9 College Football 25 tips and tricks to dominate Dynasty mode

Key Takeaways

Revamped dynasty mode in College Football 25 values certain player types over overall ratings.
New offenses, like RPO plays, and old favorites, like the triple option, are added.
Tips include focusing on important attributes for each position and using auto-subs to manage wear and tear.

College Football 25 is out and gamers will find a lot to love in the revamped dynasty mode in College Football 25, which is much different than the last version of the game we saw over a decade ago. An all-new gameplay system has made certain types of players more valuable than their overall rating would have you believe. New offenses, with tons of RPO plays, have been added, while old favorites like the triple option are back as well.

Recruiting is one of the biggest parts of the College Football 25. It might look familiar to older gamers, as some of the mechanics return in a slightly updated form from previous versions of NCAA Football. Don’t let that fool you though, the AI behind recruiting has been updated to be more like real-life recruiting, making it harder to land prospects at the lower-level schools. Don’t worry though, we’ve rounded up all the best tips and tricks to turn you into your very own Nick Saban.

EA Sports College Football 25

Franchise: EA Sports College Football
Platform(s): PS5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S
Genre(s): Sports
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Choosing a coaching style

Recruiter or bust

The first choice you’ll have to make starting a dynasty is which coaching archetype you’ll choose from recruiter, motivator, and strategist. The best choice here is recruiter, as it makes landing the best players a little easier. Motivator improves player development, but the main bonuses you’ll want in that skill tree are also available as a recruiter. Tactician will let you access improved attributes in games, as well as bonuses on recruiting official visits. But, again, the best strategist bonuses are also available as a recruiter though.

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Create your own playbook

Mix and mash styles

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Creating your own playbook lets you tailor all the formations and plays you want to use. It also allows for funky combinations you wouldn’t see in real life, like combining the Air Raid offense with the triple option. Make sure you fill out your audibles for any formation you add as well.

Currently, you can’t choose your own playbook for your coach in dynasty, but you can choose your playbook before each game in the team options screen. You’ll find your created playbooks just before Air Force in the offensive and defensive playbook sections.

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Need for speed

Know what’s important to each position

This goes for the roster you start with in dynasty mode and as you look to add more recruits to your team. The most important attributes differ slightly depending on the position they play. Wide receivers are the most obvious position, as their speed attributes (Speed, Acceleration, Agility, and Change of Direction) are often more important than their actual overall skill rating while playing games. Cornerbacks and running backs are other positions where speed attributes are at a premium.

Along the offensive and defensive line — try to pay attention to players’ strength ratings, as well as their size. Watching offensive and defensive linemen’s height and weight will also help you avoid wasting recruiting hours on busts. The smaller players are less likely to be gem recruits. It’s also worth trying to avoid having players with higher overalls but poor size, if you can avoid it. The closer a lineman is to 6′ is a sign that he might not have a high ceiling.

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Use auto-subs to manage wear and tear

Managing your entire roster is a more important part of the game

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If you play three or four games in a row without a bye week, you’ll begin to notice your players’ ratings start to fall. That’s where smartly substituting your players to avoid heavy workloads comes into play.

You don’t need to do this for every player, but at certain positions, you should expect more wear and tear. Running backs, offensive linemen, defensive linemen, and linebackers are the positions that experience wear and tear the most. Running backs specifically will see their ratings decrease and injuries pile up if you don’t manage their workload smartly. So it’s worth using increasing running back substitutions in the autosubs menu in the team section of the dynasty hub, in order to make sure your backup can eat a few snaps during the game. Just know that if your running back is carrying the football 20+ times per game, he will eventually start to degrade.

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Don’t waste scholarships

You can’t cut incoming players

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In past versions of NCAA Football, getting under the scholarship limit was a breeze. You just cut the worst players on your team. College Football 25 makes this process a little trickier. You can no longer cut incoming freshmen and players you picked up from the transfer portal. So, in order to get under the 85-player roster limit, you may need to cut higher-rated players and keep busts who committed to your program.

To stop this from happening, don’t hand out scholarships freely, and scout the players you want to recruit. It’s the best way to make sure you’re not wasting your recruiting hours and potentially a roster spot.

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Recruiting basics

Focus on the highest-rated players interested in you

To start each season of my dynasty, figure out which positions you need to address for the next season by identifying players who are playing their final year in college. Then add the highest-rated players that are interested in your school with a focus on the positions you need. You can add a few higher-rated prospects, but it’s actually easier to pull the big fish prospects later in the recruiting cycle (we’ll get to that). Use the sort function in the prospects menu to sort by players’ star ratings. Anyone interested in your school will have a green dot next to their name. You should also pay attention to recruits’ pipeline ratings. They can have a pipeline rating going up to five. The higher the rating, the easier time you’ll have recruiting them. I use the preseason recruiting hours to scout most of the 35 players I added to my recruiting board, and focus on the few who are gems (the highest possible overall).

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How to find the best recruits

What will recruits’ overall be depending on their star ranking?

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The level of recruit you’ll be able to land will largely be determined by how good your school is on the field, but by identifying “gem” recruits, you can land players with a higher overall than what their star rating will normally provide. So a class loaded with four-star players might have a higher class ranking than a class filled with three-star gem recruits, but both would be filled with players who have similar overalls. Meanwhile, there’s much less competition for the three-star players.

Recruiting Star Rating	Regular Overall	Gem Overall	Bust Overall
5-Star	78-82	83-88	70-74
4-Star	72-77	77-82	67-72
3-Star	67-72	72-77	62-67
2-Star	62-67	67-72	57-62
1-Star	52-57	57-62	47-52

The amount of recruiting hours you have will depend on the level of your coach and the school you are at. If you’re a leveled-up recruiting coach at a school with 5-star prestige, you’ll have 1,000 recruiting hours to find new players, while a rookie coach at a small 1-star prestige school could have as little as 350. You’ll have more hours available in the pre-season to scout, and during the four weeks in the off-season when the transfer portal is open.

With a recruiting board filled with 35 prospects, you might be tempted to spread those recruiting hours out across the entire board. That’s the exact opposite of what you should do, though. Focus on the highest-rated players you’ve scouted with the green gem bonus and allocate the highest number of recruiting points you can by using the Send The House recruiting pitch. The normal maximum you can spend per recruit is 50 hours, but with skills from the coaching tree, you can get it as high as 75 hours for certain positions.

At higher prestige schools, like Alabama or Georgia, you may be able to back off recruits that you’ve built up a lead with and still land their commitments without spending the maximum number of points each week, but at any type of lower school, even 4-star prestige schools, you should continue spending the maximum until you land their commitments. Higher-profile schools can quickly come in and steal recruits from you.

Re-stocking your recruiting board

Look for open-status players or players with no scholarship offers.

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Once you’ve run through the players you initially added to your recruiting board, you can begin to restock it. You’ll want to remove players who have eliminated your school from consideration to free up spots, and then head to the prospect list. You’ll want to find the highest-rated prospects available that still have an open status with their recruitment or have no other scholarship offers. Through the first eight weeks of the season, you’ll be able to reliably find 4-star caliber players without offers that you can get to attend your lower-tier school. Just keep an eye on their recruitments each week, as larger schools will erode your advantage within a week or two once they become interested in a player.