We’re just over three weeks away from the long-awaited release of EA Sports College Football 25, and for those craving more in-game content, the developers were kind enough to release the top 25 offenses featured in the game on Thursday. Blue bloods Georgia, Alabama, and Ohio State all make up the top five, but I’m going to take a little time to break down these rankings and look at how they stack up against the top offenses in my college football projection model for the upcoming season.
If you are not familiar with my work, I have developed a model to predict the strength of college football teams. This process incorporates play-by-play level data and adjusts based on opponent, home field advantage, and garbage time to project how well an offense or defense will perform in the future against an average college football team. The model also takes into account return on production as well as recruiting metrics to project each team’s performance heading into the regular season. Projections are broken down by offense and defense, which can be combined for an overall grade.
Although these rankings (both in my model and in-game) will change throughout the season, it’s interesting to see how similar or different the two systems can be. Let’s take a look at where the biggest differences are between my model and the game.
Shedeur Sanders is one of the top quarterback prospects for the 2025 NFL Draft, so maybe that’s driving the Buffs’ high ranking, but my model has Coach Prime’s offense at 49th this season. Colorado ranked 64th in EPA per offensive play and 69th in offensive success rate in 2023, according to TruMedia. The offense could improve from those marks, but if the Buffs field a top-10 offense in college football this season, frankly, I’d be surprised. A unit that posted slightly above-average efficiency in college football is unlikely to become one of the best in the country in one offseason.
2. USC is underrated
Yes, needing to replace the number one NFL Draft pick at quarterback isn’t ideal, but if there’s one coach who can do it, it’s Lincoln Riley. In 2019, Riley replaced No. 1 overall pick Kyler Murray with Jalen Hurts and led Oklahoma to a top-five offense. According to TruMedia, a Riley offense hasn’t finished worse than 13th in EPA/play since 2019, and that 13th-place finish came during the pandemic-altered 2020 season. Redshirt junior Miller Moss, a top-100 recruit in his high school class as ranked by the 247Sports Composite, looked great in the bowl game last season. If history tells us anything, it’s that Riley is likely to have, at worst, a top-15 offense no matter who plays quarterback.
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3. Ohio State’s offense has something to prove
The Buckeyes dominated the transfer portal this offseason, but replacing quarterback Kyle McCord (who transferred to Syracuse) with Will Howard (who transferred from Kansas State) has generated some skepticism within my model and among developers from EA Sports. Sure, Ohio State is sixth by my numbers and fifth in the game, but they’re a far cry from where they were during Ryan Day’s tenure at Ohio State. The difference between Georgia and Ohio State’s offense in my model is the same as the gap between No. 6 and No. 15. Looking at EA’s ratings, the difference between the Buckeyes and the first seed is the same between the No. 5 and No. 21-22. That’s not the standard that has become the norm in Columbus, and all eyes will be focused on this offense as pressure mounts to return to the top of college football.
(Screenshot courtesy of EA Sports)
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