We are getting a new college football video game!

We just covered the best players we missed out on playing with in the decade of absence from the video game. 

The good news is, the game is finally coming back.

And with it coming back, that means everyone's favorite game modes are returning (except for Mascot Mashup). 

Players will once again be able to step in and lead their favorite team to greatness in Road to Glory, take over an unsuspecting MAC team to make them a national powerhouse, or they can do both. 

While we have gotten a good amount of information on what will be in the game upon release, we don't know if that is everything. 

So what are some of the top things we hope are in College Football 25? Let's take a look.

File Share for Custom Recruiting classes

We all came to love the people who input the updated rosters with real players year in and year out, making them available to download for the community. Now do the same with recruiting classes. Allow users to go in and update recruiting classes every year and allow them to upload all the names to a file share for community download. We see it with Madden draft classes. Now bring it to college football. Bonus points if they partner with 247 and On3 to have pre-made accurate recruiting classes available on launch.

Have a collective NIL fund

The ins and outs of NIL are far above my pay grade, but the game should allow each school to have a fund. The bigger the school the bigger the fund. For example, Alabama gets $1 million, and a school like UTEP gets $300K.

Allow for schools to be able to add to that NIL fund via performance incentives

This is quite simple, the better your school performs the more money gets poured into the program. Say UNLV wins the Mountain West. They should receive "x" amount of money added to their NIL fund. Say Vanderbilt–for whatever reason–lucks into an SEC championship game appearance. They should receive a bigger boost to their NIL fund due to the fact that no one would have predicted them to do so, and receive more if they win it.

Recruiting Battles

Now this was in NCAA 14, but let’s expand on it. Let’s say you’re locked in on one recruit with another school or two. You should be able to offer the player various promises, such as immediate playing time, or even perhaps be able to get into an NIL bidding war. Offer a player "x" amount of NIL money in your budget, simulate a week, and then the player chooses his school. You could also be allowed to see what the other school offered once the decision has been made. Give the user situations where they offered more money but made no promises, so the recruit ended up going to the school with the school that gave them more promises.

Booster influence

Say a school like TCU lands a big-time recruit. Add scenarios where the coach is facing pressure from boosters to play "x" player a certain amount of snaps by "y" point in a season. If the coach does, great. Funding continues as was established via their NIL fund. If they don’t, money can be taken away from their NIL fund.

More than 35 players to a recruiting board

College football recruiting boards are much deeper than 35 players. Allow for schools to have upwards of 50 players on a recruiting board. And then of course allow teams to have more points they can spend on players each week.

Allow teams to have local camps over the summer

Most college teams have local combine-style summer camps, and if they don't they have staff travel to a school that does. Add these to the game so teams can learn more about the kids in their backyard. A team such as SMU or TCU should have a better picture of prospects from the Dallas-Fort Worth area than a team like Michigan State, and vice versa.

In-depth transfer portal

In the previous game, the transfer portal wasn’t much of anything. Once the season ends there could be a new hub in addition to recruiting that has players who have entered the portal. Users should be able to offer the player guarantees and NIL fund money just like recruiting to come to your school. Be careful not to spend all of your NIL fund money on high schoolers in case a big-time transfer hits the portal.

Add "transfer rumors" to the ESPN news section

Every year we see big-time players not getting the promises delivered to them that a school made during recruiting or a school is just underperforming, leading to shifting interests from recruits. Jaheim Bell didn’t like the situation at South Carolina, so he went to Florida State. Evan Stewart produced on an underwhelming Texas A&M team then left for Oregon. Add a news section that player "x" has grown frustrated with the situation at "y" school. Allow for these players to be contacted where you can express your interest in adding the player to your team for next season should he enter the portal. You can offer promises such as playing time, but no NIL fund money until he hits the portal.

Ceiling to recruits

When a player commits you should know a good deal about him. However, rarely do you know the full picture. Add ceiling ratings. Add a ceiling rating, for when a player reaches his full potential. When a player commits he should be given a 2-letter range C-A, D-B, and so on. Once they play a certain amount of snaps should that grade be lowered to a one letter range like B-A, or C-B. Once they hit a second snap threshold their true ceiling should be shown with a definitive attribute number like 87.

I didn’t come to play school

Well, you have to have grades to be able to play. Give scenarios where a player is doing a poor job in their studies and they are forced to sit out a game due to poor academic performance  (dynasty mode specific).

Summer training camp battles

Say you have a promising sophomore and a steady senior at a position. Give scenarios where if the sophomore outperforms the senior during summer or spring ball they receive a +3 attribute boost (relevant to their position) that boosts them over the senior. Dock the loser of the battle two attribute points relevant to their position.

Upgrading stadiums change sponsorships

We see stadium renovations and sponsorships change quite often in college football. Allow for the user to upgrade the stadium and change their sponsor for their uniforms depending on team performance.

Generational recruits in classes

We saw Madden add the all-elusive generational prospect a few years back. Add the same to college football. Once every so often a player should be coming out of high school who can change the face of the program. Add them to default loaded recruiting classes.

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Now, are all of these features attainable in the first release in ten years of a game?

No, absolutely not. That's a lot to ask for.

But details like that would add a lot to the user experience and shouldn't be much of a challenge to add (because they exist in other EA games already). There's already infrastructure in place for file share of recruiting classes, greater than 35 recruits to a board, the rumors section, and the generational recruits. Hopefully we some of this wishlist come true on EA Sports College Football 25.

Top five players we missed out on playing with in the NCAA College Football Game video game over the years

We were robbed of missing out on some great collegiate players with the absence of a college football video game. Who were some of the best?