College Football 25: Does EA Sports' draft engine correctly understand the ratings of young players?

From the beginning, EA Sports has prided itself on developing football games that are as close to real life as possible.

The first video game to bear John Madden's name was released in 1988 (John Madden Football) and allowed players to change the weather and volume at the line of scrimmage. The EA Sports tradition continued throughout the '90s and 2000s. With expansions to the hugely popular Madden and NCAA football franchises, players saw evolutions and changes to the products designed to give them a more lifelike feel.

The latest and long-awaited installment, College Football 25, is no exception – just ask any of the players who spent their time berating their (virtual) coach for not recruiting a better kicker.

But how did EA Sports do when it came to analyzing and evaluating potential NFL draft prospects? The popular Dynasty mode provides (somewhat paltry) draft results at the end of each season. I simulated the 2025 season 10 times to get a feel for what those results would look like. Do they hold up to our expectations for the 2025 draft class? Let's take a look at how accurate these player rankings – and draft results – might be.

The CFB 25 traction engine

The game generates draft results after each season in Franchise Mode. There's no real order, just “first round” or “second round” and so on. And unfortunately, players don't have the ability to export a class to the Madden universe like they could in previous versions of the game.

So I simulated the upcoming season 10 times to get a feel for how College Football 25 rates the 2025 NFL Draft. While the results weren't unanimous, a few core players appeared as first-rounders far more often than the rest.

These players:

If this group looks frighteningly similar to the game's top-ranked players overall, it's no coincidence. These rankings clearly drive the mock draft engine the game uses to determine which players go in which round. Those ranked in the 30-50 range — guys like Michigan's Colston Loveland, Alabama's Parker Brailsford and LSU's Harold Perkins Jr. — were often first-rounders, but not always.

The QB ratings

The biggest problem with player ratings in the game is one that appeals to the casual football viewer and generally makes the game more entertaining: Almost all quarterbacks and running backs are rated way too high.

Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel, for example, is the 30th best player in the game and the fourth best quarterback (behind Shedeur Sanders, Carson Beck and Quinn Ewers, in that order), so Gabriel shows up as a first-round pick quite often. As a sixth-year player, he has thrown for nearly 15,000 yards and is about to enter his third major program – a great college player who now leads arguably the most talented team in college football.

He is also 5 foot 10, barely 200 pounds and decided not a candidate for the first round of the 2025 draft. In fact The athleteThe Dane Brugler recently rated him as the 14th best experienced passer at the start of the season.

Other quarterbacks I think are overrated are: Liberty's Kaidon Salter (QB5), Kansas' Jalon Daniels (QB7), Arizona's Noah Fifita (QB8), and Utah's Cameron Rising (QB10). Conversely, I think the following quarterbacks are underrated: Texas A&M's Conner Weigman (QB12), Notre Dame's Riley Leonard (QB14), Penn State's Drew Allar (QB17), USC's Miller Moss (QB28), and Florida's Graham Mertz (QB37).

It's pretty obvious what's going on here: The guys with the best stats and metrics tend to be valued higher than those who haven't been in the spotlight as long, regardless of competition or context. At the same time, the game does a really good job of giving recognition to players like Memphis' Seth Henigan (QB11).

To me, Gabriel is the most overrated offensive player in the game. But if the biggest criticism is that competitive veterans like Gabriel and NC State's Grayson McCall have been rewarded with slightly higher ratings than they would get in real life, so be it.

The most underrated talents in the game

Actually, I have two.

This game has more realistically rendered offensive line play (and player ratings in general) than I remember. Still, it's one of the more inconsistent areas of the game. Take LSU right tackle Emery Jones Jr., for example. Like his teammate/linemate Will Campbell, Jones will start the season with first-round ratings — he's ranked way up there at No. 13 on Brugler's first big board. Not in the video game, though, where he's the 92nd player for some reason.

Additionally, nine running backs are ranked in the game's top 50 and 14 in the top 100. That makes sense in the world of video games, but it's not realistic in the NFL Draft.

And if we're going to build running backs, why not go with the guy who's the hardest to tackle? Boise State's Ashton Jeanty is far better than the No. 10 running back in the class that EA Sports has him at. He's absolutely in the top three for 2025 and possibly the best overall. (Brugler has him at No. 1 right now.) Rutgers' Kyle Monangai gets the second spot for least respected running back.

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The most overrated talents in the game

Linebackers also got the same treatment as quarterbacks/running backs. One game mode lets you build a career as a player at a single position, with middle linebacker also being an option. This is entertaining, as the MLB position is one of the easiest to play in a video game, but overall, there is far too much attention paid to this position.

Iowa linebacker Jay Higgins, for example, is not among the top 16 young prospects in the country. Neither is Clemson linebacker Barrett Carter. According to College Football 25, both reach those elite heights.

Higgins is an exception in my eyes, though, as he made 171 tackles last season at Iowa, at the heart of a defense that was forced to support an essentially quarterbackless offense for most of Higgins' career. That rating is wrong, but the intent — both in the video game and from a “this is what college football should be about” perspective — is fine.

Final thoughts

As is the case every year with Madden's preseason ratings, it's all in the eye of the beholder. However, I was impressed with how many legitimate small-school NFL Draft prospects are correctly rated in the game and, furthermore, how every player on every team is (for the most part) about where they should be.

Of course, there are exceptions. Here's how my preseason top positions differ from those in College Football 25:

If you've played the game, let us know your thoughts on the draft engine and player ratings in the comments. Who is EA Sports missing? Who is getting too much credit right now?

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(Gameplay screenshots courtesy of EA Sports)