EA Sports Officially Bringing College Football Back

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Photo: @EASportscollege - Twitter

After seven years of pure depression, the impossible has become possible. Happiness has returned to the world. Hope is filling hearts everywhere. EA Sports is officially bringing College Football back to their lineup of yearly video game drops.

The last time we saw EA put out a college football game, it was 2014 and Denard Robinson of Michigan graced the cover. Back then, it was “NCAA Football”. It looks like we’ll see a change to “EA Sports College Football”.

“It all starts really with where we see college football as going. There’s a lot of things happening, and there’s a lot of things happening in sports,” Holt said. “EA Sports College Football gives us a name and a brand to kind of work around for some things that might evolve as well as what we’re focusing on really out of the gate, which is really the FBS Division I schools and the road to the College Football Playoff and college football championship.”

via ESPN

When do we see it on shelves?

We don’t know. According to this article released by ESPN, there won’t be a game released in 2021. EA is still in the process of putting together the team that will work to develop the game. By the sounds of it, Summer 2022 would be the earliest, but that’s only my best guess.

“Madden 22” will release late this summer, like it always does. If “College Football” isn’t releasing a game this year, then we won’t see a “2022” version. That means we can only hope for “College Football ’23”.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t ready to fire things up and get rolling. They’ve already setup a plan with “Tiburon”, who developed the original EA NCAA Football games and they have the licensing rights and playbooks for over 100 D1 schools.

Player Names and Likeness

As of now, the game will not have real names or player likeness included. There are still NCAA restrictions in place that do not allow that to happen. That could change before the first release, however, depending on when it comes and how different the “student athlete” label is at that point.

Times are certainly changing in that aspect, which is noted in the ESPN piece.

For now, EA Sports is planning to move forward without rosters that include the names, images or likenesses of real college players. Current NCAA rules prohibit athletes from selling their NIL rights while in college.

However, those rules are likely to be changed at some point in the coming year — by the NCAA, state legislatures or Congress. It’s not yet clear whether the evolving rules will allow for the kind of group licensing arrangements that would be needed for EA Sports to negotiate with athletes to use their names in the game.

Holt said that EA Sports will monitor the NIL discussion if and when things change but that it’s too early for that to happen. He also said what happens in NIL legislation will not change whether the game happens or when it will end up on shelves.

ESPN

To this day, sports games have struggled to meet the standard set by NCAA Football, including their own father franchics, “Madden NFL Football”. This is mood changing for millennials and life changing for their kids who have no idea what they are about to get their hands on…

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

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