The full game was released on Friday, but players received a deluxe edition early, and along with their copy, they were paid $600 each for the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL). Cover stars Quinn Ewers of Texas, Travis Hunter of Colorado and Donovan Edwards of Michigan made even more.
“I didn’t have very high expectations for my grade,” Missouri quarterback Brady Cook said Tuesday at SEC media day in Dallas. “I didn’t expect to get 95 or 96. I’ll save that for Luther. I thought I’d be happy with 85 or above, but I ended up with 88, so I’ve got to laugh about it.”
The man in question is wide receiver Luther Baden III, Cook’s No. 1 target and a preseason Heisman Trophy candidate. With a 94 rating, he’s tied for the third-best player in the game. Baden and Cook faced off at Baden’s apartment on Sunday, with both choosing to play at Missouri. Cook was glued to the screens and finished with 600 yards passing and more than 150 yards rushing in the win.
With myself, of course. Finally.
But are the coaching staff worried about players playing too much heading into the upcoming season?
“Well, three of them won’t be working the game until later, but that’s good, because they’re here with me,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea joked in Dallas. “If it were me, I’d be at that game. They’d be at it. Look, we tell them that all the time: There are always sacrifices in what we do, and that includes having times when you have to turn off and sleep.”
Florida coach Billy Napier already dealt with tired players at media day this week — it’s still the offseason, and running back Montrell Johnson Jr. admitted to playing games until 2 a.m. — but it’s not like the team is shying away from it.
“We got early access to the game, our team met in the Gator Room, and we divided our responsibility teams into brackets,” Napier said. “We had to pick two players from each team. There were four stations set up. We had pizza and chicken wings. And really, talk about competition. Talk about the energy in the room. I mean, it was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Football tradition and the modern business of college sports collide at Vanderbilt. Sacrifice This includes shutting down the video games that they were paid to play. In Florida, Accountability Groups They will also be teammates on College Football 25.
Such a ruling would have been unthinkable before the NCAA changed its rules to allow college athletes to earn NIL income on July 1, 2021. Indeed, the hypocrisy was clear. O’Bannon v. NCAA — the landmark case that led to NIL rights for athletes — began when Ed O’Bannon saw himself in a video game and wondered why he wasn’t receiving a dime.
At the time, the avatars resembled former UCLA basketball player O’Bannon and wore his uniform number, 31. But the NCAA and EA Sports didn’t use their names to avoid legal responsibility for paying the athletes. Amateurism, you know.
It’s a great sign of the times that this game exists and that players are benefiting from it, but not every player has Cook’s experience and the ability to control the game with his own little personality. In fact, not every player has the chance to control themselves.
Take Texas A&M offensive lineman Trey Zoon III: “I can’t play as a left tackle.”
Or, as Vanderbilt offensive lineman Gunnar Hansen put it, “When I’m not doing well, I think the only thing I can do is curse at myself.”
Or as South Carolina linebacker Debo Williams put it: “Just shut everything down. Get interceptions, get sacks, cause havoc, get turnovers.”
“South Carolina didn’t have any players with a 90 or higher rating,” said Williams, who hadn’t checked his own ratings beforehand. “They’re already trying to ruin our season.”
Not all college football players will appear in the game. Some, such as Ohio State defensive end JT Tuimoloau, declined to sign a license deal, but can renew and participate at any time. University of Texas backup quarterback Arch Manning (Peyton’s nephew, Cooper’s son Eli) also initially declined, but reversed course after signing a lucrative NIL contract with EA Sports. Manning, who received an 87-point rating despite only throwing five passes in college, announced that he would be participating in a video campaign with his uncle Eli. Everyone has a price.
A criticism of the standard contract is that to play in College Football 25, players had to sign the same terms as they would for future games made while in college: $600 plus the deluxe edition. This structure allowed EA Sports to secure NIL rights for a flat fee, no matter how well the game sells. And, at least anecdotally so far, a whole lot of people have bought the game.
