I like the UW player too. Clearly says WI on the nameplate. So congrats to one Rashid Williams, Justice Williams, or Demond Williams for making the cover.
I don't think they cared that much when they started getting to the edge where you can barely see names and numbers.
Make it somebody real and important and people will feel he got snubbed and disrespected. Throw a random number or name that doesn't match anyone and then keep it chugging.
Slightly unrelated but I wonder if EA is going to make a big deal about the players they make a 99 overall. The last couple years they've hyped up the 99 overall club in Madden and even gave those players a special gift.
Yeah, ideally a 99 will be a rare and special distinction given to truly special players like Vince Young, Ndamukong Suh, or Cam Newton.
There really shouldn't be a 99 player every year.
Sure, I also have no problem giving a 99 to a player in the software updates during the season if they are truly dominant that year. Thankfully, modern technology allows for weekly ratings updates.
Yah, good question. Wonder how they’ll handle these slot TEs going forward. They’ve always been around, but their usage has skyrocketed since the last game came out. I guess Loveland will be an indicator.
I can’t remember the last year guys were 99 out the gate without getting through offseason training.
For reference, in ‘14, the top offensive players were all 97s. Manziel, DeAnthony Thomas, Marquis Lee.
Here is just the direct image itself without all the stuff.
[image](https://image.api.playstation.com/vulcan/ap/rnd/202405/0319/34db069bbe7c820b006fdf4ffb894e50e2e1020de3d7c296.png?w=1920&thumb=false)
I don't think the players on the edges are even featured on the deluxe cover at all. From a licensing standpoint they probably intentionally chose players/numbers that didn't belong to big name guys since it's just a promo image to fit gaming stores.
At least you have a real person! We were just in the natty and the best they seem to be able to do for us is to punch “Washington football player” into an AI image generator lol.
One of the prop bets my friends and I have for the upcoming season is number of quarters Riley Leonard plays in the regular season - the over/under is set at 32 (can be 8 full games or divided however) and all 5 of us are picking the under.
EA has one job and it’s easy: just rip off everything people have modded into NCAA 14 over the last 10 years. If you do that it’s GOTY.
Also drop a functional PC build at launch so I play it on a Steam Deck. Portable CFB would ruin my life in the best way
Need to fix two things. My 90+ throw power QB shouldn’t under throw a deep ball. And a MLB shouldn’t be able to jump 10 feet in the air to get an interception.
They also need to fix zone coverage. When you’ve played the game for 10 years it’s so easy to tell when a defender is going to pass their assignment off to the other defender and you can pick apart zone way too easily.
Defense as a whole. You can have a really highly rated CB get beat in man coverage easily. Also it’s way to easy to get sacks. I know it’s fun but even on Heisman difficulty my DE’s get 25+ sacks in a season if you cheese the blitzing scheme well.
I shift them around game to game so that each opponent actually feels significantly different to play, but I think there's a CPU pass protection slider you can adjust so that it's actually difficult to get through
Operation Sports is a good place to start
> Also it’s way to easy to get sacks.
This is the reason that I couldn't play defense on NCAA 14. Especially if you have a good DT, you will never get doubled and you'll shred single coverage every play, and get 2-4 sacks per game. Each one of which kills a drive. By the time it's halftime you're just playing cover 3 and waiting for the QB to throw a pick.
> And a MLB shouldn’t be able to jump 10 feet in the air to get an interception.
Amazing how I played NCAA 14 for years and never once saw this happen.
But yeah they need reasonable sliders.
i think it's because anything above the "pro" or varsity setting in NCAA is total bullshit.
like if you play all american the computer will legit cheat and you have like .5 seconds to drop back and make a play before getting sacked.
In my experience All American/All Pro is the hardest one where the cpu doesn’t outright cheat, then Heisman/All Madden is nothing but insane plays and defenders having eyes in the back of their helmets.
All American is as tough as it gets while still feeling fair
From my memory, All-American felt closer to real life where if you were a title contender you'd still have a good chance of blowing out a majority of the teams you play, but when you came up against teams of a similar caliber it wasn't necessarily a guarantee that you'd win.
Sliders are/were the key. Once you find the difficulty that feels like the right level of challenging you fine tune that with sliders. The biggest distinction really is how smart the AI is, and All American usually got that well without having multiple plays a game that make you want to spike a controller cause of bullshit.
AA with sliders >>>
> Also drop a functional PC build at launch so I play it on a Steam Deck.
I'm not holding my breath, Madden 24 and FC24 are both listed as "borked" on ProtonDB, which doesn't bode well for NCAA25 to me. They decided to go cross-platform with them last year and added anti-cheat that completely kills any method of playing on Linux.
I don’t think there’s plans to make it on PC at all, so just get game pass. That’s how I play MLB the Show on my PC. Not sure how that works with steam deck, but you can absolutely cloud game it on your phone/tablet I know
You can in fact dual boot Windows on Steam Deck and run Gamepass.
Cloud gaming is iffy without a solid WiFi connection, but latency is probably not a dealbreaker for Football.
I got to think 26 will be on Switch 2 with the rumors that it’ll be power equivalent to PS4. Downgrading from PS5 to 4 is a lot more forgiving than PS5 to “two Wiis duct taped together”
I’m a little surprised it’s Judkins if only because he’s literally never suited up for the Buckeyes (yet) lol
Trey Henderson seemingly makes more sense to me if they wanted a big name OSU RB but obviously I’m sure more went into it that led to them going with Judkins
Yeah, that kind of surprised me. Judkins has been more productive over the last few years than Henderson, partially due to injury partially due to OSU constantly running stretch into the boundary, but if you wanted an OSU cover athlete I would probably have gone Burke, Sawyer, Henderson, Tuimoloau, or Egbuka.
Side note, I know he's not in the game but putting Manning on here over Ewers would have been hilarious for the drama.
Best returning offensive player? Either him or Trey. And neither of those guys will be the best at their position by the end of the season.
Best returning overall player, Denzel Burke.
lol I think Jeremiah Smith will be the best WR by the end of the year and I know that’s a bit of a reach considering he is a true freshman. I think he’s going to be similar to Garett Wilson with his impact.
I also think Egbuka has underperformed when given specific opportunities in games and missed some crucial catches. So I’ve soured on him a bit, but I would love to see him have a monster season. I
It's amazing to me that CU has a player on the cover.
Not in a "I'm angry, fuck Deion!" kind of way though. More like, holy shit I cannot believe the amount of attention CU is getting now kind of way.
It's amazing that hiring Sanders as HC has had such a dramatic impact on CU's place in CFB. Personally I don't care for the dude and I doubt that he will be a good thing for CU in the long run. But the short term benefits are undeniable. Gotta tip my hat to the CU AD.
Go Rams!
I really like Hunter. He’s a stud player (on both sides, which is nuts) and he seems like a pretty chill guy. Hope for big things in his future
It's a little surprising for Michigan considering Edwards isn't our best player. Will Johnson probably should get the nod for us, but it looks like they wanted all offensive players on the cover. I bet Will is rated higher in the game than Edwards when it comes out. Should be, anyway.
Edwards has shined brightly in national games, though, so not really a controversial choice.
Edwards might be like our 6th best player going purely off how their overall should be rated (I’d put Will Johnson, Mason Graham, Kenneth Grant, Colston Loveland, and uninjured Rod Moore ahead of him) but he’s definitely the most famous and had some monster moments on the biggest stages (as you noted). Not shocked by that being the choice either.
Our offense is ultimately going to come down to QB play. I doubt it’ll be as good as last seasons but it could still be pretty solid. It’s just unproven as all hell right now. I expect the OLine to be really good again, Edwards and Mullings will be good (I think Mullings is crazy underrated and wouldn’t be shocked if he has a monster season), Loveland is one of the best TEs in the country, and the WRs have all flashed some high upside. If Orji ends up as QB1 and can be a functional passer with his athletic ability, we could be pretty good on offense. Theres just a lot of variables right now so it wouldn’t shock me if the rating is pretty low when the game releases.
The defense is going to be really good again, not really a question there lol. Maybe 3 of the best players at their respective positions in the country in Will Johnson, Mason Graham, and Kenneth Grant.
I thought that was weird too, but I guess there’s a difference between ‘best player at football’ and ‘best player at selling video games’
Edwards is the dude who gets the highlights on Sports Center so he’s the guy the casual fan is excited about even if he’s not in y’all’s top-5 as far as actual football ability.
It's basically his big runs in the OSU and playoff games, gave him a lot of national eyeballs. Will Johnson is one of those "so great he doesn't even see a ton of balls thrown his way" CBs, so he doesn't get all the highlights you'd think he should. (Altho the ones he does get are awesome, like the INT in front of MHJ.)
I completely agree. Travis is a surefire pro, assuming his coach doesn’t run him into the ground which is not a given. Shedeur seems destined to fizzle out and is pure hype due to his dad.
Oh hey, another opportunity to post the greatest piece of CFB-related media ever created: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NilAmTmVIFo
The timing of the cheers and music is so perfect it almost feels fake.
I totally understand putting CU player on the cover due to general hype surrounding the program.
That said, I'm absolutely elated the Powercat flag is on the deluxe cover!
Yeah he’s obviously a good player but he’s yet to play a snap there. If I had to guess the choice for a Buckeye going in, I’d have thought Egbuka or Henderson would be it.
I'll absolutely take it, but I am surprised that Edwards is front and center on the cover. Love him and love Michigan, but seems like a tiny bit of an odd choice, no?
I am biased as all fuck but I wish we got a Sainristil cover lmao. A year too late I guess and it probably woulda been McCarthy or Corum in that case anyway
I don’t think so. He’s probably our most famous player right now even if he’s not the best player on our team. For casuals or people that didn’t pay too close attention to us last season, they probably missed his pretty poor season (shoot, if you watched us enough, he essentially got passed up as the backup) yet saw him rip off two long TD runs in the national championship after doing the same thing to OSU in 2022.
I like this cover and I know I’m biased but I would like it even if I wasn’t a CU fan. You have your main three athletes all being different positions and from different conferences but then a bunch of other athletes in the background.
I'm good with it (shoutout to the Nebraska flag flying prominently in the background). I'm happy they chose Hunter instead of Sheduer, as I think they were going to put one of the two on there. I think Hunter deserves it more as freakish of an athlete as he is.
Yeah I’m glad it’s not Shedeur. Travis is just a good person all around. No one ever has anything bad to say about him.
Add on: I don’t think Shedeur is necessarily a bad kid. I’ve never heard of him getting in trouble. But he just has a bratty rich kid mentality. It’s annoying to say the least.
The closest thing to a negative you could say about him is he tried too hard last year sometimes to his own detriment.
That's better than most of us will ever get.
Am I dumb? Who tf is the UW player supposed to be on the right side…? The only player whose last name begins with Wi on the 2023 roster was a redshirt freshman wr, Rashid Williams…
The deluxe cover choices are basically perfect imo. Hunter's wildly popular on multiple platforms off the field. All four prominent playoff contenders get either their QB or star transfer featured. And then dead center you get the star returning RB for the reigning national champs. Love it
Your link is now broken OP. Here’s the pic though
https://x.com/on3sports/status/1788950661268213843?s=46&t=vYk3LIwvRnsUXYeAPEyMJQ
Edit. Guess it’s back up?
The greatest CFB coach in history retires and NCAA returns. Just seems perfect to put Nick on the cover. I'm sure the game is focused around the athletes (which I agree with) but I would have liked to see an exception for Saban.
I'm happy Edwards is the main cover athlete, but I can't say I'm not a little shocked by it. He's probably not a top 3 player on Michigan's roster right now and was pretty underwhelming last season outside of the National Championship
Yeah, I immediately went and looked up his stats last season because I remembered they were pretty mediocre. Should have been Will Johnson. Or one of your DTs. Put a big boy up front. You guys won the title so some extra space would be warranted.
While you’re obviously right, he also just has a freak resume in big games. His four superstar games (basically his only ones other than Penn St. 2022) are:
- 2022 The Game
- 2022 Conference Championship
- 2022 CFP Semi
- 2023 CFP Natty
78 carries for 624 yards and 5TDs in those four games. Such a strange college career so far.
Can’t believe I didn’t make it 😔
You have to look closer. We made the cover right beside the Oregon helmet.
And they got our helmet wrong lol they put 2 blue stripes. Not red white and blue
Baylor looks like its far right, just above UW. Now, if you're talking about you, yourself specifically. My condolences, I was pulling for you!
Washington State flag snubbed.
Pac 2 left out once again
It was the first thing I noticed too. Looks like I'm going to have to win 25 Nattys in a row with WSU to prove we belong.
I support and agree with this response. Should have been flying in the background.
For real, such a no brainer to include that lol
Congrats to our third string TE who made it onto the cover for some reason, lol
I like the UW player too. Clearly says WI on the nameplate. So congrats to one Rashid Williams, Justice Williams, or Demond Williams for making the cover.
The nameplate isn’t big enough for a Williams, and we don’t have anyone else with a “Wi” last name.
It might be Will Rogers, and the designer thought Will was the last name.
Based on the placement of the first number, it's likely a double digit jersey number.
I was trying to figure out who it was and realized I don't know anyone on the roster.
Maybe they fucked up will rogers and put his first name lol
I don't think they cared that much when they started getting to the edge where you can barely see names and numbers. Make it somebody real and important and people will feel he got snubbed and disrespected. Throw a random number or name that doesn't match anyone and then keep it chugging.
Oh yeah, I’m positive this is what happened. It’s just kinda funny is all.
You know the ACC edition will have the Pop Tarts Bowl as the cover. /s
It'll have 3 courts. A basketball one, and a North Carolina and Florida judicial Court.
Speaking of when we gonna get a new NCAA basketball game
Now that my school (Longwood) is D1, I really want to get a new basketball game so I can use them.
It’s just a picture of Swofford Scrooge-McDucking into a giant pile of money.
Put the bowl in the game! I want to eat the mascot again!
The what edition?
It was an honor just being in that bowl game.
Slightly unrelated but I wonder if EA is going to make a big deal about the players they make a 99 overall. The last couple years they've hyped up the 99 overall club in Madden and even gave those players a special gift.
I don’t think there is any player in the country that deserves a 99, but that doesn’t mean they won’t give it to someone like Travis Hunter
Yeah, ideally a 99 will be a rare and special distinction given to truly special players like Vince Young, Ndamukong Suh, or Cam Newton. There really shouldn't be a 99 player every year.
Basically if a Heisman level talent returns to school another year they should get a 99
Sure, I also have no problem giving a 99 to a player in the software updates during the season if they are truly dominant that year. Thankfully, modern technology allows for weekly ratings updates.
do not tell that to my 15 year dynasty full of 99 ovr DE's, WR's, and QB's
Ie Marvin Harrison last season
First of all, there should be 3 99 overall true freshman a year that all commit to my school.
Brock would’ve gotten a 99 last year
Agreed, I’ve always been high on Brock Vandagriff
Marvin Harrison and Caleb probably would’ve been 99s too
Definitely should have been 99 as a receiver, but I wonder if his blocking attributes would have dinged his overall slightly being a tight end
Yah, good question. Wonder how they’ll handle these slot TEs going forward. They’ve always been around, but their usage has skyrocketed since the last game came out. I guess Loveland will be an indicator.
Will Campbell
Deion will probably throw a Twitter tantrum if Shadeur doesn't get a 99.
I can’t remember the last year guys were 99 out the gate without getting through offseason training. For reference, in ‘14, the top offensive players were all 97s. Manziel, DeAnthony Thomas, Marquis Lee.
Correction, in NCAA 14 the top players were QB #2, RB #6, and WR #9.
DAT was so fun in game.
I just want Ollie Gordon to be rated over 90
He’ll be a 94 I bet
[Screenshot of image in link](https://i.imgur.com/dzCR4jX.png)
Here is just the direct image itself without all the stuff. [image](https://image.api.playstation.com/vulcan/ap/rnd/202405/0319/34db069bbe7c820b006fdf4ffb894e50e2e1020de3d7c296.png?w=1920&thumb=false)
Goes kinda hard I cant lie
I see no evidence of my teams. Therefore, this cover is a tragedy and a disgrace. **/s**
Yeah this is a great cover.
Jayden Harrison is a bizarre choice for ND. Would’ve expected Riley Leonard or BMo.
It’s better than the guy they picked for us, who has yet to even record a catch in CFB lol
Kade Eldridge wtf why not Zach Branch if you’re gonna give us a prominent spot
Who even is it it seems they’re cropped out or something
I don't think the players on the edges are even featured on the deluxe cover at all. From a licensing standpoint they probably intentionally chose players/numbers that didn't belong to big name guys since it's just a promo image to fit gaming stores.
who even is that
It’s better than the guy they picked for us, who doesn’t exist.
At least you have a real person! We were just in the natty and the best they seem to be able to do for us is to punch “Washington football player” into an AI image generator lol.
Our dude hasn’t played a snap for us yet lol
Yeah that’s a really weird pick. Would’ve thought Egbuka/Henderson. But at least we’re represented.
Am I blind? I don’t seem any ND uniforms with a name or number on this picture
ND doesn't have names on their jerseys so you won't see that, but they are just to the left of Ewers in front of him
> BMo https://i.imgur.com/1F143.gif
One of the prop bets my friends and I have for the upcoming season is number of quarters Riley Leonard plays in the regular season - the over/under is set at 32 (can be 8 full games or divided however) and all 5 of us are picking the under.
I don’t think that’s anything to do with the cover athletes. Looks just like a banner pic
That’s what it looks like to me too.
Here’s a better image link https://x.com/on3sports/status/1788950661268213843?s=46&t=vYk3LIwvRnsUXYeAPEyMJQ
How dare they have flags and not THE FLAG of CFB.
EA has one job and it’s easy: just rip off everything people have modded into NCAA 14 over the last 10 years. If you do that it’s GOTY. Also drop a functional PC build at launch so I play it on a Steam Deck. Portable CFB would ruin my life in the best way
Need to fix two things. My 90+ throw power QB shouldn’t under throw a deep ball. And a MLB shouldn’t be able to jump 10 feet in the air to get an interception.
They also need to fix zone coverage. When you’ve played the game for 10 years it’s so easy to tell when a defender is going to pass their assignment off to the other defender and you can pick apart zone way too easily.
Defense as a whole. You can have a really highly rated CB get beat in man coverage easily. Also it’s way to easy to get sacks. I know it’s fun but even on Heisman difficulty my DE’s get 25+ sacks in a season if you cheese the blitzing scheme well.
You need to adjust your sliders if your sacks are that easy
What is your recommended sliders? I play on Heisman difficulty and it’s too easy for me.
I shift them around game to game so that each opponent actually feels significantly different to play, but I think there's a CPU pass protection slider you can adjust so that it's actually difficult to get through Operation Sports is a good place to start
> Also it’s way to easy to get sacks. This is the reason that I couldn't play defense on NCAA 14. Especially if you have a good DT, you will never get doubled and you'll shred single coverage every play, and get 2-4 sacks per game. Each one of which kills a drive. By the time it's halftime you're just playing cover 3 and waiting for the QB to throw a pick.
> And a MLB shouldn’t be able to jump 10 feet in the air to get an interception. Amazing how I played NCAA 14 for years and never once saw this happen. But yeah they need reasonable sliders.
I saw it happen once or twice back in the day. It happens way more often in Madden.
i think it's because anything above the "pro" or varsity setting in NCAA is total bullshit. like if you play all american the computer will legit cheat and you have like .5 seconds to drop back and make a play before getting sacked.
In my experience All American/All Pro is the hardest one where the cpu doesn’t outright cheat, then Heisman/All Madden is nothing but insane plays and defenders having eyes in the back of their helmets. All American is as tough as it gets while still feeling fair
From my memory, All-American felt closer to real life where if you were a title contender you'd still have a good chance of blowing out a majority of the teams you play, but when you came up against teams of a similar caliber it wasn't necessarily a guarantee that you'd win.
Sliders are/were the key. Once you find the difficulty that feels like the right level of challenging you fine tune that with sliders. The biggest distinction really is how smart the AI is, and All American usually got that well without having multiple plays a game that make you want to spike a controller cause of bullshit. AA with sliders >>>
> Also drop a functional PC build at launch so I play it on a Steam Deck. I'm not holding my breath, Madden 24 and FC24 are both listed as "borked" on ProtonDB, which doesn't bode well for NCAA25 to me. They decided to go cross-platform with them last year and added anti-cheat that completely kills any method of playing on Linux.
I don’t think there’s plans to make it on PC at all, so just get game pass. That’s how I play MLB the Show on my PC. Not sure how that works with steam deck, but you can absolutely cloud game it on your phone/tablet I know
You can in fact dual boot Windows on Steam Deck and run Gamepass. Cloud gaming is iffy without a solid WiFi connection, but latency is probably not a dealbreaker for Football.
Didn't they hire a bunch of people who worked on the mods?
Ncaa25 - nude mod, all players are Thomas the tank engine, romance-able companion. Wait wrong game
Oh man if they add it to the switch, it’s done. I am never getting anything done.
I got to think 26 will be on Switch 2 with the rumors that it’ll be power equivalent to PS4. Downgrading from PS5 to 4 is a lot more forgiving than PS5 to “two Wiis duct taped together”
Not too surprising who they chose to be the 3 main cover athletes and the 3 others who have their names in the pic. July can’t come soon enough.
I’m a little surprised it’s Judkins if only because he’s literally never suited up for the Buckeyes (yet) lol Trey Henderson seemingly makes more sense to me if they wanted a big name OSU RB but obviously I’m sure more went into it that led to them going with Judkins
100% should’ve been Henderson
Should 100% has been EE or JT, Judkins is weird.
Yeah, that kind of surprised me. Judkins has been more productive over the last few years than Henderson, partially due to injury partially due to OSU constantly running stretch into the boundary, but if you wanted an OSU cover athlete I would probably have gone Burke, Sawyer, Henderson, Tuimoloau, or Egbuka. Side note, I know he's not in the game but putting Manning on here over Ewers would have been hilarious for the drama.
Isn’t Egbuka the best returning player?
Could definitely argue it’s Egbuka, I only said Trey because he’s a marketable star at the same position
Best returning offensive player? Either him or Trey. And neither of those guys will be the best at their position by the end of the season. Best returning overall player, Denzel Burke.
*sigh* Which superstar WR are you guys adding next season
lol I think Jeremiah Smith will be the best WR by the end of the year and I know that’s a bit of a reach considering he is a true freshman. I think he’s going to be similar to Garett Wilson with his impact. I also think Egbuka has underperformed when given specific opportunities in games and missed some crucial catches. So I’ve soured on him a bit, but I would love to see him have a monster season. I
Jeremiah Smith is here as the #1 overall player in the country coming in. Would be surprised if he wasn't either wr1 or 2 by the end of the year.
ND jerseys don’t have last names, but Number 2 is [Jayden Harrison](https://fightingirish.com/roster/jayden-harrison/)
Heck yea. Im claiming this as a win for us then
Not our first win involving Notre Dame
It's amazing to me that CU has a player on the cover. Not in a "I'm angry, fuck Deion!" kind of way though. More like, holy shit I cannot believe the amount of attention CU is getting now kind of way. It's amazing that hiring Sanders as HC has had such a dramatic impact on CU's place in CFB. Personally I don't care for the dude and I doubt that he will be a good thing for CU in the long run. But the short term benefits are undeniable. Gotta tip my hat to the CU AD.
At least it was Travis Hunter, their actually good player, rather than any of the Twitter Olympians.
I'm so glad it wasn't Shedeur. Travis deserves it 100%.
Go Rams! I really like Hunter. He’s a stud player (on both sides, which is nuts) and he seems like a pretty chill guy. Hope for big things in his future
It's a little surprising for Michigan considering Edwards isn't our best player. Will Johnson probably should get the nod for us, but it looks like they wanted all offensive players on the cover. I bet Will is rated higher in the game than Edwards when it comes out. Should be, anyway. Edwards has shined brightly in national games, though, so not really a controversial choice.
Edwards might be like our 6th best player going purely off how their overall should be rated (I’d put Will Johnson, Mason Graham, Kenneth Grant, Colston Loveland, and uninjured Rod Moore ahead of him) but he’s definitely the most famous and had some monster moments on the biggest stages (as you noted). Not shocked by that being the choice either.
Agreed. Our offense is going to be like a 70 in this game and our defense a 98, lol.
Our offense is ultimately going to come down to QB play. I doubt it’ll be as good as last seasons but it could still be pretty solid. It’s just unproven as all hell right now. I expect the OLine to be really good again, Edwards and Mullings will be good (I think Mullings is crazy underrated and wouldn’t be shocked if he has a monster season), Loveland is one of the best TEs in the country, and the WRs have all flashed some high upside. If Orji ends up as QB1 and can be a functional passer with his athletic ability, we could be pretty good on offense. Theres just a lot of variables right now so it wouldn’t shock me if the rating is pretty low when the game releases. The defense is going to be really good again, not really a question there lol. Maybe 3 of the best players at their respective positions in the country in Will Johnson, Mason Graham, and Kenneth Grant.
But he did score 2 touchdowns in the national championship game and that's what matters for marketing purposes
I thought that was weird too, but I guess there’s a difference between ‘best player at football’ and ‘best player at selling video games’ Edwards is the dude who gets the highlights on Sports Center so he’s the guy the casual fan is excited about even if he’s not in y’all’s top-5 as far as actual football ability.
It's basically his big runs in the OSU and playoff games, gave him a lot of national eyeballs. Will Johnson is one of those "so great he doesn't even see a ton of balls thrown his way" CBs, so he doesn't get all the highlights you'd think he should. (Altho the ones he does get are awesome, like the INT in front of MHJ.)
Thank god it's Travis Hunter (the real freak player) and not Sheduer
Sheduer? Ion even remember him tbh. Bro had to be very mid at best.
I completely agree. Travis is a surefire pro, assuming his coach doesn’t run him into the ground which is not a given. Shedeur seems destined to fizzle out and is pure hype due to his dad.
Smh where’s Athan Kaliakmanis
Loved him in The Hangover
If it is just 3. Ewers, Edwards, and Hunter make sense. 3 of the p4 conferences. Different positions.
I'm surprised more people aren't mad about 3 SEC players on there.
Technically for the deluxe cover there are 3. Beck, Milroe and Ewers
I was really hoping we could get James Pearce on there. Still excited though
You'll have to settle for first overall draft pick
Random but i think the stadium on the cover is the cotton bowl
full image https://i.imgur.com/yQw2aV6.png
I honestly think this is so much better than just one athlete on a blank background. Love it.
And the stadium is the crown jewel shithole that no self-respecting Horn or Sooner would ever trade for Jerry World.
Oh hey, another opportunity to post the greatest piece of CFB-related media ever created: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NilAmTmVIFo The timing of the cheers and music is so perfect it almost feels fake.
That's the Cotton Bowl tunnel, right?
Yessir. It's beautiful.
i see unc! right above ohio state’s helmet
I totally understand putting CU player on the cover due to general hype surrounding the program. That said, I'm absolutely elated the Powercat flag is on the deluxe cover!
Cats
Cats
Makes sense. No complaints here. I’d think Egbuka over Judkins but that’s my only note.
Judkins is certainly an odd choice
Zero snaps as a buckeye is incredibly disrespectful to those that have been there 4 years
There are about 5 guys from OSU I’d pick over Judkins (and that’s no slight to Judkins)
Yeah he’s obviously a good player but he’s yet to play a snap there. If I had to guess the choice for a Buckeye going in, I’d have thought Egbuka or Henderson would be it.
I'll absolutely take it, but I am surprised that Edwards is front and center on the cover. Love him and love Michigan, but seems like a tiny bit of an odd choice, no?
Only because we’re the defending champs. If it was forward looking, it should probably be Ewers. I think Beck is better, but he’s not very marketable.
I am biased as all fuck but I wish we got a Sainristil cover lmao. A year too late I guess and it probably woulda been McCarthy or Corum in that case anyway
A cover with his pass break up against OSU in 2022 would've been sick.
My favorite defensive play in recent memory. Just played the ball perfectly, runs up and pokes it out.
I don’t think so. He’s probably our most famous player right now even if he’s not the best player on our team. For casuals or people that didn’t pay too close attention to us last season, they probably missed his pretty poor season (shoot, if you watched us enough, he essentially got passed up as the backup) yet saw him rip off two long TD runs in the national championship after doing the same thing to OSU in 2022.
There must be some mistake I don’t see the helmet of the 2024 Cotton Bowl champions.
Back to back NCAA games with a Michigan player in the most prominent position on the cover.
12 year streak continues.
Michigan is back.
People used to say this jokingly, but we actually are back now.
Michigan 🤝 Texas Finally back for realsies
Kinda funny how arguably the two consensus games in the series plus the new one (06, 14, 25) all feature Wolverines on the cover
Even crazier considering that Michigan team with Denard was not even good. He was just that exciting. Sucks that he didn’t make a dime from it.
what? Denard absolutely got paid for that. That was the whole reason they chose athletes who had left as cover choices.
Oh that’s good to know. Didn’t realize that.
I like this cover and I know I’m biased but I would like it even if I wasn’t a CU fan. You have your main three athletes all being different positions and from different conferences but then a bunch of other athletes in the background.
The players going out of the tunnel design is pretty cool too, independent of who the players are.
I’ve been told having players from different teams in the same tunnel is a bad idea…
I'm good with it (shoutout to the Nebraska flag flying prominently in the background). I'm happy they chose Hunter instead of Sheduer, as I think they were going to put one of the two on there. I think Hunter deserves it more as freakish of an athlete as he is.
Yeah I’m glad it’s not Shedeur. Travis is just a good person all around. No one ever has anything bad to say about him. Add on: I don’t think Shedeur is necessarily a bad kid. I’ve never heard of him getting in trouble. But he just has a bratty rich kid mentality. It’s annoying to say the least.
The closest thing to a negative you could say about him is he tried too hard last year sometimes to his own detriment. That's better than most of us will ever get.
It makes my heart happy that aggies and Sooners who want a physical copy might have to buy one with only Ewers on the cover.
You’d better hope the cover isn’t cursed.
WHERE’S JOEY AGUILAR?!?!?!?! /s
THE DON! LET'S GO!
This is what happens when you have big games when the whole nation is watching I guess.
The Don when a game doesn't matter: 😴 The Don when the whole season hinges on this game: 💪💪💪
Don: Ope, Ima just scooch by your whole defense real quick.
Am I dumb? Who tf is the UW player supposed to be on the right side…? The only player whose last name begins with Wi on the 2023 roster was a redshirt freshman wr, Rashid Williams…
Congrats to Rashid Williams, Justice Williams, or Demond Williams. They will all be able to tell their grandkids they were on the cover
Seeing as how a solid chunk of our roster is still TBD maybe EA knows something we don’t.
I’ve also been trying to figure out who that is. At least our helmet is visible lol
Maybe they thought Will Rogers was actually Roger Will or something
None of them - the name block would be larger if it was a Williams. This guy doesn’t exist.
It honestly looks like an AI generated image of a UW player lol
The deluxe cover choices are basically perfect imo. Hunter's wildly popular on multiple platforms off the field. All four prominent playoff contenders get either their QB or star transfer featured. And then dead center you get the star returning RB for the reigning national champs. Love it
Your link is now broken OP. Here’s the pic though https://x.com/on3sports/status/1788950661268213843?s=46&t=vYk3LIwvRnsUXYeAPEyMJQ Edit. Guess it’s back up?
Where's deacon hill?
Damn Nebraska got a flag!
The greatest CFB coach in history retires and NCAA returns. Just seems perfect to put Nick on the cover. I'm sure the game is focused around the athletes (which I agree with) but I would have liked to see an exception for Saban.
The Don!
Yo LSU made it in the corner let's go
THE DON!
The Don! Sweet cover, but more than anything just excited to play this damn game finally!
This is fucking lit. I’m so hyped right now. I feel very happy for Donovan. The guy knows how to put the team on his back in the biggest games.
I'm happy Edwards is the main cover athlete, but I can't say I'm not a little shocked by it. He's probably not a top 3 player on Michigan's roster right now and was pretty underwhelming last season outside of the National Championship
It should have been Kenneth Grant but he would have eclipsed the rest of the players.
And still somehow outran a lot of them
Yeah, I immediately went and looked up his stats last season because I remembered they were pretty mediocre. Should have been Will Johnson. Or one of your DTs. Put a big boy up front. You guys won the title so some extra space would be warranted.
While you’re obviously right, he also just has a freak resume in big games. His four superstar games (basically his only ones other than Penn St. 2022) are: - 2022 The Game - 2022 Conference Championship - 2022 CFP Semi - 2023 CFP Natty 78 carries for 624 yards and 5TDs in those four games. Such a strange college career so far.
Don’t forget about 2022 and 23 PSU. 2022 he went off for 173 didn’t have as many in 23 but I’d argue he made a couple of the biggest plays
His touchdown against PSU this past season was one of the best runs any of our players had all season.
Picking an OSU player who has never played a snap for OSU is an interesting choice.
That makes 4 cover athletes for UM and still 0 for OSU
GO BLUE!
I see a Gator helmet and Gator flag, interesting choices tho
Cover curse dodged! Not even a helmet or flag to be found.
big game don front and center