College Football 25 is the first NCAA Football game released in the past 11 years. A lot of the older crowd is returning to the series. Some younger gamers are picking it up for the first time.
With that in mind, we’ve put together some of the best College Football 25 tips to help you become a better player.
1. Find The Right Playbook
There are 144 different offensive playbooks in College Football 25. The thought of choosing just one playbook can be daunting. Here’s what we recommend:
Look through the different College Football 25 playbooks and try to find a play style that fits yours. If you like to throw the ball around the field, you probably don’t want to use a run heavy playbook.
Once you’ve narrowed it down to a handful of playbooks, take each of them into practice mode and spend some time looking through the formations and plays.
Pick a playbook and then stick with it for a while. You’ll start to learn more and more plays that work in every situation which will lead to a much more efficient offense.
One mistake that inexperienced gamers make is constantly switching playbooks, always looking for the next big thing. You are much better off in a mediocre playbook where you know 40 plays inside and out versus learning 5 great plays in a playbook then getting bored and switching to another.
2. Examine Team’s Strengths And Weaknesses
Every team in the game will have strengths and weaknesses. This applies to dynasty, ultimate team, head to head, or any other game mode.
If you have elite wide receivers and a low rated running back, you need to know this before going into a game. That’s the easy part.
More importantly though, you will need to take a look at your opponent’s roster as well. Taking 1 minute to quickly look at your opponent’s depth chart can tell you everything about how they plan on playing.
This tip might sound incredibly basic but you’d be surprised how many people go into games without a clear idea of what they want to do and who they want to attack.
3. College Football 25 Isn’t Madden
There might be a temptation to try to port over whatever offense/defense you’ve used in the Madden NFL series into College Football 25. Don’t do it.
The two games are very different! College Football has wider hash marks, a faster game speed, bigger ratings discrepancies, and a huge variation of play styles.
Do yourself a favor a create your own scheme specifically tailored to your College Football 25 team.
4. Learn The New Abilities
There are 80 abilities in College Football 25: 50 physical abilities and 30 mental abilities. You’ll want to familiarize yourself with what each ability does so you know how to put your players in the best position to succeed.
Each ability is broken down into 4 tiers:
- Bronze
- Silver
- Gold
- Platinum
Bronze provides the lowest benefit while platinum provides the highest benefit and is only available to truly elite players.
5. Use Coverage Shells
On the defensive side of the ball, Base Align is gone and replaced with Coverage Shells. You can set your coverage shell at the defensive play call screen by using the right joystick.
You now have the option to show a Cover 3 defense pre-snap but actually be in a Cover 4 Drop. Or you can show a Cover 2 man look pre-snap but actually be in a Cover 0.
Using coverage shells effectively will make your defense significantly harder to read.
6. Custom Stems
College Football 25 introduces Custom Stems which allow you to shorten or lengthen your pass catchers’ routes.
Does the play art show a 15 yard out route for a specific receiver? You can now easily change it to a 5 yard out route or 20 yard out route.
Custom Stems are an absolute game changer on offense. TO activate custom stems just hold down the LB/L1 button while making a hot route and then adjusting the receiver’s route from there.
7. Online Dynasty Mode Tips
If you plan on playing in an online dynasty in College Football 25, you’ll want to learn the best tactics for recruiting and developing your players.
We recommend doing an offline dynasty first to familiarize yourself with how things work before jumping into an online dynasty that matters.
This could be the difference between landing that 5 star recruit your really want and barely missing him.
EA Sports has a pretty good run down of the mode which can help if you are short on time.
Well, there you have it. We hope you have a blast with College Football 25. See you on the virtual gridiron!