Tag: EA Sports College Football

Report: Arch Manning opts out of ‘EA Sports College Football 25’

EA Sports is bringing back their popular college football video game, but Arch Manning opted out. Athletes are paid $600 to be in the game.

EA Sports is set to release a college football video game this summer for the first time since 2013, and the game will feature real players.

Peyton Manning’s nephew, Arch Manning (a sophomore at Texas), has decided to opt out of the game, according to a report from
Anwar Richardson of Orangebloods.com.

Earlier this week, EA Sports announced that more than 10,000 college football players have opted into being in the video game. Players who opt in receive $600 and a free copy of the game as part of EA’s name, image, and likeness deal with the student-athletes.

It’s a flat fee for every player and, so far, no known exceptions have been made. It’s possible that Manning might be holding out for a better offer, but that’s just speculation. EA surely does not want to set a precedent of negotiating individual deals with players to be featured in the game.

If Manning eventually becomes a college star, though, EA might change their mind. For now, No. 16 won’t be featured in the video game.

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Notre Dame has huge news regarding NCAA College Football video game

How many title will you win playing as the Irish?

For a little while, it looked like Notre Dame football fans wouldn’t be able to play with their favorite team when the NCAA College Football video game returns.

Well, the bug was squashed on Tuesday as the Irish officially announced that they are backing up their players and will allow them to be in the game. Outgoing athletic director Jack Swarbrick was quoted as saying “after nearly two years of work with EA Sports, we’re proud to announce that our fans around the world will be able to play as the Fighting Irish in the upcoming College Football franchise.”

It has been over 10 years since gamers have been able to fire up a new version of EA Sports College Football, but a new edition will return this summer.

Like many, I am extremely excited to get a chance to play once again, and finally can retire my XBox 360.

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Ranking which former Wisconsin Badgers should appear on the cover of EA College Football 25

Which Wisconsin Badgers, former or current, would you want to see on an EA Sports College Football cover?

If you missed it Friday, EA Sports gave college football fans the news they’ve been waiting for: EA College Football 25 is on the way.

There will be a full reveal in May, but the release date will be this summer. Chris Vannini of The Athletic wrote “the official release date has not been announced, but it will likely be July.”

Related: Which Big Ten football team has the toughest conference schedule in 2024?

Speaking as a longtime fan of the sport and former player of the NCAA video game series, this is incredible news.

Yes, there was a period of turmoil with litigation surrounding amateurism and name, image and likeness. But with it now being essentially a free market, it’s great news that the video game is returning.

Now for the important part of this article: Which current or former Wisconsin Badgers would’ve made the best cover athletes?

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The rules: They must have played for the Badgers after 2014, the last time the game was released. Any Wisconsin Badger from 2014 to the present day.

Here are the top candidates:

Five Nittany Lions who deserve to be on the cover of EA Sports’ College Football 25

Five Penn State players that deserve to be on the cover of EA Sports’ College Football 25

Social media exploded on Thursday morning as EA Sports dropped a teaser video for College Football 25, and Penn State fans shared the excitement of the entire college football community. Due to naming rights and licensing with the players, EA Sports has been unable to release a new installment of the game since 2013. But with the world of NIL at an all-time high, those difficulties are no more, and the game will be back this summer just in time for the new college football season.

If you watch closely during the teaser, Penn State is one of only a few schools to be shown throughout the trailer, along with Oklahoma, Florida, Notre Dame, Alabama, Michigan State, Nebraska, Michigan, Texas A&M, Florida State, and Georgia. This may not mean much, but this does all but guarantee that Penn State will be included in the game’s newest edition.

In the 11 years since the previous game, the Nittany Lions have had some dominant collegiate players who never got to see themselves in a video game unless they made it to the NFL. Several Nittany Lions delivered video game cover-worthy performances, so there is no shortage of options if EA Sports decides to put a Penn State player on the cover.

With three consensus All-Americans, four first-round NFL draft picks, six New Year’s Six bowl appearances, and five 10-plus win seasons since the release of the last NCAA Football game, Penn State fans will for sure have many players that come to mind when discussing the next cover athlete.

Penn State’s ability to consistently win double-digit wins makes Penn State one of the best programs to build from if they choose to play dynasty/franchise mode, but as the much-anticipated game’s release draws closer, here are five Nittany Lions who deserve a shot at being on the cover.

Five Kentucky players who could have been on the cover of EA’s College Football games

Kentucky football players have never been on EA Sports College Football cover, but some could have been

Much to the delight of sports video game fans everywhere, EA Sports is bringing back its very popular College Football series later this year. It began in 1993 as Bill Walsh College Football, and ran until the 2014 version. After that, it was cancelled due to legal issues with player likenesses, and remained dormant for a decade.

Beginning in 1997, EA began putting actual athletes on the video game covers, after using Walsh and team mascots previously. In the years from 1997 to 2014, a number of different college football stars graced the cover, but there was never one from Kentucky.

While no Wildcat players ever made it onto the cover, it’s likely that some were at least in the conversation. Here are five that could have been the cover athlete over the years.

NCAA Football Video Game Returns: Notre Dame Players We Missed Out On

Which Notre Dame player would have been the best to play with?

College football has its own cult-like following that makes it truly unique compared to any other American sport.  Even in that group there are sub-groups that are even that much more passionate.

One of those groups includes anyone who was ever a fan of the NCAA Football video game by EA Sports.

Personally, I can’t begin to estimate the total hours spent as a high school student in my parents house playing that game, the amount of hours I invested in it during college, or the hours I spent in my early-20’s with it.

However, it went away after the NCAA Football ’13 edition, meaning we’ve gone a full decade (2014-2023 seasons) now without the game.

So which players in that time did we especially miss playing with if we would have been playing as Notre Dame?

Here are the 11 we missed out in video game form the most.

EA Sports plans 2024 release for college football video game franchise’s return

EA Sports still on track to bring college football video game back in 2024.

It has been a decade since the last time EA Sports released a title in the former NCAA Football video game franchise, but the drought is about to come to an end. In a story published by On3, a spokesperson confirms EA Sports will release its highly-anticipated college football video game in the summer of 2024.

“We’re incredibly excited to bring back an authentic college football experience for fans and athletes that have shown such passion for the franchise, and we’re looking forward to delivering it in Summer 2024,” an EA Sports representative said in a statement to On3.

EA Sports put its famous NCAA Football franchise on the shelf after the release of NCAA Football 14 in the summer of 2013. Legal battles about the use of player likenesses helped pave the way for today’s world of Name, Image, and Likeness we have today. And one of the biggest questions many fans of the franchise wondered once the NCAA adopted NLI policies was how soon it would be before a college football video game returned to the market.

EA Sports previously announced it was beginning the planning and development of a newly revived college football video game under the working title of EA Sports College Football, and a 2024 release window was previously suggested as the timeline. And what a year to bring the video game back to the masses.

The 2024 season will mark the beginning of the 18-team Big Ten with the additions of USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington and an expanded Big 12 (Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah) and SEC (Oklahoma and Texas). The start of the new 12-team College Football Playoff is scheduled to begin in the 2024 season as well.

EA Sports has yet to share any information about the college football video game just yet, but it should be expected to be available on current generation consoles like the Sony PlayStation 5 and Xbox One. Nintendo Switch fans will likely be the ones left for disappointment, but hopefully those of us with a Switch will be able to take our favorite college football video game on the go.

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Imagining a Patrick Mahomes EA Sports College Football cover that never was

Our friends at @College_Wire recently pondered which players could have been cover athletes on EA Sports’ College Football games in each year since 2014.

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Fans will soon get a new NCAA college football video game with, EA Sports College Football reaching an agreement to compensate athletes for the use of name, image and likeness.

That means a whole new era of college athletes will get an opportunity to see themselves in a video game and perhaps even as the cover athlete before reaching the NFL. But what of the players who should have had their moment and opportunity over the past 10 years?

The last game from EA Sports, NCAA Football 2014, featured Michigan Wolverines QB Denard Robinson on the cover. Our friend Patrick Conn of College Sports Wire recently explored which athletes could have since been the cover athletes. While he thinks the 2017 edition of the classic video game franchise would have featured Lamar Jackson on the cover, he also considered the possibility that Mahomes could have landed on the cover too.

Mahomes’ team might not have won very many games, but he put up those ridiculous video game numbers in 2016. Not to mention who can forget the number of NCAA records set in the Oklahoma-Texas Tech matchup that season. Mahomes finished 2016 with 5,337 yards of offense and was responsible for 53 touchdowns.

Mahomes certainly had the statistical numbers to garner consideration, but the fact that his team didn’t win a whole lot of games and didn’t compete for championships really would have hurt his cause. Conn certainly isn’t wrong about that barnburner with Oklahoma, though. That would almost certainly be the game that a moment worthy of the video game cover would come from.

The record-setting performance saw 125 total points, which was the second-most all-time between ranked opponents. Mahomes came a yard shy of the record for the most pass attempts in a single game (88) and tied the NCAA record for passing yards in a single game (734).

With what we’ve seen from Mahomes in the NFL, he’d gladly trade all those stats and numbers for the win.

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Actual players will be allowed in ‘EA Sports College Football’

Will this influence your decision to buy the game?

When EA Sports announced that college football would be returning to its lineup, former enthusiasts rejoiced. Now, thanks to the advent of NIL, the rechristened “EA Sports College Football” will be even better. That’s because EA Sports has confirmed to ESPN that actual Football Bowl Subdivision players who opt in will be featured in the game. Those players will be compensated.

It is not yet known whether Notre Dame will agree to be included in the game, which is slated for release in 2024, but it appears a major hurdle for that scenario has been cleared. When EA Sports made the fateful return announcement in 2021, the university was among a handful of schools that said it wouldn’t participate in the new game unless NIL compensation could be agreed upon. Northwestern and Tulsa opted in after this latest announcement, so it appears to be only a matter of time before the Irish domino falls.

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New report sheds light on the return of ‘EA Sports College Football’ video game series

The last version of the game was released back on July 9, 2013!

Earlier this week, Brandon Farcello and 247Sports released details on the long-awaited return of EA Sports College Football. The famed video game franchise hasn’t released a new edition since NCAA Football 14 almost a decade ago. Several months after the July release of that game, the Redwood City, California publisher announced that they would not be publishing a new college football game for the foreseeable future. General Manager of American Football for EA Sports Cam Weber issued a statement saying,

“We have been stuck in the middle of a dispute between the NCAA and student-athletes who seek compensation for playing college football. Just like companies that broadcast college games and those that provide equipment and apparel, we follow rules that are set by the NCAA – but those rules are being challenged by some student-athletes.  For our part, we are working to settle the lawsuits with the student-athletes.  Meanwhile, the NCAA and a number of conferences have withdrawn their support of our game.” 

And that was that. A franchise that started with Bill Walsh College Football in the winter of ’93/’94 was gone.

But many may forget that a former Nebraska quarterback filed one of the lawsuits that eventually led to the end of the partnership between EA Sports and the NCAA.