How to Choose the Best Pipelines for You in College Football 25
Licensed college football video games are back, baby, and we’re having the time of our lives (weird option controls and all) with EA Sport College Football 25. A continuation on NCAA Football 14introduced the game with numerous features including the engaging pipeline system.
The pipelines system, available in Dynasty Mode, helps the game better replicate real-world college football recruiting. You might be wondering what pipelines are And how to choose the best pipelines in EA Sport College Football 25. You have come to the right place.
What are pipelines?
Pipelines are states or regions that a school or coach has extra familiarity with. Mechanically, this means that recruits from your school or coaches’ pipeline regions are more likely to be interested in your school.
This is meant to mimic IRL recruiting, where high school students are often (but not always!) more interested in schools in or near their home state than in moving far from home. Even this is factored into the game — for some recruits, proximity to home is a high priority (or even a dealbreaker); for others, it barely matters. But the pipeline will help you get in.
Some states are split into multiple pipelines, and some states are combined into one pipeline. For example, the extremely high-talent states of California, Georgia, Florida, and Texas are all split into multiple pipelines (e.g., “Central Florida,” “South Georgia”), while less high-talent states are combined into multiple state regions such as “Big Sky” and “Pacific Northwest.”
Image: EA Tiburon/Electronic Arts via Polygon
Schools operate on a tiered ranking system for their pipelines, from one (weakest) to five (strongest). Each school has a pipeline level based on how well they have historically recruited that region. These pipeline levels for schools are locked and do not change over the course of your save file, but you can edit your coach’s pipeline via the ‘Edit Coach’ menu.
What is the best pipeline for my team?
When you create a coach in Dynasty Mode, you’ll choose a pipeline for the coach. Narratively, this represents your coach’s professional background — where did they cut their teeth before landing this role? Where do they have the most connections to high school coaches? Mechanically, this is a way to choose which region you want to get a head start on when recruiting.
For example, I have a Dynasty Mode save that features Maryland, where I went to school. For my coach there, I chose the Tidewater pipeline because it covers the region that Maryland is in and where they generally like to recruit (there is no official explanation of what “Tidewater” covers, but since Maryland, DC, Virginia, and Delaware aren’t pipeline options, I think it’s safe to assume that’s what Tidewater means here). My goal in this save is to eventually dominate the Tidewater region with Maryland and get the best recruits there year after year.
Image: EA Tiburon/Electronic Arts via Polygon
But for a dynasty with New Mexico, a school I don’t want to stay at forever, picking a Texas or California pipeline would make more sense than the New Mexico pipeline. Both states are close enough to New Mexico that I would still score just fine on the Proximity to Home assessment, and hopefully it would allow me to snag a few overlooked recruits from those crowded regions.
Schools also prefer coaches who have a network that aligns with theirs. For example, if you want to start a dynasty at a one-star school but ultimately land a job at Alabama, you might want to choose Alabama as your network.
What are the best pipelines in general?
Again, it’s best to view this in the context of your school and your goals for the saved file. This is a subjective choice, not an objective one.and it is generally better to choose an area that suits your school and your saved file, rather than just choosing the area where most of the files are located.
But maybe you’re coaching at a school that can get just about any recruit they want, like Alabama or Georgia. With a plethora of choices, what should you prioritize?
The differences Florida, Texas, Georgia and California pipelines are strong starting points – each will have a variety of talent in each class. In addition to these, Louisiana and Metro Atlanta Are there other options with a lot of talent worth considering?
Each pipeline region not only has a certain level of high-quality talent, but also a type of quality talent tied to the region. We don’t know them all, but here are a few examples of EA’s deep dive in Dynasty mode:
For example, Southern California is known for producing great quarterback talent, while East Texas consistently produces some of the best wide receivers in the country. But we didn’t stop there. We wanted to dig deeper to make sure we were capturing the authenticity of the talent coming out of high school. Yes, East Texas is known for producing great receivers, but more specifically, they’re known for how big and physical their receivers are. As a result, you’re going to see bigger and more physical receivers come out of East Texas, while South Florida is going to produce incredibly fast deep threat receivers who are smaller in size.
In short, the answer is, “it depends on what you want.” Are you looking for QBs in particular? Southern California is the way to go. Do you want to dominate your school’s region? Go for that.
One of the great things about college football dynasties is that you make it your own and you can set your own goals. The pipeline system is another way to enrich that experience.
For more College Football 25 Check out our beginner’s guide or learn how to throw a perfect touch pass.