Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows PCs
Current goal: Humble another trash talker
Last month, I bought EA Sports College Football 25 for the low, low price of $15. It released back in July and ultimately became 2024’s second-highest selling game in the U.S. I was slow to the party, though, as I had never played the original NCAA Football games, meaning I was decidedly less geeked for the series’ reboot. But since I scooped it on sale, CFB has quickly replaced Madden as my favorite sports franchise—this became apparent to me last night, around my 141st hour of play time.
There I was, silently prepared to take my first loss for the night in Road to the College Football Playoff, one of CFB 25’s two ranked online modes. The game opened as I marched down the field via a methodical, run-heavy drive with the Colorado Buffaloes and settled for a field goal on 4th and a few deep in the red zone. My opponent, who was playing with the LSU Tigers, rocking a massive advantage in both offensive and overall team ratings, responded with two quick bombs that put him in the endzone. I intended to finish the game, but I knew I was outmatched. Having already accepted defeat, that’s when I heard the muffled voice crackle through the base of my DualSense controller: “’Ey, I know you there, lil boy,” he said with a southern drawl as his wide receiver did a touchdown dance. “You so sorry.”
It was finally happening. I had encountered my first CFB 25 trash talker. I threw a pick on the very next drive, a trick play out of the Wildcat to Travis Hunter, and my opponent scolded me for even trying “that stupid-ass shit” in the first place. “My players live back here,” he said, cosplaying as if he actually had a clipboard in his hand and an LSU coaching paystub in the mail. After my “it’s just a game” appeal only resulted in him calling me names, I quietly told myself I’d take the first chance I’d get to rib him back. Turns out I didn’t have to wait that long.
Coach Cosplay must have lost the locker room after such an insufferably cringe comment, because he wouldn’t score another point from that moment on. Each time he took a sack, threw a pick, turned the ball over on downs, sailed it over his target’s head, chucked it into the stands, whiffed on a user tackle, or gave up a crucial score, I’d clown him for that corny “my players” quip: “What happened, Coach?” “Talk to your boys, Coach.” “LSU ‘bout to have yo ass applying for a JUCO gig after this one, Coach.” I called him all types of bums and losers for living his sideline dreams vicariously through video games, questioning whether he had a job of his own IRL. It was glorious.
Before Coach Cosplay rage quit, the score was 13-7, just as I was about to kick another field goal to make it 16-7. By the fourth quarter, my trash talker had gone from “I know you there, lil boy” to “shut the fuck up…you talk so much, oh my God.”
I don’t know if I’ll come across another fictitious leader of men in College Football 25 this weekend. If I do, I hope he reads the paper and finds out how LSU sent a trash talker to the coach carousel for losing to a casual who bought the game nine months late for 80 percent off. Let this be a lesson to him and other aspirant young play-callers: CFB isn’t an RPG, and you’ll get put in a Kotaku post if you catch an L acting like it is. — Austin Williams
