Colton Corner’s: The return of College Football video games

Texas State will be featured in the new College Football 25 video game along with the other 135 FBS teams. Texas State was shown in hype videos
Daily Record photo by Gerald Castillo

Colton McWilliams Sports Editor

This will be Texas State’s third time to appear in the EA Sports College Football video game series with the Bobcats making appeareances in NCAA 13 and NCAA 14
Daily Record photo by Colton McWilliams

The College Football 25 video game, which is scheduled to be released Monday, is perhaps one of the most anticipated video games in recent memory.

Since the release of NCAA Football 14 and the cancellation of the series, folks have saved their old Xbox 360s in order to still play the game, which has made a mark on many a college football fan.

One of the reasons for the cancellation of the series is due to the lawsuit brought upon former college athletes who sued Electronic Arts for using their Name, Image and Likeness without permission or compensation brought up by the O’Bannon v. NCAA case.

Though EA was happily wanting to pay athletes, the NCAA refused given its history of keeping amateurism in college athletics.

Then the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of NCAA v. Alston that the NCAA could not ban athletes from profiting off of NIL and opened the doors for the new video game to make its grand return.

The popularity of the CFB video games is not hard to figure out and why the series is more beloved than Madden NFL.

Gamers get to play as their alma mater against the other 133 schools in Football Bowl Subdivision whether it is online or against a friend. Gamers also can create their own player or coach and lead their own school to the national championship. I suspect there will be a number of Texas State fans creating their own player or coach and lead the Bobcats to the title.

One of my favorite aspects of the series is that you can play as anyone.

Compared to Madden, where you only have 32 teams who all run a pro style offense, the NCAA allows you to take control of a litany of different offenses that run contrasting styles.

At Texas State, you are running the Bobcats now-patented uptempo, high-scoring offense in sunny San Marcos. At Wyoming, you are running their traditional ground and pound rushing attack in the frigid confines of the Rocky Mountains. At Army, you take a hold of the troops to run a triple- option attack that focuses on ball control and winding down opponents while playing against archrival Navy, who runs a similar offense.

The preferred offensive style I have played in my NCAA 14 game has been Texas A&M's high powered offense run by then quarterback Johnny Manziel. Through years of playing, I memorized a certain set of plays then executed the no-huddle offense to a near perfection. However, it’s not all Air Raid passing though, more in the vein of the Bobcats offense under G.J. Kinne using the rushing attack before hitting defenses with the play action pass.

Perhaps my favorite mode in the game is Dynasty Mode.

Dynasty Mode allows you to take control of a football team and create, well a dynasty. Each season you must recruit players, turn them into the future stars of the program and meet the expectations of the video game boosters.

You can also play a little college football realignment in Dynasty. Don’t like Texas State being in the Sun Belt? Put them in the SEC. Don’t like the Big Ten at 18 teams? Restore the Pac-12 and make every conference at 12. Don’t like Texas and Texas A&M in the SEC? Restore the Southwest Conference. The limit of a dynasty is your imagination.

Many nights, I stayed up playing in dynasty mode much to the chagrin of my college roommates. Then it would upset them more when I whooped them in the game.

But what brings me joy is that now a new generation of the college and high school athletes will get that same experience as I did when NCAA14 came out.

I’m happy to see Texas State football players being able to play as themselves much like the generation of Bobcats football players did back in 2013.

That is what this game brings to everyone.

Now get ready for me to whoop your butt in the game once more.

cmcwilliams @sanmarcosrecord.com Twitter: @ColtonBMc