‘EA Sports College Football 26’ Is the Best Football Game EA Sports Has Ever Made (Review)

I’ve barely been able to contain my excitement for EA Sports College Football 26. Last year’s game was the first we got since NCAA Football 14. And it was a solid effort in a return. What it showed was that there was no rust. EA Orlando came through understanding what they had to nail on the first game back and what they would have to leave for the next installment. And now that we’re here, they’ve built a hell of a house on that foundation.

expanding the playbook, but keeping the same identity

College Football 25, gameplay-wise, was a pleasant surprise. It was much faster than Madden and more accurately depicted the difference in skill between the elite players and the guys who will either run a really popular local car dealership or sell insurance. This time around, College Football 26 makes those differences felt, but also does a lot of work to give you the tools to fight back. Defensive line stunts are finally in a football game, and they make a huge difference. You can have custom zones, the same way you would have custom stem routes on offense.

Animation-wise, tackling feels cleaner and, as a result, heavier. CFB 25 tackled the same way college basketball players hit free throws, not well. But the tackling physics here is much better. One complaint from the previous year was that the angles taken by defenders were horrible. That’s a thing of the past this year. You aren’t going to be able to cheese run your way to the outside all day long. That’s right, the Jet Sweep has been nerfed. It’s still an effective play, but only within the rhythm and framework of running an actual offense.

Not only did EA fix that, but they gave us a fix to what was by far the most annoying issue to me. The damn punt coverage. In CFB 25, when you got a stop on fourth down, you either had to control the man coming off the edge or turn off roughing the kicker entirely. If you didn’t, you were giving up the 15 and the first down nearly every time.

‘COLLEGE FOOTBALL 26’ IS THE BEGINNING OF A DYNASTY

EA heard us and changed the menu music to great effect. It’s incredible how much of a difference the menu music makes, but it’s important here. You spend so much time in menus, particularly in Dynasty mode, that hearing the same drums over and over again was getting old fast. Fortunately, we’ve got some awesome marching band renditions of songs. One that always gets me to stop what I’m doing is the game’s version of “Never Scared” by Bone Crusher. Makes me want to go hit someone every time I hear it.

Dynasty mode is just as great as it was last year, but this time it has some much-needed quality of life improvements. I love it when a game adds something that makes me realize I needed it in the previous game. EA has put all of your team’s needs front and center in the recruiting screens, so there’s no need for guesswork or putting pen to paper to remember what positions you need to fill year to year. In addition to that, you don’t have to do nearly as much page flipping when looking at your recruits. Now, you can see where your school interest level is inside the list of recruits, as well as whether you’re trending up or down.

They’ve also added recruiting battles where you and a second school become locked in a race to get a player. When it hits, it’s on you to put the pressure on to get them to swing your way. All in all, the improvements made to the mode from a recruiting standpoint will intensify online dynasties this year. This is definitely treated like the mode EA knows people will spend most of their time in.

the road to glory

We got high school football back in Road to Glory. And now we can follow the entire path of a college football player. I love the number of options that come with creating your player as far as hometowns. Selfishly, though, I wish my hometown of Beloit were in the pool of cities for Wisconsin. I mean, you have Janesville there, might as well give me that. But it’s cool. The high school games are great, and the goals you get in-game are awesome.

You can select four moments to play in the game. And one will often include an elite player on the other side that you’re preventing from showing out. After you select the 10 schools you’re interested in, you’ll get a goal from the school that improves the odds of them offering you a scholarship. But if you fail, you can drop those odds as well. This leads to your commitment ceremony, where you select one of three hats to pick your school. And one of the best touches is: you can fake the selection by throwing the hat away. As a Wisconsin Badgers fan, I absolutely put Ohio State in my top three just to throw the hat. Get the hell outta here.

Once you get to college, though, unless you tore it up in high school to be a starter out the gate, it’s bench-riding time. But don’t worry, you’ll get your opportunities to move up the depth chart. You just have to do well in practice and increase the coach’s trust. When you get it to a certain level, you’ll trigger a position battle. These will allow you to leap to the next spot on the depth chart. I would say that most of the drills are pretty good. But a couple, like that scramble drill for QBs, could have been left somewhere else.

I’m going to sink so much time into ‘college football 26’

Presentation-wise, the game shines. More attention is paid to gameday traditions, and the new score bug is way better than last year. Commentary is still a bit hit-or-miss, and I often find myself turning it off in favor of the in-stadium sounds. It gives the upgraded Stadium Pulse feature a chance to shine. Playing the game with some headphones and heading out to Michigan to play up there is ear-rattling. The audio team did not miss with the in-game work.

Overall, College Football 26 is a great job of polishing what was there, fixing what didn’t work, and adding on to the package. It’s been some time since I’ve been able to wholeheartedly recommend an EA Sports football game. I’ve always distanced myself because while I generally find some level of enjoyment in most of them, I know that, objectively, the quality hasn’t been there. That is not the case with CFB 26. This is the best football game EA Sports has released. That’s not coming with any qualifiers or anything. It is straight-up that damn good.

Verdict: Highly Recommended

College Football 26 is available now on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X. A code was provided by the publisher for the sake of review. Reviewed on PlayStation 5.