College football is your oyster in EA CFB 25. Make the most of it.
EA Sports’ College Football 25 released their Dynasty deep dive today, and because you’re reading an LSU sports blog in July, I’m going to assume you’re as excited for it as I am.
But as someone who dumped what I am confident saying is more time than the average person on NCAA 14, (I had my own spreadsheets for each season because it pissed me off that you couldn’t access stats from previous years) I am here to offer some tips to offer your CFB25 experience.
To me, the right way to play a dynasty is to work your way up to LSU head coach from a low-level G5 because that path is more rewarding, but I understand that some people just want to take over as coach of LSU and begin domination.
I don’t begrudge that, but I worry we LSU fans have a first world problem where a dynasty with LSU is probably too easy and will get stale quick. So I’m here to offer a few ideas to keep the spark alive in your LSU dynasty and make things interesting.
1 – Revive The Rag
First and foremost, fix the problem of LSU getting jerked around by the SEC to force the Tigers to have a true rival by reinstating the Battle for the Tiger Rag and scheduling Tulane.
Again, the world is your oyster and nothing is stopping you from stomping out the Green Wave 77-0 in Death Valley each year. But I’ve found dynasties are more fun when they are at least grounded a little bit in realism, and Tulane will never just go to Baton Rouge every year. At the same token, Tulane will never give up a home game in Yulman, and LSU will not want to play there.
But I believe there is a compromise: a three in four model. Both teams play in the Superdome in year one, Baton Rouge in year two, and then Yulman in year three before taking a respite for a year. In the game you won’t have to worry about how the teams split gate revenue, and you get to add a familiar opponent to most seasons and restart one of the most important rivalries in LSU athletics and Louisiana.
And for that off year…
2 – Jet Set
Ok so speculation time: In Week Zero this year, Florida State plays Georgia Tech in Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Which leads me to believe that there will be a foreign stadium in the game. I’ve always thought that LSU should play a game in France, especially against another school with a French connection, be it Louisville or Notre Dame.
And even if it isn’t, a little imagination goes a long way! Nothing is there to stop you from turning a neutral site game being played in Hard Rock Stadium (the most European looking stadium in the game) into a game being played in Parc de Princes in Paris or Stadium de Toulouse. Hell, it can be the Emirates in London or Red Bull Arena in Leipzig.
And if imagination isn’t in your bag, you know whose stadium will be in the game? Hawaii.
3 – Dress It Up
LSU has in their uniform rotation two helmets (yellow and white), two jerseys (white and purple) and two pants (yellow and white), and that’s not including the potential for the Silent Season uniforms to be included. That may not sound like much by comparison, but that offers the option for 8 different uniform combinations. Try them all out, and see which ones you like the best and which ones you never want to see again.
Spoiler: Yellow-Purple-White kind of goes.
4 – I’m From Louisiana
The first three tips were just peripheral things to help establish some interest, but now it’s time to get into the house rules aspect of the list. LSU is an easy job in the game, and a little challenge never hurt anybody.
Louisianans are a proud people, and the state produces some of the best talent in the country on a per capital basis. Try to see how good of a program you can build exclusively out of Louisiana prospects. The challenge is that in previous games, while the top end of the Louisiana recruiting classes had sought-after recruits, but it was sort of top-heavy and didn’t have too many recruits to pick and choose from who weren’t four or five stars. Will you have enough to fill out a full recruiting class? How will it impact your depth? How difficult will the addition of a transfer portal make achieving this?
If you don’t have enough to fill out a class, the game may fill the vacant spots with walkons who may or may not be from Louisiana. If they’re not, go in and change their location but don’t touch the ratings because integrity matters in this video game. Are you a bad enough dude to win the college football playoff with a two star quarterback from DeRidder throwing to the top-ranked wide receiver from Hammond?
5 – Less Is More
They say perfection is achieved when there is not anything more to add, but nothing left to subtract.
My challenge to you is to win the national championship with as few plays as possible. It sounds like this year’s game will be far less glitchy than years past, but it is still a video game, and a football one at that. Some plays will absolutely be cheat codes and some will be nerfed to hell. But I’m not asking you to find the one broken play and exploit it, I want to know how few plays you can call and still be successful. There was one year in my “endgame” NCAA 14 dynasty where I ran nearly exclusively zone reads and slants, and that was before the RPO evolution took over college football. With RPOs (that work pretty well in Madden), that number could be drastically reduced down to one outside of two minute drills.
You don’t have to listen to me, if you buy a copy of the game it is yours to do as you see fit. But I believe these ideas can help raise your enjoyment and investment in your dynasty and turn your LSU coaching career from a cakewalk to a title to an interesting and different experience.
What will you do in your LSU dynasty?