9 Beginner Tips You Need to Know Before Starting EA Sports College Football 25
EA Sport College Football 25 has brought American football back to the virtual world for the first time in over a decade, meaning even the most seasoned NCAA veterans will have to shake off some of the rust.
To help you get started right away, here are some of our best EA Sport College Football 25 beginner tips to keep in mind when you’re just starting out, whether you’re embarking on your first big Dynasty or collecting the best cards possible in Ultimate Team.
Choose your favorite team
When you first start up College Football 25the game will ask you to select your favorite team. While this mostly affects the look of the main menu and which school the game starts you at in the team selection screen, it also has an added bonus in Ultimate Team.
To help you get started, the game will generate a new team for you with different players from your favorite team. While this may seem like you have to pick the best team you can, they all result in a squad that totals 65, and you will be replacing the players you take out quickly. So don’t think too much about this, just pick your favorite team and don’t worry too much about the Ultimate Team selection they give you.
Start with some Ultimate Team challenges first
Image: EA Tiburon/Electronic Arts
If you’re a virtual college football veteran, there’s probably nothing you’re looking forward to about jumping right into your first Dynasty. But College Football 25 contains many changes from the previous version. The easiest way to experience these changes is in Ultimate Team’s Challenge mode, even if you don’t plan on spending a lot of time in the mode.
More specifically, you should go through the Ultimate Team 101 Challenges as soon as you start the game. These will feel a bit basic, but they should help you get used to the new passing mechanics, the newly rebuilt option plays (which use a different control scheme than before), and the new kicking mechanics.
Find your perfect script
College Football 25 has over 100 unique playbooks and 10 different offensive schemes, which can make choosing which scheme to use a little daunting. Luckily, Ultimate Team’s Challenges are back in the game with the Offense and Defense Scheme Trials Challenges.
These challenges are designed to give you a taste of each scheme, from Air Raid to Spread Option, and to show you which teams are using each scheme. This should give you a solid foundation for your first few games, and is a perfect place to start experimenting.
Play some games
All that preparation and planning is great, but at the end of the day, the game is all about playing it, and that’s the best way to learn. Play a few games with your favorite school, and once you get the hang of it, you can change it up and experiment with other playbooks and NCAA stars.
Experiment with the Switch Stick
Image: EA Tiburon/Electronic Arts
One of the College Football 25‘s new feature is called the Switch Stick, which lets you switch players in the defensive secondary with more precision than the one-button switches in previous games. It might not sound like much, but it can actually make a big difference — for example, if you’re trying to switch to a safety to cut off a route instead of a cornerback who’s already in coverage.
But to get the most out of the Switch Stick’s potential, you’re going to have to experiment with it quite a bit. The best way to do that is to just play some games, but you’re likely to give up some embarrassing touchdowns while you’re experimenting, so it’s best to limit this one to Play Now.
Start Dynasty Mode with a trial run
The Dynasty mode is really the star of College Football 25with all sorts of new additions to the formula that made it great over a decade ago. But with all these new additions, the mode is now even more complicated, and there’s a lot to mix up in the menus. If you’re planning on building a Group of Five conference from the ground up all the way to the College Football Playoffs, the last thing you need is to lose a five-star recruit because you pressed the wrong button in a menu.
That’s why we think you should create a test Dynasty before you actually sign up. Start with a school you don’t care much about so the mistakes won’t bother you. You could even start with an existing powerhouse, that way you’ll get a taste of what it’s like to recruit and have some influence before you go hard mode and try to build Old Dominion into a top-ranked program.
Play every Solo Battle you can
Image: EA Tiburon/Electronic Arts
(Editorial note: Ultimate Team isn’t necessarily for everyone. So if you’re mainly interested in the Road to Glory and Dynasty modes, don’t worry about the next few tips. They’re for Ultimate Team players only.)
Solo Battles in Ultimate Team are a mode where you compete against another player’s Ultimate Team roster. The special thing is that it is played by the computer, not the player who created it. Each Solo Battle gives you more rewards than a normal game against the AI, such as Solo Season games.
Solo Battles are technically community events that last about four days each. During that time, everyone plays against the same user-generated rosters. New matchups appear every morning, and you can play against four of them each day. Each match earns you a Battle Score based on how difficult the game was, how you played, and whether or not you won the game. At the end of each four-day event, the scores are tallied, a leaderboard is created of the top performers, and everyone gets special rewards based on how well they did.
Check in on sets
Sets are an Ultimate Team mechanic that allows you to convert multiple lower-rated players into a single player with a higher overall rating. You don’t need to worry about this too much at first, but as you upgrade your team, check the Sets menu to see if you can convert any of your old unwanted players into meaningful upgrades.
Buy Ultimate Team Daily Recruitment Pack
You can purchase a new Recruit Pack every day for a discounted price. The packs only contain low-rated players, but at just 100 UT they are worth grabbing every day to fill your early Sets.