College football is back in video game form, and we at College Football Network couldn’t be more thrilled. So thrilled, in fact, that within a few hours of the game’s release, I began working on a project that looked at what simulating the 2024 season would look like.
The results are … eye-opening.
EA Sports College Football 25 Predicts 2024 Season
The 2024 college football season will look incredibly different than any other college football season. Among a litany of changes, the biggest alterations are summed up with a few keywords:
- Realignment
- Expansion
- Constant Change
The SEC welcomes Texas and Oklahoma. The Pac-12 is no more. The Big 12 brings in three teams for the second straight year. The ACC should now be known as the All Coasts Conference.
Kennesaw State joins the picture, but that’s not the only expansion. The College Football Playoff is now 12 teams deep and will likely see some spoiler-type matchups this season or in the very near future.
Constant change can be found in the two statements above and with the ever-present transfer portal as well as the coaching carousel that spins every single offseason. No two rosters look anything close to what they looked like a year ago.
So, how did the folks at EA Sports do with their season projections based on their team an player ratings? Let’s get to the logic behind what we did.
MORE: Player Ratings for Every Quarterback in the Game
I simulated the season on dynasty mode, not touching anything, and letting it go through every week of the regular season and the Playoffs to get the big but final picture of the season. With no intervention and a blank screen until the season was finished, going from every team with a 0-0 record to crowning National Champs and Heisman winners was a fun exercise to see what we could be looking at in December and January coming soon.
Multiple season simulations were done to get a good grasp on what this season could look like, here’s what we found through 10 season-long simulations as notable takeaways before we get into the nitty gritty below.
- Oregon won the National Championship 25% of the time
- Oregon won 4x Championships but qualified for a bye once
- Dillon Gabriel set the all-time passing record multiple times
- 43 different teams finished in the top 25
- All-American selections offered only slight differences
- The SEC was a mess more often than not
- Multiple Group of Five teams made the Playoff
- Only UNLV won more than one game as a G5 team in the Playoff
- No conference had a champion repeat more than 50%
Now, let’s break this down further.
Oregon Is the Best Team in EA Sports College Football 25
The Ducks are clearly the best team in the game, winning four of 10 seasons simulated. However, they hardly got the benefit of a first-round bye, finishing with their highest regular season ranking at No. 1 just once, a season in which they didn’t even win the national title.
In that season, the Ducks went 14-1, the best record through all the simulations, but lost in the semifinals to Kansas State.
Oregon won four College Football Playoffs, qualifying with eight playoff appearances in total; both landed as the most of any team, by far.
Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel won the Heisman Trophy in 10% of the simulations but earned All-American status as a first- or second-team player in all but two simulations. Gabriel won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm in seven of 10 simulations while teammates Tez Johnson and Trashon Holden landed as finalists for the Player of the Year award twice.
It wasn’t all offense that powered Oregon in these simulations, as the defensive side of the ball was well nominated for their fair share of awards. Jordan Burch won the Defensive Player of the Year and Lombardi Trophy on 20% of the simulations while Jeffrey Bassa finished as a finalist for each award in 50% of sims.
Strangely enough, however, neither made the list as All-Americans in the game.
EA Sports College Football 25 All-Americans Need Work
That was a natural segway into the fact that the All-American lists at the end of each season may grow lame to users. In fact, in 100% of the simulations we did, the same five offensive linemen were selected as First-Team All-Americans:
- LT Will Campbell, LSU
- LG Clay Webb, Jacksonville State
- C Jonah Monheim, USC
- RG Tate Ratledge, Georgia
- RT Jonah Savaiinaea, Arizona
Are those five the best five offensive linemen in the country? Probably.
Will there be a disparity between their previous successes on the field and their being the best by the season’s end? Absolutely.
Again, it’d be fine to see those five on the season-ending list the majority of the time, but not 100% of these simulations. But it didn’t stop there.
In fact, it may have gotten even worse.
On 100% of the simulations, the following First-Team Defensive All-Americans came to light:
- LE Jack Sawyer, Ohio State
- RE James Pearce Jr., Tennessee
- DT Mason Graham, Michigan
- LOLB Mykel Williams, Ohio State
- MLB Jay Higgins, Iowa
- ROLB Barrett Carter, Clemson
- CB Will Johnson, Michigan
- CB Benjamin Morrison, Notre Dame
- FS Caleb Downs, Ohio State
- SS Jonas Sanker, Virginia
The other defensive tackle spot only slightly changed between Kenneth Grant of Michigan and Walter Nolen of Ole Miss, the latter winning First-Team All-American in all but one simulation.
Like the offensive line selections, these players likely make up the best players overall at each of their respective positions. But we’re certainly lacking variance when you simulate full seasons. And that’s something that will likely be changed in some updates.
At least, we hope.
Conference Championships Vary Greatly
We know the team at EA knows how to make variance happen because their conference champions were all over the place in these simulations. In fact, no conference had a repeat champion more than 50% of the time, and only Michigan reached that mark (rightly or wrongly).
The ACC champions ranged from Boston College to Syracuse while SEC champs found their homes in Oklahoma to Alabama. Texas Tech, Arizona, Kansas State, UCF, Texas Tech, and Baylor each took home the Big 12 and the same variance was found at each level in the Group of Five.
That’s what makes this season so potentially special. There is so much parity in the transfer portal era that we truly don’t know what teams are capable of until they take the field on Saturday. We do know one thing though, and that’s the chance of December Madness happening by virtue of a G5 upset in the playoff.
UNLV Makes College Football Playoff History
In the simulation, only one Group of Five team won more than a single game after making the playoffs. That would be none other than the UNLV Rebels.
Head coach Barry Odom’s squad actually made it all the way to the National Championship this season, falling to Oregon in the process. Their upset victories came from the 12th seed, defeating No. 5 Penn State, No. 4 Arizona, and No. 8 Notre Dame.
It should be noted that UNLV would have become the first G5 team to win multiple games in the College Football Playoffs, but that’s not the only record we saw unfold.
Dillon Gabriel Becomes All-Time Leading Passer in College Football History
We’ll have much more on this all season long, but Oregon’s Gabriel has the chance to become the most illustrious passer in college football history this season. And if the simulations that came to light in this exercise have any merit, it’s truly a possibility.
Currently, Gabriel is 4,352 passing yards away from Case Keenum’s all-time record. In all but one simulation, Gabriel inched close to that record, including three times passing that mark with flying colors, including a ridiculous 5,167 yards over 16 games.
Yes, this is a video game simulation, but when you look at Gabriel’s numbers throughout his career, he is no stranger to putting up ‘video-game numbers’ throughout his stints at UCF and Oklahoma. With the potential to play even more games than ever, Gabriel is set to make the Race to Case a very interesting one this season.
For more information on our simulation exercise on EA Sports College Football 25, please feel free to reach out to me on social media (@cammellor) or email me.
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