 NFL coaches in Madden this year because Belichick's not there anymore. He wouldn't do it, but I think they're going to have everybody in there this year. I would love to see this in the game. I think like, I don't know how you animate this, but Kiffin is a great example. Like when he knows this, that's going to be a

touchdown because you know, you've seen the long deep shots for Ole Miss when the play pops open. And Kiffin sees it from the sideline that the receivers open. And even before the quarterback throws the ball or as the ball's in the air, you see Kiffin throw the play sheet up to start celebrating. Like if you could animate that or have that as a piece of the replay package after the touchdown is scored, I think that would be spectacular. I think you got to have like the Eli Drinkless, Josh Heupel handshakes after the game. We stand on business, Josh. I think that would be fun. But it's a great question. It is a great question. Charlie Morris, does Virginia Tech have inner Sandman? So no. I'll go back to the question earlier about what would you change? What was

the one-time licensing of songs because only one school uses it? This is the one you license. That's the one you pay for. You out for that one they don't they there is kind of a generic electric guitar song playing as the Hokies because that that is the first thing I did when I got on the sticks was a game at Lane Stadium and because I was like I gotta see I gotta see what an understand man looks and it looks cool but it's not the same without the song. But yes, you have the fans jumping up and down. This is a great question, too. I'm so glad you guys are reminding me of so many things.

All right, Cappy, did you get to hear the cowbells of Mississippi State? I'm eager to hear how they sound in this game when they weren't great in the older games. All right. As I was playing, one of the game creators came by and said, make sure you play a game in Starkville because yes, between plays, yes, you're getting clanger. Edward for team builder, can you have more than home and away jerseys like alternate jerseys and can you edit your coaches but you can edit you can definitely edit your coach's appearance uh they're in terms of editing i think a road to glory and in in dynasty mode when you're creating something there are a lot more appearance options and the reason is they had to create many more appearance options to get the likenesses of the players right so in madden they map all the players they have a truck like the the it goes to the combine it's

part of the combine experience for the players they They just run through, they get their, their faces and bodies mapped. And so they can just put those likenesses on the mocap people in the game. And it's that it's easy at that point. You can't do that with 12,000 college football players. That's not possible. So they got images of all these players and they had to create more face shapes more hairstyles more beards more eye shapes and basically build those players based on the photo of the player and they showed us a bunch of side by sides of here's the actual person's mugshot and here is the the player in the game and they did a pretty good job like they're pretty good it's not none of these are going to look like the cristiano ronaldo statue you guys google it if you if you've never seen it they look like themselves but it also forced them to create

more options in terms of appearance brayden gains when will the player ratings release that's a great question too i don't know if they're going to try to release those early i get the sense based on like especially based on what they had us do where we come down and then they have a day where they say okay now you can release all this stuff which was that was wednesday i think they're going to have some strategic, here's a little more. Here's a little more. Here's a little more. Here's a little more. I think we're going to get a lot of that between now and July.

So I wouldn't be shocked if that was around. Jason, NCAA 14 had custom stadium sounds. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this. If you mean, do they do the chants that they do in the actual stadium? Yes. Like the go Gators at Florida, they do that. And they put the word, like multiple schools send in multiple different things that they do during the game.

And as long as there wasn't a copyrighted song involved, they would do it. Dwayne, does the crowd rush the field after an upset? That is a great question. I don't know. I do not know the answer to that. It's interesting because like the SEC is dead, you know, very much against crowdstorming. They find the schools for it. Uh, so because those schools are in the game and, and, you know, they're, they're licensed with the game. That's a, I don't know. I do need to find that one out. And I, and I'm sorry that I couldn't do that. Do they play neck at LSU? No. They do not play.

That said, they do play neck elsewhere. They do play neck elsewhere. This is so much fun. Thank you so much for jogging my memory on some of these things. From Chris, was there any discussion about how new teams like Texas and Oklahoma are going to be impacted by conference changes since many of those games

will be the first games for those schools? I think because of how Texas and Oklahoma will be rated, they'll be rated as good teams. I think the opposing crowd will treat it as a big game when they go to these stadiums. I don't know that there's anything going to be truly different, special, but I think it will be like when Texas plays at Arkansas this season. I'm trying to remember.

I can't remember if Arkansas comes to them. But when they go to a place, and it's the first time as an SEC opponent. I know Oklahoma plays at Auburn this season. I would assume it will be treated by the CPU like the Auburn fans believe this is a massive game. Because it is. And that's how they're going to treat it in real life. So I can't wait. All right, Likiji.

So you're telling me you could create Dylan Raiola as a head coach who comes back 20 years later after winning back-to-back natties and coach Nebraska to be successful unlike Frost. You guys are vicious. But yes. Yes, you could actually you you could you could probably create a coach named dylan raiola make him make him nebraska's coach make him look 18 years old and do like the pete rose player coach thing like remember in baseball there were you guys who who like managed the team while they were players?

Yeah, make Dylan Raiola the coach, but also have Dylan Raiola be the quarterback. This is a great idea. This is tremendous. Guys, I could answer these all day. I'm going to answer more questions about this game as we go forward. We've got some interviews with the folks who created the game that we're going to run next week that, that I think are a lot of fun. And you guys are going to really enjoy meeting these people who put this game together.

And we'll talk about this quite a bit as we get closer to the release of the game. I'm just as excited as you are. I really appreciate the folks at EA Sports letting me come down and look at it, but we will talk more about this. Now, I answered a lot of questions today. Tomorrow, I will also answer a lot of questions, but instead of those questions being about video game college football, they will be about real life human being college football. So tomorrow is Dear Andy. Like Coach prime. I ain't hard to find

Andy underscore staples on X and he underscore staples on Instagram. If you'd like to ask a truly Epic question that does not fit on a social media platform or my favorite. If you want to shoot a little video of yourself asking your question, you can send that to andystapleson3 at gmail.com. We love your questions. We love when you drive the show. Probably not going to do more college football video game questions tomorrow because we did a lot today. So the real life college football tomorrow, if you want to ask about some of the top recruits in the country, I was with pretty much, it wasn't every five-star, but almost every five-star and a lot of the really high four-stars this week in Nashville at the On3 Elite Series.

So if you've got questions about who your team might get, about somebody who's committed to your team, met some very cool people, know some fan bases that should be very excited about some of the players they've got coming their way. So you can ask about that. Any questions about the upcoming season, about the SEC spring meetings, and Destin, you name it.

Fire those questions away. We will answer them on Friday morning. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow. We'll talk to you tomorrow.