UB and MAC Adopt EA Sports College Football 25

CANTON, Ohio — Pete Lembo searched the recesses of his memory to recall the last time he played a college football video game.

The new University at Buffalo football coach is pretty sure the last time was more than 30 years ago, when he was a student at Georgetown and an 8-bit Nintendo game cartridge was all the rage in electronic competitions.

“Tecmo Bowl,” Lembo said Friday at Mid-American Conference football media day. “I remember in college, after a late night at Georgetown, the guys would come back to the apartment and it would be the late night Tecmo Bowl.”

Lembo’s Friday morning plans included a game of EA Sports 25 college football after breakfast.

He watched, in a specially designed lounge on the second floor of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, as Bulls linebackers Shaun Dolac and Red Murdock battled in a realistic version of UB Stadium. They made it snow. They put UB’s defense in all-white uniforms and its offense in all-black uniforms. They discussed what formations they would use.

They quickly found their avatars. Dolac and Murdock were two of more than 14,000 college football players from the 134 Football Bowl Subdivision programs who opted into the game, which was recently launched by EA Sports. Some MAC football players got a sneak peek of the latest installment, and early reviews of the much-hyped game were positive, with a few trivial quibbles.

“I just love that it’s back,” Dolac said. “It’s been around since 2013 or 2014, and just being able to see it, it was surreal to see your player in a video game. Growing up, as a kid, you wanted that. You wanted to be like Madden or all those types of video games, and to finally see that come to fruition, it’s a great feeling to have.”

Murdock made his College Football 25 debut on Friday, but faced Dolac, a seasoned veteran of the game. The West Seneca East graduate received a game code earlier in the week and immediately downloaded it.

“I love being able to play against my teammates and know everyone on the team exactly,” Murdock said. “One of my guys, Gio (De Leon, a UB linebacker), went out there and made a tackle on a kickoff, and it’s really cool to know everyone who makes the plays. That’s the surreal part of it.”

Western Michigan quarterback Hayden Wolff isn’t much of a gamer and said he sold the code he received for opting into the game when he got it. College Football 25 is available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, but Wolff doesn’t even own a video game console.

Still, Wolff sees the idea of ​​having his archetype in a video game as more interesting than having a family photo album.

“One day when I have kids, being able to show them and talk to them about it will be really cool,” Wolff said.

Damari Roberson, a linebacker from Western Michigan, opted to play in the game “as soon as the opportunity presented itself.”

He played College Football 25 in its previous incarnation — its last release was in 2013, with former Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson on the cover — and found a sense of nostalgia in playing the latest version.

Miami (Ohio) quarterback Brett Gabbert was impressed with the realistic details of the game, especially the way it depicted him and some of his teammates.

“They did an incredible job of making it look realistic, not only with the stadium, but with us players in general,” Gabbert said. “Even the looks are pretty similar, especially mine. Some guys look exactly the same, but me in a video game, it looks exactly like me.”

Wolff, the Western Michigan quarterback, found himself down 28-0 in the first quarter against Roberson.

“I didn’t like how bad I was at video games, and it would have been a shame if he had kept going,” Wolff said. “I need to keep working on my skills, playing video games.”

Roberson, for his part, had a criticism of his image.

“I have to be faster,” he joked.

Gabbert said he and his roommate, linebacker Matt Salopek, have the same speed rating: 80.

“I always joke that mine should be higher than his,” Gabbert said.

Murdock wasn’t happy with his name, image, and appearance. He just walked away from the video game consoles and shook his head with a smile, complaining that he needed a higher gamer rating.

The money he received for opting into College Football 25 probably didn’t hurt his opinion of the game. Players who opted to use their name, image, and likeness in College Football 25 received a $600 payment and a code for the video game, which retailed for $69.99. Not everyone got to play, though. The New York Times reported that more than 14,000 people initially opted into the game.

Dolac received a game code earlier in the week – and also said he received payment to play the game – but quickly realized that the game was progressing at a slower pace than usual.

“There were too many people playing,” Dolac said. “One time I managed to sign up and there were 800,000 people playing. The whole system was slow and skipping, and with that many people, the system was just overloaded. It takes away a little bit of the value of the game.”

The Associated Press reported that more than 2.2 million people played the game during an early access period before its official launch on Friday.

As he got up from the leather couch in the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s second-floor video game room, Dolac expressed concern about a visual problem. His image in the video game has blond hair. Dolac has brown hair.

Lembo is also in the game. Like Dolac, he has a problem with his virtual representation.

“I didn’t see it myself, but I heard someone tell me they saw me on the sideline without a hat,” Lembo said. “They knew I always wore a hat.”