The Dale Jr. Download - YouTube Superstar Civil Talks Gaming, Faith, and Content Creation

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Dale Earnhardt Jr. gets an in-depth look into the world of professional gaming as he sits down with renowned Madden NFL player Civil. Born Kenny Cox in Michigan, Civil began playing Madden at age 16 and quickly rose to prominence after winning some highly publicized tournaments. His road forward wasn’t clear, though, and for a time, he began working at FedEx while attending college, pursuing a degree in criminal justice. Eventually, he’d pick the game back up and took to teaching other players how to better their game, which launched his social media empire that he operates today.The interview covers Civil’s path through uncertainty to becoming one of the most well-known gamers on the internet, why he pursued teaching instead of competitive play, and his recent public declaration of his Christian faith. For more content, check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia Check out our all-new merch collection: https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/  Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Why were you not happy? It wasn't fulfilling. Like, it wasn't, it felt like it was never enough. And there was always something I was trying to chase after. It became very obvious, very quickly that no matter what next goal I hit, whether it was a dollar amount, whether it was like a subscriber count, whatever it was, was not going to be like, oh, Kenny's satisfied now. And so I just went looking.

I looked for like partying. I looked in like relationships. I looked in every which way that you could possibly look trying to find like, okay, maybe I need to be around like other YouTubers. My friends just don't get it. Yeah. like, no, that's not it. Maybe other entrepreneurs, like, no, that's not it.

For some reason, I remember thinking this so clearly, like, dude, like, you are about to crash, you idiot. And I remember thinking, like, I should look into, like, another place called church. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another Dale Jr. download here in the Arby's studio. This episode is presented by Arby's Meat and Three Box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We had the meats.

And we've got a pretty cool guest for you today. I'm excited about this. all of my life, I've been a gamer. I've played video games. I love them. I'm 51 years old. And I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm just as crazy about them today as I've always been. And I could list all of the games that I've played over the years and the ones that I've loved. We've talked about them on this show. I won't bore you with all of the full list. But one game that that I really have enjoyed, you know, I fancy myself as a young kid, either being a race, car driver or being a football player.

And, you know, we dream of being something when we're kids. And, man, I wanted to play for Washington in the NFL. If I couldn't be my dad, I was hoping that that might happen for me. But I never grew into the football player frame that I was hoping for. But I can play on my Xbox or the PlayStation's that I've had over the years with Madden and college football. College football went away in 2014. I didn't think it'd ever come back,

but EA Sports brought it back last year, and it was a massive, massive bit of energy and excitement around that game returning. And T.J., who has been the commissioner for a dynasty in Madden for over a decade, he's had a Madden dynasty that he's managed for over 15 years. I was a part of at one point.

He started a dynasty for college football. There are 32 users, 32 members in this, and we're on a Discord and we communicate daily. It's where I go to talk all my buddies. And it is a big part of my everyday life, more so than Amy would like. But I have a lot of fun with it. I really pour a lot of my competitive nature into things like that. that. It's just an outlet, a hobby, and I wanted to get good at it. And so by trying to become one of the better players in the league so that I could try to win the national championship every

year, I went looking for content creators and people that were talking about this game and how I could improve. And I ran across Civil. And so today I learned his real name's Kenny, but he's known as SIV or SIV on YouTube and social media. He won a big tournament for Madden many, many years ago that put him kind of on the map in terms of a professional player. And he has since transformed into a concrete creator and a guy that just kind of gives daily videos with tips and ideas. and I thought that was great.

He was one of two or three, four guys that I clicked the subscribe or the follow button on YouTube, and I see their videos every day. And then one day, and he's got great energy, easy to listen to, very helpful. Seems like he just really truly wants you to get better at what you're doing. And so it's easy content to absorb. And then one day I saw that he had posted on his Twitter and pinned the post of being, baptized and that he had recently dove into the Bible and man it was really having this great effect on his life and I grew up in a world and a generation where we didn't talk about politics

we didn't talk about religion you just didn't have those conversations and that was kind of understood of course we've shifted quite quite a ways away from that whereas you know it's it's talked about it's not you know it's not as kind of uncommon I suppose but But I saw him post about, you know, his decision to read the Bible and get to know the Lord and all that. And I was like, wow, I'd be interested in having a conversation with him about that. And what went behind that decision? What drove him to that decision and the decision to share? So I thought that I was interested in that.

So I thought, why not see if he'd come on the show and we could talk about it and everyone could listen. and also obviously wanted to know about his content creating decisions he makes and why he creates the content he creates and, you know, his thoughts about a game, a video game that I absolutely love to play. So I'm looking forward to bringing him in the room. I've never met him. I've talked to him on social media, seen his videos, but have yet to really even see. him out in the lobby here at junior motorsports. He came all this way from Texas came into town early.

I know he's been bopping around doing some things. Mountain rock crawling or something. He's into fitness. So he's been doing some things here around Morseville, I suppose. But I want to get him in here. So let's see where this goes. Kenny, Civil, on the Dale Jr. Download.

Man, I'm excited about this. Yeah. Yeah. I know we talked a little bit on DM over the last year or two since they started, you know, brought the game back. Yeah. And it's been a lot of fun kind of trying to get better at the game, but also learning from content creators and how you guys have found a way to make a living. Yeah. You know, creating content and helping people enjoy the game.

And so your real name's Kenny Cox. Everybody knows you as Siv or Civil. Yes, sir. you had success, I would say, publicly as a mad gamer years ago. And we're going to talk about your story a little bit about how, you know, how it's just kind of shifted to where you are today. And one of the things that you did recently was you went public with your faith. Yeah.

And, you know, I was following you already and just sort of, you know, skimming some ideas off of your information on trying to how to beat my buddies. And you have a dynamic personality on your content. You know, you're very personable, easy to watch, good energy, all of those things. I'm not sure if you even have to try, but it comes across really, really well. Appreciate that. And then you decided to make this public announcement that just, you made this change in your life. I thought that was very interesting, you know, because it's a, it's, you know, when you're

serious about it, I guess it's an easy choice to make. but you don't know really how people are going to respond to it. So I want to talk about that later as well. At 16 years old, you started playing Madden. Yeah. You'll say that you're at best top 50 or top 30 player in the world. You were never going to be a top five guy that could be one of the absolute best players. What is the difference?

I mean, between fifth and 30. I think the difference, I don't know if it's like this in other sports because I'm sure You've seen it in NASCAR of like dudes being like, they're good, but they never get over like the like elite type hump. You see in sports all the time. I feel like I think in Madden, it's like an extra level of like execution, an extra level of like, and this applies for college football to an extra level of like anticipation too and just like be able to pick up on people's tendencies, knowing like the next move. Because it becomes like there's like two parts of the game, right? There's like pre-snap of like the ball's not snap. So nothing's happening yet.

It's not even like reaction time. It's all like thoughts of like what are we going to do when the ball snapped. And it's things that happen when the ball snapped of like hitting the correct button, clicking on to the guy, moving your thumbs fast enough to be able to do X, Y, and Z. And so some combination of that, some guys are just like elite when it comes to like just knowing what the next move is. There's a guy in Madden. They have like this professional championship series. And there's a guy named Dreeny who just won like the most recent one.

So he's the best player in the world again. He was the best player in the world eight years ago too. He won it back then. And one of the things he's incredible at is he's just so good on defense of just having an idea. of what his opponent's going to call before they ever call it. And he does it at like the highest of levels, right? Because I can go into a game against a random guy, see what they come out and be like, he's going to do this.

But then he's doing it against like the best player in the world, right? I have a great buddy named D. Croft. I was one of the best players in the world. Would you consider yourself partners? Yeah, we're partners. He's a partner of civil.g. And then he is just a great friend of mine too, first of foremost. We've been friends for like, we got into the space together eight years ago. Daniel's an awesome guy.

He's incredible when it comes like seeing the feel, from an offensive standpoint of like just knowing like, okay, the defense, like this defender's going to go here. If I put two players in this position, that defender, no matter what he does, he's wrong, and it's just a read and react. Like, I'm going to choose this. It's able to do it in unique ways too where people haven't seen like these route combinations before.

So whenever you see something you haven't seen before, you're slower to react as well, just because like you just don't have the same muscle memory and like you just hesitate for a second. So it's just like another level of like, they're just elite. Like D. Croft's one of those like elite dudes. He's like next level. Yeah. It's been a lot of fun sort of understanding. You know, we have, we have a dynasty and there's 32 users and there's a wide range of skill level.

And I find a lot of things about it fascinating. We have a couple guys. We're all, we all get along great. We all give each other a hard time. We have a discord. We talk a lot of shit and have fun. And you can imagine. But there's some guys that are that we've played.

Madden and college football with them for over 12 years and their skill level has just kind of plateaued. They just, that's who they are. That's a player they're going to be. And we have, you know, it's just fascinating to me, I guess, how these, you know, how hard you have to work, I guess, to actually get over the hump. Right. I mean, there's, there's different categories of great, you know, and, and I work, I work really hard to try to, be these guys, you know, at this game. And it takes a lot of, it takes a lot of effort. And I think that's, you know, you found a niche in that.

You found a niche in an area where people are craving more knowledge, more information. And so, you know, you started playing Madden. You realized, hey, I'm actually pretty good at this. What was the moment where you were like, you know, when you guess, I guess you realized your skill level? Yeah. So I played like video games in general, like any other kid did growing up just here and there. I put him a good amount, but never like, I was never going professional or something.

I joined, I liked Madden a lot. I just like X's nose in football. And so I'd like try applying that to Madden, hit or miss, whatever. I joined a couple of these like online like franchise leagues. And I joined one. It was like 32 users. And I went undefeated one season, like perfect season, one in the Super Bowl, like cool, whatever. But then I did it the next season too.

Was it easy? I remember it was like, it was easy. I did the next season too, undefeated perfect. I'm like, I just went back to. back undefeated, whatever. I'm kind of like, whatever. And some dudes, like, he's talking crazy to me. Like, he's saying, like, I suck, this and that, whatever. He's, I'll play for $10.

I'm like, I can play for $10. Like, whatever. Who cares? Never even thought about it before. And I beat him in like 20 minutes. And I'm like, okay, I just made like 10 bucks in like 20 minutes. And then he's mad. I beat him. So we play again. I beat him again. And so it's like less than hours gone by. I made 20 bucks. And I'm like, wait a second. I think there's something like, this is way better than a book.

I was working at a car dealership at the time. I was delivering pizza, too. And I was like, this is way better, like, hourly than anything else I can do. And this is, I'm playing a video game. Like, awesome. So that was like the first thing where I was like, there's like something to this. Yeah. Like, yeah. When do you start?

You're not creating content, right? And so what was the next move? How do you find opportunities to actually go play tournaments and create opportunities for yourself to actually play professionally? Yeah. So the big one for me was like, I would like Google. I would literally just use Google. My dad would drive me to, there was one.

We went to a couple, but there was a Microsoft store. in Detroit, Michigan at some mall. And we went there and I did really well on it. There was a tournament there. Yeah, there was a big tournament on Microsoft store there. And it was like a nationwide. Where we all living? We were in Quincy, Michigan.

So about two hour, very bottom of the midden, about two hours away from Detroit. He drove me there. We went in a snow store. My dad went above and beyond to get me there. And he's thinking the entire time, I'm sure, like, it's kind of nonsense. It's a video game for my son, whatever. And I kill it. How old were you?

I was, I was 16. Yeah. I was 16 in that. And so I came up like one game short. I ended up losing, but I came up one game short of like Super Bowl tickets. And it was like, wait a second. Like my dad's realizing like my son's like okay at this. And now I'm playing this game on the side a little bit like playing for $10 here, $20 here, $30 a year.

How is that happening? It's all the like Facebook groups. Like hey, who wants to play for $10? Really? That's pretty prominent back then. Yeah. Super, super popular. Super stressful.

I mean, I was winning out too. The issue with though, the more you win in that, like no one wants to play anymore because they're just going to lose money. And so slowly I have to start playing better and better people, which I made less money, but it made me better, right? You just compete against better players. You compete in anything in life. You're just naturally going to, like, rise up to their level slowly. And so I was doing that. Do you know what you were making on average a week? Back then, I want to say like just from that, probably like four, five, six hundred bucks a week when I was like 16, something like that. Yeah, it put me through a good part of my college when I was in college. It was a legit thing where I was like, we're like doing something here.

Wow. Like, okay. Yeah. Um. And then my dad always told me, so I, like, I knew there was, like, the professional route, but my dad always told me growing up that it was a kind of a dumb analogy, but it was actually really smart. It's like, every kid wants to be like a professional athlete, and so did I. My dad would be like, Kenny, you don't want to become a professional athlete. Like, you want to be the agent for the athlete. Like, you want to be the guy, like, making the phone calls for the athlete doing this stuff.

Because partly because my dad knew I probably wasn't. I'm 5-8, probably not going pro in the NFL, unlikely. And so I was like, okay. I probably won't be a professional man player but I wonder if I could get into like behind the scenes and so I reached out to a few people one of my really coolest good friends now but I like kind of cold reach out to him like

hey can I like make videos for you at like 18 or so like I'm really good at the game can I just make tip videos for you and so one guy let me his name's Ace awesome awesome guy and so I started working for him a little bit then was kind of doing on the side was this for YouTube shorts

yeah so it was like YouTube videos for like a whole different person whole different channel You edit it or were you the face of it? I was like record. I was like the face of it. Yeah, it was you. Yeah, it was, it was me. For his channel.

Yep. And then so I kind of got my feet underneath me there. But ultimately, like, I got into college and I was trying to do college. I was working at FedEx. Driving a forklift. Driving forklift at FedEx. Yep. Yeah, that was awesome.

I loved it. It was so, oh. I tried playing in this professional tournament and ended up losing before I could make any my loss to a good player. I was like, damn. like I'm trying to put myself through college. It's like playing money games every day, like the 10, 20 bucks thing. Like I was playing too good of people.

We'd spend eight hours one day, 50 bucks to you, 50 bucks to me, 50 bucks to you. It's like, dude, I'm playing eight hours. I made 10 bucks. It's like, what are we doing? So I kind of give it up for like six months when I'm like 18 years old. This is 2019 now. You just stopped? Yeah, pretty much like, because I'm like, dude, I got to make money.

And like, I got it like the game stuff is cool. Help me so far. Like, we're done. The next Madden came around. I picked it back up a little bit. playing it and I was just good at this game for some like it just clicked for me um like I was like I was like I was playing like the top dogs and I was like I was with them the entire time I was neck and neck every game if I lost I was like sweet like wait a second um I take I dropped out of

college right then because I was pursuing the career at FedEx um because they had a good thing going for me and so with the money I saved from dropping out of college I was like man there's this big tournament in Dallas Texas um I haven't even really been out of Michigan before but I'm just going to take some of this money and go down to Texas and like see what happens. And so I play that guy. I referenced him earlier named Dreeny. I played him in my second game. Best player in the world. I'm some random kid. And I beat him. And I beat him like no no nonsense. No like, oh, you got like it was just like, dude, civil just like beat him. And I'm like, oh wait. Like I'm nice. Like I'm actually good at this. I do okay in this tournament. But then two months later

played another one called a club championship for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And I win that one. And that's what gets me like some stream time on EA. That's what gets me some time on ESPN. And then when I was on those, I was always like kind of like a little bit more outspoken when I'd play. I was just sitting there. I was kind of like, energetic. And so my buddy was like, did you start streaming? Start doing YouTube?

And I just picked it up. And we just kind of kept going from there. How are you streaming? I would stream on Twitch. I'd stream at night after a lot of times I'd come in. So I'd move from the Forklift to an office role at FedEx. And so actually I'd come into immediately after in like a button down shirt and start streaming and just like stream for pipe. five, six hours.

What is your major platform today? Now it's YouTube and X. Why did you move away from Twitch? I just don't like streaming that much. Honestly, it was, it was exhausting. Some people have, like, the social battery to, like, be on forever. I don't have the same one. Like, you have to have, you know, your subscribers need to know.

Yeah, it's eight o'clock this night. I was a believer in terms of, I always try to think of, like, what would help me five years from now in my decisions? And so one of the things I was like, I don't think streaming is the best decision for five years. from now Kenny, which is funny because that's like, I'm 25 now. I'm saying that when I'm 20, and like I can look back and say like, I was thankfully correct. It just felt like it wasn't the most like scalable thing. I was like, but YouTube, I think YouTube is like the way to go,

I think. And so we just kind of went all in on on YouTube. We did a little bit of streaming on the side. I still do here and there for fun. But yeah, just randomly. I do it randomly. So what helped me understand since 2020, there was a massive sort of, you know, with the pandemic, there was a lot of streaming, a lot of people sitting at home, a lot of people on Twitch, a lot of people watching. We had sort of a similar perfect storm with the NASCAR world. When we couldn't go to the racetrack, we actually started doing races live on eye racing and broadcast those on network television and so forth. And so it was really, really cool.

And so, but to your point, like, no one really looked at YouTube as a gaming platform or a streaming platform or a place for that type of content so much as they do today. So where is the landscape? There's still people on Twitch, still people successful on Twitch. And there's a, how would you, I guess, how would you describe like the job there and the job here, right? Yeah. So I think first, out of football coach in high school says, I still say, quite about like there's more than one way to skin the cat like you can be successful like there's more than one way to to be successful do you feel like you have do you I guess my problem is

is like when I when I was trying to be successful as a race car driver and and and trying to market myself I felt like I had to get on every single new social platform that came out right and and then it got to a point I was like I just can't take on anymore right like I got I can't and I hate missing out on TikTok because I didn't do TikTok right I hated missing out on that wave but I'm like, I just got to choose some joy here and like some meat, right? And I'm going to whittle it down to like the couple things that I like to do. Yeah, I mean, we have like a very finite amount of time that we can spend. So you can't say yes to everything. Like, no matter who you are. Like you cannot say yes to literally everything. So there's always opportunity

cost. I'm sure, like, you're a businessman. You've had to turn down opportunities. I'm sure you're like, this is kind of sick. Like this is probably even kill it for us, but we just doesn't make sense right now and it stinks. We think the same way about like, I think we could kill it on like doing more short form content if i like put all my time and energy into it i'm pretty kind we've done well in short form before but i'm like you mean those quick one two yeah like one two like one minute like vertical like you're just scrolling tictox scrolling short scroll on i think we could kill it on it yes i'm like is that kenny's is that civil's best use of time right now like but it's i don't think so it is short but like why couldn't you why can't

you take the current content you're making and we've we've done stuff like that and it's done fine yeah i think if we like if i put more effort into making so like there's like there's a couple different ways to approach like short form content. It's like take your long form, cut it up. You'll see podcasts do that all the time. A lot of podcasts, you kill it with that. And then you can see it with like normal like long form YouTube videos. The other way is making like organic short form content, which is like I'm sitting down to record and I'm doing it for this one minute long reel. I think for the way we've done things, like when I sit down and do that, we kill it. Like those kill it. When we take like long form stuff and cut them short, those do okay. They kill it on

Twitter or X, but they don't do as well on like TikTok or reels. And so that's where I'm like, dude, if I just sat down and I just did these organic short form posts every day, we'd probably kill it in this realm. But that's going to take away, like, there's a finite amount of time. So it's like, it's going to take away from X, Y, and Z that we're working on. And like, we just can't do it right now. So to go to what you said about like wanting to do everything, like, you just can't, I don't think. Who are, who are some, when you think about, when you think about, do you think about, do you look at other people that are creating a similar content as competition, or do you guys, do you even know these people? Do you communicate with them? Do you

all share ideas? Yeah. I definitely, I definitely know pretty much everybody now. At least I'm definitely friends with someone, I at least heard of most people. Definitely competition. I think I definitely. Yeah, definitely. Like, there's no way around. And like, I love them. No different than like, you can love a fellow driver and like, you want to beat the fellow driver. You know, I have a lot of love for them, but we are competing to pretend we're not. It's like, I go back to the finite. Who's some guys that are, that you're watching? Yeah, my buddy named Ace, Ace Madden, who I used to work for.

He's a great competitor. He's a great competitor. He does? He does. He's a great competitor of ours. There's guys like Huddle Gigi have a ton of respect for those guys. They kill it. And we're friends even, but like we are competitors. Yeah, there's a few others out there too. A dude named Poodle.

Poodle, yeah. He came out. A little different. He's cool, though. Yeah, he came out to death. over last year. We got to meet him. I was, I was, we interact with him a little bit. And call me Jaden? Yes, I'm, yes, I've never talked to him before.

I've seen this stuff. He seems like a nice guy. He, he did, last year he did, so we do dynasty. So that's, he's mostly, he's all dynasty for the most part. And so is, so is poodle. And so that's why I was checking those guys out. Jaden, I guess that's his name, went to, but this game decided to do all this content around if you were manually progressing players, which we, we don't. And so it's like, all right, I can't use all of this stuff. It's like 80% of this stuff.

I kind of listen to it, watch it, and then like, I can't use that. You work in, you don't focus on dynasty. And when you play, you don't, you know, you're not, you know, you're not playing in dynasty mode. what is the what is what is what is the decision behind how how how how how you're going to choose what information you're going to share and where you're going to focus in the game because there's so many ways to do this yeah it's hard what i try to tell people consistently is like i care about gameplay so if you're like on the virtual girdiron the virtual field like what i want to tell you i'm going to try my hardest to let that apply to you regardless of your playing dynasty

regardless of you're playing ultimate team you're playing just regular head-to-head you're playing your buddy whatever it is like that's where i care about as much as i can there's some issues naturally built into the game like that where, for example, like making hot routes, which you've tweeted to me about, which is like, yeah, there's some issues where like, in Ultimate Team, you can really just do plays that you can't always do in Dynasty. And so we try to just finding that balance. Like, I know I'm good at gameplay, and I'm good at gameplay regardless of what game mode I've played. I play the game long enough to be able to say that, like, with confidence.

And so it's like, I care less about like narrowing it down into one specific game mode. And just like, I know gameplay. I don't know anything about like recruiting could not tell you at all. Why? I just never Never interested me. It's not what I'm good at. Never interested me.

This is a business. I gotta focus on what I'm good at. It's the best use of my time. And I'm also like not nat. Maybe if I was like into it, I'd be like different. I'm like, I'm not good at it.

I'm surprised that you're not in any dynasty. Yeah, when I was younger I was. That's why I got started with this franchise in Madden. I thought it was super cool. But it's just like dude like, trying to figure out like, what am I good at? I'm good at gameplay.

Everything else I'm not as good at. And to become an expert to the point where I can teach people as well, like to do that. good faith, you got to be really good at something. If I'm going to tell you how to do something, I better be good. You know what I mean? Like a lot of people go wrong of like telling you how to do something and they don't really know how to do it. It's like, well, I'll never become nearly as good at recruiting or anything as I am at gameplay. Like it's just not who I am. So let's focus everything I have here. And that's where we're trying to build people in from a business standpoint of bringing

other people of like, okay, civil struggles in this area. How do we bring in somebody who can just clean up that gap, right? That's what, that's how I think of it more. So how do you, um, with all the other competition out there and trying to keep your content fresh. So I imagine, like, when this, when the game comes out, there's this constant sort of, you're constantly sort of vetting the game for, for unique things that you can share with people, right? But there's only so many apples on the tree to pick, right?

Right. At some point, you know, you've got to start looking forward to the next game So how difficult is that? Is that even an issue where you're like, dude, we're going to run out of things to tell people to help them play better? I think it's a combination of that. I guess what was last year like when you got a brand new game, we hadn't had college in a damn decade. Like it's so much excitement. To begin, it was awesome because everyone came back to that game.

Like that has a good core base consistent. Everyone came back to that game. So I could tell someone like, hey, hit track. triangle to catch the ball. People will be like, I can't believe you just told me that. Like, you just saved my life. And it's like, I'm like, yep, like, I'm with that dude. Here we go. And but like from that. Um, so like that was awesome because everyone like first time playing again, like, hey, push the joystick, you'll move. Yeah. Oh, you had people that didn't play never played never played. Never played in a decade, which was awesome. But it just goes into

cycle of like, there's a couple of things. One, like, you can reuse content in the sense of like, if I tell you a good piece of advice today, right, especially if it's like in a video of 10, 10 tips, all 10 are good pieces of advice. I can use a couple of those in a video that I make two months from now, and you're not going to be mad at me. Because if it's a good piece of advice, you're like, you know what? Yeah, like, awesome. As long as the content's actually good, people aren't going to be upset,

and you have to space it out a little bit. So we're able to reuse ideas and, like, they are helpful. With that, too, like, there's just, we've been in a cycle, I've been a creator now for seven or eight years or something. And so we've gone through this game cycle so many times where we have these ideas, we're able to hit on these things. And the game does change enough each year and throughout the year where we can kind of hone in on certain ideas or just like maybe tactics that are better this year or maybe it's just some I personally like more this year, whatever it might be and kind of rehash those a little bit. And then every, you know, three months or so we'll do like a super beginners type videos where it's like move the joystick.

Your player moves. That's tip number one. But like for the players who watch that video, like that's incredibly helpful. It's like that's a day one basic tip. Like heck yeah. We don't run into the issue too much though. to answer your question anymore, thankfully. Yeah, when do you start looking forward

to the next next game? For me, really it happens in like May is like when I'm really, because like that's when the game really starts to just like die down. It feels like numbers wise. We get, you know, Christmas is a pretty good boost. We have college football season.

Christmas is a great boost. A lot of people get the game. Then we had like the national championship, Super Bowl. Then for like NFL wise, the draft keeps the Madden alive for a little bit, free agency, all that. Then like May and June, just it stinks.

For a while, July was the worst. But now college football comes out in July. It's been the biggest blessing in the world because it just bumps our entire season up one month. Do you have the opportunity to get understanding on what the next game? Are you, like, you know, given some sort of like heads up on some of the cool features that the next game is going to have to be able to allow you to make content, sort of teasing content that we start to see? Yeah, so good question. There's two things I'm a part of, or I've been a part of the past couple of,

years that's been really cool for me is one they'll do like a preview event that's in like may or June and so you'll see like you'll see people like tweet out about like hey was at the preview event whatever whatever and so the developers will talk about like hey we're doing this we're trying to do this xyz here's like a beta version of the game and you kind of get to feel it out then I'm usually a past few years I've been part of like a early capture program which is like the game comes out let's say July 7th I'll get the game on June 25th or something for two weeks to be preparing content for that to be part of, because EA will use creators as like a marketing arm, essentially. And so those are the two big ones. Wow. Why did you choose college football?

I just thought it was a massive opportunity. I haven't played Madden like hardcore since 2014. I was the same dynasty that we're doing with the EA college game today. This same dynasty existed 12, 15 years ago, and we were all the same guys, all playing Madden. And I had to quit because it got to be Madden for whatever reason. I haven't had this experience with college, but Madden brought the worst out in me.

I mean, I'm playing friends, but it was just the emotions that I had in losing a game, especially important games, was really tough. And it was like, man, this is not adding to my life. You know, and so I had to, but I've, and so I stepped away completely when college came back, obviously I got back involved in it, and it's been really fun, a lot less, you know, a lot less competition, more having a good time of the game. But I imagine, so what I guess I'm trying to say is I haven't dove into the Madden landscape

on social media with YouTube and all that, looking for tips, tricks, and all that good stuff. I imagine that that area is incredibly crowded. Yeah. And there's some probably pretty established dudes. So we actually have a whole other like a brand or like another channel where like we do Matt. Like I do all the like all the college stuff of UCFB. I duplicate it for Madden essentially. You can't do like word for work for idea, but like same ideas.

And so we do all that. It's a lot of the same guys on us. So you try to bounce between the two. We were first on like committing everything into college. It just like everybody from college I had when I was when I was going to school is like, I don't play Madden anymore. but I'm going to play college. It was so obvious, like the hype around it.

And I told you I went to that preview event and we were able to tweet some stuff out. Well, I went to the preview event for College World 25. And so I got to tweet some stuff out about that. Now, usually if my, let's say I had a tweet that would do like normally three, 400, 500, or something like that, I would do it for College World 25

at this preview event. It would do 4K, 5K, 6K. And I'm like, okay, wait a second. Let's see what's going on here. We post our first few videos when the game launches and we're like, oh, this is awesome. obvious. Like, this is awesome. And then for me, the games are, they're different, but they're similar enough to where, like, I can be one of the best players in college and then go pick up Madden

and I'll be one of the best year and vice versa back and forth. So the actual transition of loading up the different games was pretty easy. It was just like a numbers game of like, okay, well, college is killing it from a metric standpoint. College is killing Madden metrically. It's like, why would we look at, why would we do more madden? We should double down here in college as much as we can. How many people are part of the team? have six, six people. We have DeCroft. What does he do? So, DeCroft, Hexed, and Sirius, those are their gamer names. That's Daniel, Ryan and Ryan, or Michael. But nonetheless, they're like product guys is what we call them.

So they're like professional players, incredibly good at the game. And we bring them in and they teach underneath our umbrella here. And so they go into, they'll release like schemes and tips and tricks and all this stuff inside of our website. I'll help them with like content stuff. I'll help them with like, hey, how do we actually become a better teacher? And so they'll be like purely like producing product with us. We have Bo. We've worked together now since like 2022, 22, 23. He's a, I think it's official titles like video production manager. He just does all of our video editing, helps a lot with like ideas. A lot of the Twitter clips you see, a lot of them like cut up by him. He does thumbnails, things like that. And so he runs the overall.

overwhelming majority of the YouTube side of things that isn't just being on camera, which is me. Is he does, is all these people scattered across the country? Yeah, everyone's remote. Yep, yeah, Beau himself, he's, uh, he's in Cali right now. He's, yeah, he's been, he's our longest tenured person. Um, he's been incredible to have for the past few years. Who owns the business? Me. Out 100%. 100%. Yeah, we were bootstrapped and I'm, the brand, I guess, have been around since like 2017, 2016, or so. What is the GG part? GG. So civil.g. It's just a gamer term. A lot of gaming websites are dot ggis. Really?

It's like a good game. Yeah. Okay. It was like a domain name. That was available. Yeah. Huh. And so do you, how many, how many reputable groups like yours are there? Is it? Reputable is the keyword. There are not many. There's a few. There's other places that are good. A dozen, a hundred? No. Not, not like.

four or five. They're like good at what they do because like I mean part of it's like teaching such a skill like you'd be good at something and not teach it. At one point you decided to go all in on this and and dive in what you were you were what was your major in college? My major in college I was a criminal justice major with a focus on juvenile delinquency and why did you think you wanted to do that? I just wanted to work with like kids who were like at risk and like things like like just like bad situations, kids who need like a chance. You think that's something that happens for you down the line? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We would have to do some cool stuff with the ways we've been blessed. Still. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's a big deal. So you put everything with work, your job, that you'd climb, you know, you'd climb through some promotions through FedEx and had, you know, we had an opportunity there to stay, right, and make something to that. Your college, you put all of this off to the side and have dedicated yourself 100. percent solely to this job of creating content and it's been amazing amazing for you you bought your family house yeah my my brother and i were able to come together and uh buy my parents house um christmas of twenty twenty four damn um you know how do you how do you remain fresh and sustainable

i think it comes back to the lord like i mean like what a blessing like dude what a freaking blessing it is to be able to do what what i do for a living like who am i to be like oh i'm i don't know, like what a freaking blessing it is. And to take that for granted, it's like, it's crazy to me. Before I ever came to the Lord, it was very obvious to, I'm like, I have no idea why I'm having some of the material successes I'm having. Like, this makes, for a logical stand, but this makes no sense. Like, I'm not, I was never the smartest in the room. I was never like this or that or whatever. And I'm like, we are, we are objectively materially killing it in this. I don't know why. Yeah. And then be able to see like, okay, these, like, different material things that I'm having

here for me can be, can be used to like bless, it's way bigger than, than civil or way bigger than Kenny. From the up from the standpoint one like of like being able to provide like jobs for people like that's I think one of the coolest things you could possibly do but then be able to give back to community to be able to buy my parents a house be able to do other things like that's like dude like that's freaking awesome like how could it what more do you want so I think of that you were having all this success and um you uh you know you felt empty and you were like you know you went out party yeah had you know tried different things to try to find you know,

find ways to make life feel more full? I dropped out of college. Like, my goal when I was 18 was to take care of my parents. Like, figure out, how do you do it?

How do you do it? How do you do it? And then in December, 224, Christmas, my brother and I are able to come together and buy my parents' house.

It's like, what more, like, they are set financially, barring some disaster. And then afterwards, I'm like, that was cool.

I'm like, dang, that actually is not like, because if you told me before that, I'd die the next day and like, we're good. Like, who cares?

And I'm like, this is not it, dude. And then for the past seven years or so, what are you looking for? What do you mean? There's just more to it. You just, you needed to feel, um, it wasn't enough. It was never enough.

It was never enough. Even the money things. I would see go from like making no money where I was eating ramen every single day for months and months and months and months and months. I upgraded to ramen and rabiolis for a few months too. I'm like, then I'm eating like actual food. And I'm like, okay, do I get more, do I get better food? Like, that's not making much of a difference on my happiness.

Like, the money is. How were you not happy? It wasn't fulfilling. Like, it wasn't, it felt like it was never enough. And there was always something I was trying to chase after. It became very obvious, very quickly, that no matter what next goal I hit, whether it was a dollar amount, whether it was like a subscriber count, whatever it was, was not going to be like, oh, Kenny's satisfied now. Yeah. And so I just went looking.

I looked for, like, partying. I looked in, like, relationships. I looked in every which way that you could possibly look trying to find like, okay, maybe I need to be around like other YouTubers. My friends just don't get it. Yeah. no, that's not it. Maybe other entrepreneurs like, no, that's not it. Like, whatever, whatever. And I remember one time I was getting like, I was kind of being like cocky to myself walking around where I was like, man, like, Kenny, you've done some like cool things. Like, heck yeah. And I'm like, dude, for some reason, I remember thinking this so clearly like, dude, like you are about to crash, you idiot. And I'm like, I don't know what that means at all, but like whatever. And I remember thinking like I should look into like another place called church. Like I don't know what that really looks like. Um, I called one of my good friends, who's my girlfriend now, actually, and I called her up and she, I said, she went to church.

I'd never done anything with it. I was like, hey, do you know any church is my area? Like, she's way up north Austin, now South Austin. And she's like, I don't really know any around your area, but like in the morning I'm actually getting baptized. You want to come like see that. And I was like, oh, like, sure, I'll just go there. And I went, that was the first time going to church, January 5th of 2025. I remember, like, walking in, like, shaking people's hands.

And, like, they were, like, talking to me. Like, I was, like, a human who, like, they cared about. I was like, this is weird. Like, okay, let's go. And I got to see the baptism. Didn't really understand what that was at all. But I was like, cool. Like, people are cheering for her.

So, like, let's go. Was there for a couple weeks? All the guys would come up to me and be like, hey, man, like, you're so happy you're here. Like, by the way, this, like, this Christ thing, this Jesus thing changed my life. Jesus changed my. I'm like, what are you talking about, dude? Like, you're full. Like, I don't know what you're full, but like, but I know people said it,

but I'm like, I'm not smarter than you, so there might be something here. Yeah, and so a couple weeks I decided to read, get a Bible. One of the people of the church named Shane gave me a Bible, started with the gospel of Matthew, and the end of it, I'm like, dude, if this is, if this is true, this is a really big deal. Tell me about that. So I had a friend of mine talk about picking up the Bible and read the Bible, and how reading the Bible and the stories within it had this massive impact on them. And so I've not read the Bible thoroughly.

I've not read an entire, you know, I've not read an entire three, four pages, you know. But so like tell me, like if I would just sit down and literally dive into the story, right? What would my experience be? I think it'd become very, very clear of like what we're doing? doing here on earth. There's so much more, it's so much bigger than everything here. It's bigger than our jobs. It's bigger than even our immediate family. There's something bigger going out there. And there's a a creator above who loves us more than we can possibly imagine. I'll say, I think one of the things that I would ask you, Dale, like, what do you think about like Jesus, for example? Like, you just had to say,

what do you think about Jesus? What would you say? That he died for our, for our sins. So that's a big deal. Yeah. So, like, if that is true, that's a massive deal, right? It's like objectively. Because, like, if that's true, if he died for our sin and the wages of sin, it reads in the Bible is death, and he died for it to give it us forgiven. And with the chance for eternal life in heaven, it's like, well, these are objectively big claims? Like, there's no way around it. And so it's like, well, I want to research these claims and like, see, are these like, is this just a load of crap? Because if it's a little crap, I want nothing to do with it. Yeah. And so reading, in reading the Bible, you gain confidence in those claims. And so it's, in reading the Bible, you gain confidence in those claims. claims. Yes. Yes, I gained confidence in the claims that Jesus was the son of God, that Jesus was God, is God, that his word is true, his word is reliable. And if that's a case, you know, like, I think it's like a father figure, but like to the ultimate extreme where it's like, you know, you may not understand your father always when he's telling you things, but you can have confidence that he's telling you things in good faith and he has what your best interest in mind, right?

You don't see the big picture, but like, you know that like, okay, like I'll listen to dad because he's saying this and whatever. or maybe you might even be like, oh, whatever, dad. But so, like, take that idea and, like, put at times infinity because there's a father in heaven who knows what we need, who knows our deepest and our smallest desires, and it's telling us how to achieve these things.

And it's just like by putting faith into him and him alone, we're able to come closer to him and come closer to those things. Yeah. And so this has given you peace. Yeah, it's given me fulfillment. It's giving me drive towards, like, something way bigger. It's like a lot of the thing, I remember reading the gospel of Matthew

you and consistently throughout, I'd be like these, like, it were like different I thought ideas that I would have. And it's like articulated right here, like so well articulated here, so well articulated here, so well articulated here. I'm like, man, like, what a, what a freaking great, like, it was so, so, so cool. And so many things that would, like, challenge me. And it's like, okay, I look at the idea of like forgiveness. Like, we can all agree that, like, it's good to forgive people. Like, you should forgive people. At the same time, like, someone really wrongs you. It's, like, really hard to forgive. But Jesus says, we should forgive even the people who have wronged us the most.

And it's like, objectively, even though it's hard for us emotionally to do that, I think we can all be like, yeah, we should. Like, that's probably a better way to live life than like not forgiving at all. Yeah, it's, it is, yeah, it has been an incredible, incredible, like, life change for me. I thought I would ask you about your decision to go public with that. But, I mean, it sounds like that that was a very easy, easy decision to make. You're like, hey, this is something I've done. I don't know that you would be sitting here today talking to me had you not done that because, of course, I follow your stuff and I think you do great work and I really appreciate what you do for the community.

You make the game a lot of fun. You allow people like me that are casual players to really get a little bit better, be able to take it to our buddies and have a good time. And I appreciate you for that. but you went just by i got i found you on social media six or eight 10 months down the road you decide to tell everybody oh by the way you know i was baptized and i've had this you know i've had this thing happened to me where i i wanted to share that with y'all and and and that was it you know you're like this happened and i just wanted y'all to know that and uh back to back to what i'm doing and i thought that was so interesting um and

I wanted to know, I guess, you know, were you at all, I assume you probably weren't, didn't even think about it like this, but like, I guess what has been the reception to that from your core base? Yeah, overall has been great. I mean, it's been pretty cool. I was, I was, I want to say worried. Like one thing, like, I would be like, oh, like, this is going to potentially alienate some people. And, like, I get that. It's also like what I truly believe is truth. and it's like, okay.

And I've been given this platform, I told you earlier. Like, if I were to look at this objectively, I'm like, dude, I have no idea why I have this platform. But it's like, okay, I have it for some reason. And so let me glorify the name of God inside of that platform because there's no other reason for it. Yeah. You know, so the reception's been good.

I was worried about like what, I don't know, what it could do, I guess. In the end, though, I was like, man, if I believe the words of the Bible to be true, it's like, God's got me anyway. So like if this somehow like really backfires on me and like people unfollow me and I lose a bunch of like if I were to lose money or lose the business somehow through it like some crazy backfiring. It's like all those things were a gift anyway. They don't belong to me in the first place. Yeah. So it's like, okay. Like if that's the result from it, then that's the that's God's will. And it's like, okay, that's the, that's just what happens from it, I guess. And so like I still, because like I still will tweet about Christ, um, here and there. Um, and like trying to figure out the best ways to go about doing that. And I think about it all the time. like, dude, there'll be some people who, like, are not going to be, are not going to like this. Right. And it's like, okay. Like, yeah.

It just is what it is. But I imagine, too, you still feel like you're on the very, you know, the threshold of the whole trip, right, about discovering the Lord and understanding how to weave that into your DNA, right? And you're still working on that. Yeah. Yeah, a question that got posed to me, like, we have, like, community groups that will meet, like, every Thursday or something, just, like, a dinner with, like, other young adults. And a question that got posed to me is, like, how do you invite Christ in, like, every part of your life? And not, like, just, like, I would tell myself, like, Kenny, don't be a Sunday Christian or don't be a Christian when you're reading your Bible by yourself and I, like, you're a follower of, like, everywhere. It's just, it just is what it is.

And so, like, that's something I wrestle with is one of the reasons, like, I wear across because, like, I have to look in the mirror and I get reminded of all the time. And a lot of my videos, I'll wear like Jesus T-shirts. Big reasons is because, like, I'm on camera. It's centered on, it's just, I'm on camera. It's centered on me. People are listening to me. And it's like, well, how do I invite Christ in this? I can't just sit up on camera and only talk about Christ in a college football video. Like, you just, that isn't going to work. So it's like, okay. Well, I think just wearing a shirt with a simple cross on it is like one of those ways. Yeah. And I'm, I'm getting better at it. I'm trying to get better at that, trying to get better at understanding the word.

It's the Bible's a hard read. And like, it is a hard read. I went into it. dude, January 5th, the last year, my first time ever being at church, and then two weeks later, my first time ever opening the Bible. It's like these words, I don't know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, I don't know what a parable means. I don't know what a gospel is. I don't know any of these words. So it's a, it's a tough read at first, but it's... I'm curious as to how that does it get easier? Does it? Yeah, yeah. Well, part is just like terminology, right? It's like, if you're just getting... You don't want to... I mean, I would think that if, I thought about this before, like, if I were to sit down and really go dive in,

would I, I would be afraid that I might misinterpret some things. Sure. Probably, right? Yeah. Because of not understanding the context. Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that go into that. One, like, just being straight up in, like, prayer and, like, asking for, like, understanding.

The Lord says that we ask for wisdom. He will give us wisdom. Having people around you who you can trust. Like, trying to interpret the Bible entirely on your own. Yeah. Good luck, dude. Like, good luck. Having really good spiritual leaders in your life.

Like, I'm surrounded by it, like, an incredible church where I have awesome, like, elders around me and an awesome pastor and awesome friends around me who like I can go to and if I don't know something I can call them or something gets confusing I'm like I'm just going to call them and see moving back toward toward your your your platform yeah how many hours a day do you get do you play do do now do I play too now I'm mostly playing camera now right um so probably about three to four just recording yep um it depends like January I played a ton um because I did like a fun challenge of January of like, dude, I just want to grind this head-to-head ranked game mode

and see if I can just get into the top 100 again, just because I hadn't played in a few years. And I kind of like, I'd fallen off enough to where I'd play games and I'd been like, I'm kind of like losing or at least games. I feel like I should be winning. Yeah, I'm like, these kids now are like, they're, oh. It's tough, dude.

And so I had to like focus up and like, let me prove myself really fast that like, I can do this. Yeah. So that was a ton, but not like three or four. I work in general I work probably now like closer like eight to 10 to 12 hours a day depends if I'm like really into a project or not. That's a lot. I mean it used to be a lot more. Now it's not.

Like now it's cool. And like it's all stuff I love to do. It's fun. How do you weave the you know the hours that you're needing to put into this job into your personal life and yeah. I think it's like one cool thing is like I'm like my job is like very interruptible is a is the word. So it's like in the middle of the day I can go get lunch. and, you know, every Tuesday I get lunch with my buddies and we'll talk about the Bible, for example. Or I can, you know, it's just very like I can set my own schedule. And so if I need to work late one night, I'll work late one night. If I work really early in the morning, you know, I can crack out the eight hours. Especially a few years ago, I used to bang out eight hours from like 5am to 1 p.m.

And it's like, it's 1 p.m. I've done eight hours already. Like, do I just do another eight hours? Like, maybe. when you step out and say, you know, fly out of Charlotte to do a podcast and you're going to be gone three days. What's the, is that? The main things that take a hit during that is like I call things like my day-to-day and then my like growth focus type things. So I just get my day-to-day. I try my hardest to get my day-to-day stuff done ahead of time. And then usually my like growth-focused stuff takes a hit. So like right now, like all of our platforms hosting on a website and all that's built by me,

And so we, I'm working on like rebuilding some stuff. So that's like my growth project right now for February. And so I'm just not working on that today, for example, which is like, fine. And then I got a recording done ahead of time. You've decided that, I know in the past like month you went and worked your way all back into the top 100 players on college. Was it as hard? Was it hard? No.

It was the hardest thing. It was just a time thing. The higher, actually getting it done on the date you thought, you know, you predicted you would do it. And it came close. Yeah, it did come pretty close. I had to play like, I play like 130 games the final five days or so. Jeez, 130 games. And like, I mean, every game, like, I went, what do I go?

203 and 15. Three of those losses were disconnects. But, like, of the 203 wins, like probably 100 plus were just like shutouts or something. It's just like. The dudes that, that out of the, any of the dudes that beat you, did they know who they were playing? probably yeah at least one or two of them did yeah when do you do you uh have an open mic when you no i don't know no no because usually i'm recording right and people be saying all kinds of stuff yeah people be saying too crazy and like i'm like bro i can't have this like this is a kid friendly like

no so i play every now and then i'll slide in and play a game and uh i don't have a mic i don't turn my mic on but i it's so funny listening to the things people are saying oh my gosh um you've changed you shifted from, you said, you know, you made the decision, hey man, I'm probably not going to go top five. And, and I'm, this is what I am. And you've went toward, you've embraced teaching. Like teaching young, you know, newer players, how to enjoy the game. Talk about how rewarding that is. Oh, sweet. I get to hear like, I'll get like emails. I'll get Discord DMs, Twitter, X messages, whatever it might be. I'll like people being like, I won my league with my buddies. awesome. There was one guy who won like a Super Bowl like trophy or something and he put a bunch of

beer in it and like his wife like put like dumped it on him and I sent me a video. Like thank you so much. It's way less stressful. Yeah. It's so much less stressful than competing. Um, you get to help people. And so like competing is all about like me, me, me just trying to win. It's like, oh, dude, like I don't have to be nearly as good anymore to compete. So I get to like take a break from that a little bit and I just get to help people and like do that. And it's like, yeah, it's sweet. I love it. Like seriously, there's nothing better. That's the reward. Yeah, it's sweet.

I think teaching itself is like such a like cool thing to be able to do. Like be able to take help someone get from like point A to point B and I see them go from that. We have some guys who have been with us for years now. And I've gotten to see them go from like they don't know how to even pick a play on defense. Like now they're like winning their their their dynasties. And it's like this is cool. Like you're getting better and like having more fun. How does your community, how does your community gather on Discord?

Discord, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you have thousands of people. people on your Discord? Yeah, we have a little over 3,000 or something. You all do do events inside your Discord? We do a

big tournament every month now. We started doing that. We'll do some like, we call them strategy calls where I just like talk through like how to like how to use everything. Just make sure people know what they're doing with all that. When does this like when does school happen? School. Oh like these these calls. So we need to get better about doing them consistently. That's my fault. But they're Thursday

evenings. Thursday evenings and we have a tournament on the final Saturday of every month. It's just like an hour just hanging out and we're just talking like, hey, that's how you do X, Y, and Z. And then, yeah. Yeah. And so it's, you'll just live stream some, you know, hey, man, let's, I'm going to show you guys a, yeah, some concepts. Yeah, we'll do like, like, hey, civil, how do you stop X, Y, and Z? And it's like, oh, dude, like, here, here we go. We'll just do this. Like, bang, bang, boom. And it's fun for me because, like, it's crazy with, like, it's like a teaching thing, right? Where it's like, you have this knowledge, which is, like, really easy for you. You just know it, right? Think about

something that you're an expert in. And you give it to somebody who doesn't know it. It takes you 10 seconds to exchange it information, but it changes their entire life in that moment. It's like, oh, like, now I have this. So it's like, like, you just see like light bulb, light bulb, light bulb, light bulb, light bulb. It's like, sweet, dude. Like, heck yeah. And then all the other stuff is all hosted through like videos and stuff on our platform and all that where like people go in like whenever they want. Yeah. A lot of people watch it like work and stuff like that. Where are you most likely to see fan feedback? Um, for us, Discord emails. We're very active in Discord, very active in emails, Twitter messages.

We do a good amount of like customer feedback surveys as well with that. And so people just have like a direct like link to that. Although those are those are always skewed either like whenever you ask for like feedback in like that format, it's either someone who just had like the best experience ever or someone who just had like the worst experience ever. You never get like lukewarm is like the type of answers you want because it gives like a good. Yeah. Because like getting someone, getting feedback for someone like hates you is like, okay. Or if they just love everything you do, it's like, well, awesome.

Like my mom would never give good feedback on our platform. My mom loves me dearly. She's never going to be like, oh, Civil, I think you should do X, Y, and Z better. So yeah, Twitter, emails, Discord. Yeah. What is the, so if I wanted to join, I guess, Civil Premium, what is that? So Civil Premium is a YouTube channel we have where we do like Gameplay stuff. CivilG is the website we have where we just have like the membership to that.

What's the membership? The membership is just a, it's like an online learning platform where we just teach how to get better at the games. And so we have like video breakdowns, written breakdowns, like, pictures of like showing like, do X, Y, Z, look for this. How unique is it to the free content you share on? It's pretty, it's like, that stuff is like very like, hey, have you ever played the game before?

Like, here you go. Here's a couple of things here and there. Like, this will help you. The actual, like, paid stuff for what it, for what it is, is like, we're deep diving, what we're talking about. We're going like, hey, here's this one thing that we showed you in a YouTube video. And here's like 10 versions of that. we're going to build together. We're going to string these things all together. And you're going to use

this to, if we're talking about an offense, you're going to use this to go down the field every single time against your opponent, right? Because on YouTube, like, we're not, I'm not holding your hand in that, right? I'm giving you like, hey, here's this cool play. Like, good luck. Um, like, hope it works well for you. Or I'm saying like, hey, uh, this is how you do X, Y, and Z. Good luck, dude. Hope, hope, hope you figured out. Um, which is just like, that's just the nature of it. Whereas like, this is like, oh, people are like paying us for this. Like, we're going to hold your hand. We're going to tell you do X, X, and Z. and we're going to get some more wins.

So I asked a couple of my friends that are in this dynasty, one of them you've been able to communicate with, Stefan. Yeah. He is the South Carolina Gamecocks. What made you want to become a content creator versus being a professional madden player? We discussed that a little bit. But, you know, how difficult, I suppose, was that decision?

And, you know, when you make that, choice. Did you have any reservations? Did you have any regrets? Definitely no regrets looking back at it. I think maybe it was a little bit hard. I just remember thinking when I won my first tournament, I was like, dude, I don't know if I'm going to win this this type of thing again, man. It was just hard. And like things had to fall in your favor. It's like winning any kind of championship in any sport ever. It's like, yeah, there's luck involved. And I'm like, but I just, I remember just realizing like, dude, I have this platform right now where if I don't act on it, like it's going to go away and then I have to win again to be able to ever get this chance again.

And it's like, let me just go all in and try doing this right now. What do you want to see in the next games? In the next games? The big, big, big one, this is very unsimulation. So some people won't like this. I would love to see defenders do a better job of catching interceptions. I just want to see that across the board. If, if I would love to see like in baseball, the tie goes to the runner, right?

In college wall 27, I'd love to see if my defensive back and your wide receiver both get their hands, in the ball, same time, defensive backs winning. Like, punish you for, dude, you just, there's so much open field. It felt like in 85, that was pretty balanced. It was balanced. I'm, I'm aggressive with this. I lean more towards, like, I wanted to be like defense.

I'm such a believer because, like, yeah, the NFL court or college court, like, in real life, you're, like, trying to see between linemen, you have a very, like, this type view. We have a bird's eye view. Sure. So if you're finding a way, and we have every hot route, uh, known demand,

whereas, like, teams have to actually practice that stuff. We just do it. And like, our guys run the, the routes. And so it's like, if you're, if you're throwing a pass that's hitting a defender's hands, and defense is so hard. Yeah. That's my number one. Defense was pretty, I mean, it is hard. So in 26, my opinion, curious what you think. In 26, way less interceptions and defense got worse. Like there's more holes in the defense. Yeah, well, I think the biggest thing is you see more holes in the defense when the offense has more plays and they have more plays because you don't get the

interceptions. So it's like if offense has 15 plays, They're going to find a hole. Like, every defensive coverage ever has massive holes in. It's just the nature of it. But, like, when the offense makes, it's really like when the offense makes a mistake, I'm such, I'm so big. I'm like, I want them to pay for it. Like, you mess up on offense, dude.

There's a billion open areas of the field. You mess up. You pay for it. Outside of Madden, college football, any other passions in gaming? In game. Dude, I really love playing, like, basketball games, like 2K. I think it's super fun. I really don't game outside of Madden or college football.

Really? No, I wish I did. because I'm a big Detroit sports fan and so I love using the pistons. I love using the Tigers and MLB the show, things like that. But whatever, if I'm ever gaming,

I'm like, dude, I should just be on, I should just be like working, basically. I used to play Minecraft a lot, which is really fun while I was younger. There you go.

That was a cool one. Yeah, we play, obviously eye racing is a big deal for us with racing in motorsports and Sims and all the SIM rigs are insane how they've changed. I remember racing at a desk for years.

Man, this has been a lot of fun I'm probably going to think of a million other things to ask you when we're done with this interview but I just you know I was kind of thankful that EA brought the game back I know that that was probably no small feat

considering it's been gone for 12 years and interesting how unique 25 was to 26 I didn't expect such a big shift in the game in the gameplay but it was kind of like they they shuttled out 25 and we're working on 26 behind the scenes and it seems I don't know probably more than you know probably way more about this in terms of the coding and so forth but it feels like 26 is much more similar to Madden where 25 seemed like a standalone yeah they um as

far as the engine yeah they they brought the game well because college 12 25 and madden 25 when they both dropped like college football just killed it and every I mean you didn't have to be a genius just go on Reddit and be like you go on the college Reddit people are like all semi-sum You go on the Madden Reddit, people are like angry. Yeah. And so I think they just brought the games a little bit closer together. I think the way they did that, though, was like college became a little bit closer to Madden and Madden came a little bit closer to college.

Instead of just like Madden just becomes college. Yeah. Yeah. Because the games definitely are a lot more similar this year in terms of especially just like how they feel than they were last year, 100%. Well, it's been fun not only playing the game, but also connecting to create, content creators like yourself. And that's what we do here at Dirtymo Media.

And, you know, we've had, you know, we've had some folks come in here and set at the desk and do some interviews that are content creators themselves. And we're all trying to accomplish the same thing. And, you know, in terms of viewers and, and attract attention and so forth to our content that we create. So I was just watching you, man, and loved your story, thought that you were somebody that I want to talk to and get to know. And I appreciate you.

I know you came a long way to be here. I appreciate you doing that. I know you, you know, I know you could have said, now I'm all right, man. We got what we got going on. We're fine over here. But I appreciate you giving us some time today. Yeah, no, absolutely.

Thank you, seriously, around me. My family was super. When I told my mom and dad and my brother about being on here, they were ecstatic. So it was a super blessing to be here, sir, thank you, Dale. Well, man, keep doing what you're doing. And I'm going to keep being a customer. and enjoying the content you're creating and make us all enjoy the game more.

And I appreciate you, bud. Thank you. Thank you, Dale. All right. Kenny Cox, also known as Civil on the Dale Jr. Download. All right, thanks for joining us here in the Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's.

It's incredible value. And we're thankful for Arby's in their relationship here at Dirty Mo Media. We're having fun. Great food. Arby's. We have the meets. All right, so we'll see you next week. Looking forward to it, post-Atlanta. Hopefully we can go down there.

Junior Motors can keep the momentum going. And we'll see an exciting race on Sunday. We'll see you. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.