5 features we hope are included in the new EA Sports College Football game

More than a decade ago, EA Sports shuttered its college football series as legal concerns mounted around the game's use of college athletes' likenesses without any ability to compensate those players for their contributions to the game.

Fans desperate to play out their gridiron fantasies on college campuses continued to cling to weathered copies of NCAA Football 14, with dedicated individuals continuing to modify rosters from season to season to keep the aging game as fresh as possible.

Once the NCAA finally loosened its policies on name, image, and likeness rights, it opened the door for fans to begin hoping about the next installment of the dormant franchise. With the ability to pay players to put their names and images into the game for the first time, it opens the door for a new level of realism for a studio that prides itself on ensuring that "if it's in the game, it's in the game."

With the release date now set and sneak previews beginning to be released to the public ahead of the summer release of College Football 25, what features are you hoping will make the final cut into the new game?

Here are five features we hope to see on July 19 when we pick up our copies of the game.

1. Total control over the recruiting cycle

Details emerging about the newest EA Sports college football game have teased a more extensive system for recruiting in Dynasty Mode.

Players taking over a school will have to account for both high school recruiting and the transfer portal (unless they're playing as Dabo Swinney at Clemson, of course).

One feature that would take this aspect of the game even further is to include NIL collectives and the ability to entice recruits to your university with monthly stipends. Given the significance of name, image, and likeness rights to the mere existence of this new era for the EA Sports college football series, it would add that next level of realism to the experience.

We also hope that players managing football programs through Dynasty Mode will have to grapple with the fluctuating state of emotions for a roster of dozens of players and work to either retain disenchanted athletes or give them the Deion Sanders treatment. For college football fans excited to get a new game back after playing the same dusty titles for over a decade, packing in as much of the dynamics of the brave new world that exists on the gridiron will only make the release that much stronger.

2. More than just the full slate of FBS teams

One of the most memorable moments in college football history was Appalachian State's Cinderella takedown of Michigan at the Big House back in 2007. Along with the Mountaineers, other lower-division powerhouses like Marshall have used their dominance in the FCS playoffs and their upsets of FBS opponents to springboard their path into the top level of the sport.

EA Sports has already assured fans that all 134 FBS teams will feature in College Football 25. When the studio first started releasing college football titles with Bill Walsh College Football back in 1993, the processing power of that generation of gaming systems meant only the top 24 teams from the 1992 season made the cut into the game. Since 1996, though, every FBS (or I-A at the time) team has been included in the annual release, so this announcement is hardly shocking from EA Sports.

What would be shocking is if the studio turned around and told fans that they planned to include all 128 FCS teams in the game—right down to the uniforms, fight songs, and home stadiums. While the game will inevitably feature the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff, imagine if you could also play the full 24-team NCAA Division I playoff.

To take this feature all the way, EA Sports could even allow for FCS dynasties to negotiate with FBS conferences to transition up to the top division—which brings us to the third feature we'd love to see...

3. Allow players to tinker with conference realignments

Since the last release of the EA Sports franchise, a lot has changed in the college football world. The Bowl Championship Series has given way to the College Football Playoff. The aforementioned advent of NIL rights and the transfer portal changed the dynamic in favor of greater player agency.

But college football has always been about the name on the front of the jersey as much as it is about the names on the back of the jerseys. A game built on the premise of fighting first for local supremacy, then regional supremacy, and finally national supremacy has flipped on its head. Where the BCS crawled, the College Football Playoff has run with the script of deemphasizing regional connections in favor of filling up athletic departments' coffers.

Imagine if you could revive the Pac-12—or even go back to the days when it was just a Pac-10. What if you could reanimate the WAC from the dead and revive it in its mid-1990s glory? If EA Sports really wants to up the realism, it should consider allowing players of the game to manipulate conference compositions and create new conferences. If it is going to happen in the real world, after all, why shouldn't it be included in the new release?

4. Include historic teams and players in the game

Past EA Sports titles have included historic players and teams in the past. Unfortunately, that is a major reason why the NCAA Football series shut down in the first place. When former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon encountered his virtual likeness while playing NCAA Basketball 09, it kicked off the court case that led EA Sports to shutter its college titles and stick to pro sports for more than a decade.

This one might still be a challenge, for while it is relatively easy to track down a group of current college football players to sign over NIL rights for the game, it isn't always as easy to get those rights from past players. But it would be well worth the trouble for EA to make that effort and collaborate with former football players to render classic teams into the new game.

Imagine if you could pit some of Alabama's greatest teams against the best from Pete Carroll's USC dynasty, or one of Bobby Bowden's championship teams at Florida State, or the Nebraska juggernaut that dominated the mid-1990s. Coming full circle and reintroducing historic teams—and doing it the right way this time, with buy-in from those legendary players of the past—would add another layer of value to this long-awaited release.

5. Bring back mascot games

Hands down, one of the quirkiest features of past NCAA Football editions was the ability to play football games with a team of 11 mascots from your favorite school.

For those kids who dreamed about traipsing around in a giant anthropomorphized animal costume and tackling people, or just those who liked a little levity in their football experience, there was nothing quite as hilarious as watching a bunch of trees and oranges run around the gridiron.

While EA Sports is probably more focused on ensuring that its first college football game in more than a decade fits in as much realism as fans of its various titles have come to expect, it would be a shame if the studio elected to spend all its time rendering humans and ignored one of its greatest features from past releases.

That is one of the greatest things that separates college football from its NFL counterpart. While college football is big business, it is also a place where idiosyncrasies and uniqueness are able to shine through. What better way to reintroduce this classic title than to bring back the biggest quirk of all?