It Stalls In The Red Zone

The sport of college football has seen many changes over the last decade, from major conference realignments to the introduction of NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness). One of the changes was the disappearance of the iconic college football series in 2014, and its eventual return with EA Sports College Football 25 in 2025. The game returned as a massive hit in its first year, earning one of the best-selling sports games of all time. EA Sports College Football 26 improved on some things, but overall still felt lacking in specific areas.

EA Sports College Football 27 is the third iteration since the revival and, in many ways, one of the most vital for the series. The biggest complaint, one could argue, is that the series has not kept pace with real-life sports, especially in its biggest game mode, Dynasty. 

EA Sports College Football 27 is clearly not the same game as in previous years, with plenty of changes and overhauls. Gameplay, particularly on the defensive side of the ball, got major revamps and overhauls, and the same with all the adjustments across both sides of the ball. Dynasty mode got the largest update and overhaul in over 20 years, introducing an entire budgeting and NIL system. Road to Glory (RTG) added new positions and some fine-tuning.

There is plenty of new and innovative stuff added to CFB 27; however, that begs the question of how all these changes pan out overall. I checked out some of these features before launch in my CFB 27 preview, and now have had some time to dive into everything EA Sports College Football 27 has to offer. 

The gameplay in EA Sports College Football 27 is the best it’s been.

The gameplay of CFB 27 feels the best it has been since its return. The gameplay speed does feel a little slower than last year’s game, but it doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing. There is still plenty of explosiveness from the players. How the players engage with each other feels more dynamic and realistic. This is seen in the run game, where players who love to sit in a cheap Dollar or Dime formation to stop the run are now getting punished, as those tiny defensive backs don’t stand a chance against offensive linemen. 

Sometimes it does feel a little too much watching everyone get pancaked all of the time, and it could use some balance, but overall, it is a great step in the right direction. Especially as a run-first player, having to deal with players playing a very pass-heavy defense only to magically blow up the run every time became quite a nuisance. 

Defense was a big focal point for CFB 27 as it was clear that it had been falling behind the offense in terms of gameplay. There were major revamps and overhauls to coverage, and your defensive players read and react. This is quite noticeable as your CPU players will not be sitting in no man’s land as much anymore. They do tend to pick up the drags and will look for other potential receiving threats. It is not perfect, as there are still times when a linebacker is just hanging out covering grass, but compared to years past, this is a vast improvement in the overall gameplay. 

Running man coverage is now viable as corners and safeties do a better job staying with their man, and with the new jostle mechanics, it actually allows better-rated, but not as fast, corners to not just get burnt every play but lower-rated receivers. Playing defense and the overall gameplay are quite enjoyable, and just booting up a game has never felt better. I do hope it stays this way, as I know the last few years, due to reasons, there have been many gameplay patches, and while some of them have been some good fine-tuning, there have been others that, after a few months, I felt like I was playing almost a completely different game than at the time of review.

There has been a lack of tutorials and explanations for everything over the last few years in CFB 27, and while for most people it wasn’t noticeable, it really did make the game very unfriendly to newer players. EA Sports College Football 27 redid their tutorial system to match what Madden has had, as well as explanations of more technical terms of the game of football, such as “Match” or “Palms” in coverage. 

This is great for old and new players, as even I sometimes forget which is which, but this really seems to be part of the larger overhaul and new feature of Custom Adjustments. Custom Adjustments allow players to have 20 preset offensive and defensive adjustments that, when they are playing in-game, they can quickly make reads and checks, then “audible” to one of these set custom adjustments. To go with these preset Custom Adjustments, they have also expanded on adjustments so that players can now have their CPU players, or themselves, make checks and then adjust accordingly. 

Custom Adjustments, while a little time-consuming, are ultimately quite helpful to the player.

If players are struggling with a scrambling quarterback or notice someone tends to run a particular route combo out of a specific formation, they can now use these and click on two buttons to almost redo their entire defense to adapt to what they believe is going to be run by the opposite team. These are designed mainly to help defense, but as mentioned, they can be made for offense as well. 

I will say actually setting these up can be a little time-consuming and lots of trial and error on what exactly you would like to see out of your players, but once you get it all completed, they can be very helpful and powerful, especially playing against players who are predictable, to say the least. 

Road to Glory has been a mixed bag for the CFB series, as while there were some strides made last year, it still wasn’t that fun and felt very lacking, whether due to a lack of position options or that you had to just spend your entire college years doing nothing but, ironically, studying.

EA Sports College Football 27 added three new playable positions to RTG, along with revamping how much control players had over their RTG player development. Allowing players to use college legend prototype builds and then level their ratings up individually.

The three new positions for players to choose from were Tight End, EDGE, and Safety. The best of these, in my opinion, is Tight End, with Safety being the worst. CFB 27 did fine-tune the high school goals and points system, as now players are rewarded more for being successful on the field and not just doing the sometimes ridiculous goals that were required.

Safety, sadly, still has this problem, as the game will require goals that are out of your control at times. There were times it would want me to break up a pass on a drive, and then the CPU ran it every play or never even threw the ball in my direction, thus making me fail the goal. Obviously, playing defense means you have less control as you are reacting to what the offense is doing; still, this was quite frustrating. 

Tight end, on the other hand, was quite a blast as you would be rewarded not only in the passing game, but also for how well you blocked in the run game. This really made me feel like I could run an actual offense that wasn’t just trying to spam the ball to myself. Making one or even two blocks on a single play and seeing that I received “points” felt rewarding. 

Anyone familiar with the EA FC series might recognize similarities in the new RTG build system. Player skill caps are based on your height and weight, meaning that how tall or heavy your player is no longer matters. For players not wanting to mess with all their skill caps, CFB 27 added college legend builds for players to choose from. So if you want to make the next Ed Reed or Todd Heap, you can just select them, and they will automatically build out your potential player for you. 

RTG is improved, being more balanced, allowing players to focus on leadership and personal brand.

The biggest improvement to RTG is just that, finally, you do not have to spend all your weekly time and points on just studying. That has been balanced out, allowing you to finally focus on leadership or your personal brand. Road to Glory has improved from last year’s game, and with the new additional positions, it can allow for some more replayability. I still think it is one of the more niche modes of the game, but the improvements do make it at least something players should consider checking out.

Dynasty is the biggest and most popular game mode for the EA Sports College Football series, and this is the year it seems the EA CFB team is going big. The entire game mode has been overhauled, implementing many new features such as an entire athletic department budget that players will need to manage, and this includes finally implementing a NIL system that has been missing for the last few years. 

There are so many new features and things that I will not be able to go over all of them, so for anyone who wants a more in-depth look at all the new dynasty features, they can check out the earlier breakdown of the CFB 27 Dynasty.

Things are different right from the very beginning of selecting their team, as there is now an overview screen that gives players the team’s top players, top pipelines, rivals, historical data, and more. This is something simple, but I did want to point it out, as not knowing what your school’s pipelines or even rivals were the last few years and having to rely on spreadsheets was quite annoying after a while.

Players will have two additions of AD Expectations and Dynasty Blueprint. These will be the big things for how players will run and manage not only their rosters, but also their football program. AD (Athletic Director) Expectations are dynamic goals players need to complete each year, and play a big role now in keeping your job. Job security is not just winning and losing anymore, but also how happy your AD is with you and completing these expectations for your AD. 

The bigger the school or the more successful you are, the harder the AD Expectations get, and they are not always about just winning football games either; sometimes they may want you to average 20+ points a game for a season or upgrade your facilities. 

Dynasty Blueprint is the next-biggest addition, and it includes the newly introduced currency, Dynasty Points (DP). Dynasty Blueprint is an overview of your football athletic program and includes Staff, Facilities, NIL, and the overall program budget. Each program has a yearly amount of Dynasty Points they can spend in each of these areas, and that amount gets reevaluated after each season. This makes improving your school grades, completing AD Expectations, and utilizing things quite important, as your DP can go up or even down each year, and players will be responsible for then budgeting accordingly.

Support Staff and Facilities are two parts of this Dynasty Blueprint that players will need to manage. Support Staff involves hiring staff to help with program needs, such as a fundraising coordinator to gain more Dynasty Points for the following season. This is where you can see and budget your offensive and defensive coordinators, as well as what they will want and cost in Dynasty Points.

How much control do players have over facilities? In CFB 27, a fair amount.

Facilities have always been that weird mystery-non-mystery of the CFB franchise: what exactly do they do, and how do you improve them other than just win? Well, that has changed: players now control their facilities, which are broken into different tiers and cost DP not only to improve but also for annual maintenance.

The better the facilities, the better player progression and development they receive in the offseason, along with boosts in recruiting. Facilities, much like Support Staff, have items players can purchase to help improve parts of their program. These are equipment slots, and the number of slots is determined by the tier of facilities. 

The equipment is short-term boosts, such as reducing Wear & Tear on players for a specific number of weeks. These equipment slots are how players improve their facility grades. Elite Facilities means you have a default grade of A-, and in order to get to A+, you would need to buy specific equipment to boost your grade.       

The last component of your Dynasty Blueprint is NIL, and this is all about roster management. Players will now have to spend Dynasty Points not only to recruit players, whether it be high school or the Transfer Portal, but will also need to use these DP to maintain their current players. What each player wants as far as NIL will vary based on ratings, performance, and even school-to-school. 

Weekly Practices have been added for managing Wear & Tear as well, and give players a way of not only managing their W&T, but also give their players weekly XP and potential composure boosts. It is similar to the Madden weekly practice without the focus training. 

This is where I say I am still disappointed and confused about how or why we still can’t see how many points our players need to level up or the amount of experience gained from each week’s game, the way Madden does. It stands out even more now since you get to see your players gain a random weekly amount of experience that comes with a number, but then you go to check their player card, and it is just the same; the well bar goes up. 

All of these new additions will need to be managed not only from season to season, but even week to week. This doesn’t even touch on recruiting, which is pretty much the same, except each player now has an NIL value. There will be plenty for players to manage and do when they are not playing games.

The coaching carousel has been revamped as well, so players can try to hire any coordinator they wish and express interest in any job opening. This really opens the doors for players and allows more freedom, and not relying on what felt like RNG for job offers.

There has been a ton added to the game mode, vastly improving the freedom, control, and creativity for dynasty players; however, it isn’t without its issues or faults. There is so much that it can feel overwhelming at times and convoluted, especially when looking at your budget. 

I know trying to figure out the exact amount of DP you have for your roster versus what you use for recruiting is a little hard to figure out at first, as it will show you have only 10 Dynasty Points left, then you open the recruiting tab, and it shows you have 400 Dynasty Points to spend on scholarships, and you are left wondering how that happened.

With all that has been added for players to boost creative control and freedom, it can be overwhelming.

One of the bigger issues lies within the coaching trees, as it does not seem everything got updated to go with all the new changes. There didn’t seem to be any new abilities to match all the new NIL or budgeting. There are just some abilities that are confusing now; for example, the ability to have more or better coordinator options is still there, yet we are able to hire any coordinator we would like and are not locked into a few selections.

The other area that seemed to be lacking and looks worse with all these new features is that while we have all these new roster management tools and NIL, somehow, when it comes to the transfer portal, it is still just a click of a single button RNG on whether a player decides to transfer or not. 

Overall, these Dynasty mode changes for EA Sports College Football 27 are a giant leap forward for the franchise, especially in terms of immersion and ability for players to really control and manage their teams. Now it can be seen that this mode isn’t really casual anymore, and while you can set things to auto, it wouldn’t be the same. However, for many players, like myself, this is what I have been wanting forever, and I love all these intricate management mechanics and things of not just Play Now mode with recruiting.

There is plenty to love about EA Sports College Football 27, even with its flaws; however, there are a few things that are worrisome about where the franchise is heading, especially now that microtransactions are in Dynasty and RTG modes. Players can now spend real money to upgrade their coaches or RTG players, and while these options are optional and can be turned off for online dynasties, it is a really weird decision, especially moving forward. 

This is on top of the already paywalled coaching archetypes that were introduced with the MVP+ Membership earlier this year. These can be multiplayer, but are ultimately single-player modes, so it is worrisome what could potentially look like with future features and additions to the game modes.

One of the biggest issues I have with this is that it paywalls an actual legit issue that has been a thing for online dynasties: the ability to join an already-started dynasty and have your coach catch up. One reason not to join a dynasty already in Year 3 or 4 is that everyone’s coach level would be way ahead of yours, and there’s no way to catch up. All these microtransactions just paywall any sort of catch-up mechanic. 

This also comes at the expense of the XP sliders that used to be in the game, and while it seems we will be getting some sort of patch to add them back, it makes one wonder what the future holds for this series. 

Overall, EA Sports College Football 27 is a leap forward in gameplay and features, particularly in Dynasty Mode. There is plenty to enjoy about the game, and the largest game mode, Dynasty, has so much to offer. It just feels like someone missed a block downfield, which kept this big play from being explosive.

EA Sports College Football 27 is available for purchase on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.