The best teams in College Football 25 to start your dynasty

College football has finally returned to video games with the release of EA’s College Football 25.

The game sees the return of Dynasty mode, the most popular feature in EA’s old NCAA Football video game series. In Dynasty mode, you get to create your own coach and build a legacy at a school while simulating 30 years of college football. You level up your coach by winning games and getting recruits to commit to your team. There’s even an online version of Dynasty mode, where you compete with up to 32 of your friends, with each of you building your own program.

EA Sports College Football 25

The first entry in EA’s series since 2013’s NCAA Football 14, EA Sports College Football 25 is a sports sim that focuses on realistically capturing the college football scene.

Developer(s)

EA Orlando

System

PlayStation , Xbox

Platform(s)

PS5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Genre(s)

Sports

ESRB

E For Everyone Due To Alcohol Reference

Picking the best team for Dynasty mode

EA Sports

The toughest part about starting a dynasty is choosing your team. There are 134 teams to choose from, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, reflecting where the school sits in the world of modern college football. While you might be tempted to start a dynasty with your favorite top-tier program, the real fun comes from building up smaller programs to rival the likes of blue-blood programs like Alabama, Georgia, and Michigan. Even my favorite team, the Miami Hurricanes, are a little too overpowered, making building a dynasty a breeze. That’s despite being a middle-of-the-pack team over the last two decades.

Dynasty mode gives each school a star rating from one to five stars, with the best programs being five stars and the worst being one star. We’ve rounded up the best low-rated programs to start a dynasty with. We’re looking for teams with exciting players, unique offenses, small recruiting advantages, and fun challenges. Cool uniforms and helmets or goofy mascots won’t hurt either. Here’s our list of the top programs to start a dynasty with in College Football 25.

1 Sam Houston State Bearkats

Rival the big state schools

The Sam Houston State Bearkats are a newcomer to the highest level of college football, having just completed their first season at the FCS-level after being a championship-level program at lower levels. One of the most attractive parts of playing a Dynasty as Sam Houston States is the school’s position as one of the lowest ranked programs in Texas. Texas as a state has 13 programs in the game, including flagship programs like the University of Texas and Texas A&M. This sets up for a dynasty filled with fun in-state rivalries and recruiting battles.

Sam Houston’s roster is pretty bad, but they have talented wide receivers, and their quarterback, Grant Gunnell, has a mobility trait making him great at scrambling up through the middle of the field.

2 Arizona State Sun Devils

A new-look Big 12 bottom-feeder

Arizona State features cool uniforms, a weird little devil mascot, and a beautiful home stadium. The main draw to starting a dynasty with the Sun Devils is checking out the new Big 12, which features 16 teams, half of which have joined in the last year. Arizona State arrives for their first year in the league, projected to finish second to last by the Big 12 media members. They are just a few years removed from having to fire a former coach for rules violations that caused most of the better players on the team to leave.

Arizona State has one of the lowest-rated rosters among teams in the top four college football conferences. Running back Cameron Skattebo is the team’s highest-rated player, making Arizona State a great choice if you’re looking to take a run-heavy approach to your coaching style.

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3 Jacksonville State Gamecocks

Not the Jacksonville you’re thinking

The Jacksonville State University Gamecocks are based in Jacksonville, Alabama, not the more well-known city in Florida, but they still give you access to deep recruiting pipelines in the South. They’re in Conference USA, which is the weakest of the 11 FBS conferences, meaning you can truly build a dynasty starting at the very bottom of college football. They’re coached by Rich Rodriguez, who helped craft one of the more famous offenses in football video games while at West Virginia. Coaches aren’t in this year’s game, but you can still take advantage of using his offense. They also feature a fun young quarterback to play with in Zion Turner. He has a high speed rating, making him a great dual-threat option for just about any type of offense you’d like to run.

4 Kennesaw State Owls

The Kennesaw State Owls are the newest team at the top level of college football. They’re yet another member of Conference USA, America’s worst college football conference. They play their home games in Kennesaw, Georgia, providing access to the south’s fertile recruiting grounds. They also feature pretty cool black and yellow uniforms.

It’s one of the least talented rosters to start with, owing to this being the team’s first year in the top level of college football. The most talented players are on the defensive side of the ball, while on offense, the highest rated player is a 78 overall running back.

Related

EA Sports College Football 25 is finally here

Early access for players who bought the special edition version of the game kicks off at 4pm EST today. It’s been 10 years since the last version of the game was released, and I can’t wait to run through the smoke with the Miami Hurricanes. What are some of the college football traditions, like Clemson touching Howard’s Rock as they enter the stadium, or FSU’s Chief Osceola planting the spear at midfield before kickoff, that you’re most looking forward to seeing in the new game?

5 UMass Minutemen

Forgo a conference

The University of Massachusetts features one of the cooler team names in the game: The Minutemen. Aside from the team name, they might be the most hopeless team in college football. They run a bland offense, have one of the lowest rated rosters in the game, and don’t even belong to a conference, instead operating as an independent.

That helps make UMass a more attractive video game school though. As an independent, you can totally control your schedule, as opposed to when you’re in a conference and forced to play the other teams in your conference. You can also quickly add them to whichever conference you like and begin an unlikely rise as one of the worst teams in college football over the last two decades.

6 Oregon State Beavers

The Pac-12 leftovers

The upcoming season will be the first without the Pac-12. The conference that represented the major West Coast football schools dissolved, with most schools leaving for greener pastures in the Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC. Oregon State was one of two schools left without a seat when the musical chairs of conference realignment ended. Along with Washington State, Oregon State is playing in a two-team league this season, and each team’s future is largely in doubt. You can take the wheel as head coach of the Beavers and make the other conferences rue the day they left Oregon State behind.

Oregon State has lost most of its top-end talent as the Pac-12 dissolved, but there’s still a collection of well-rated running backs, offensive linemen, and defensive backs that give you a chance to compete in your first season.

7 Wake Forest Demon Deacons

The most-unique offense in the game

Wake Forest is one of the lower-rated teams in the ACC, but that hasn’t been the case for very long. Thanks to a unique offense that utilizes a type of run play called the slow-mesh, the Demon Deacons have recently had one of the better runs in program history before falling off last season. They also get bonus points for having a motorcycle-riding, possessed muppet as a mascot.

Wake Forest’s roster is a little more talented than the others on this list, including two 85 overall rated wide receivers in Taylor Morin and Donavon Greene. It’s still one of the weaker rosters in its conference, though, making for a fun climb to the top.