When EA first rolled out College Football 25, it was understood that the game was a starting point for a new era of college football games, and it wasn’t intended to be the ultimate final goal. EA said that they had a three-year plan to build out the game, centering around Dynasty Mode, starting with CFB 25, building upon it in College Football 26, and perfecting the product in CFB 27. With College Football 27 coming out in the fall, that means we are just mere months away from this final product, and I, for one, have high hopes given how solid both games in the franchise have been.
What was built for CFB 25 and added in CFB 26 was impressive and has made for an excellent playing experience that, in my opinion, far surpasses that of Madden by a long shot, but it’s certainly not perfect. There are problems within the game that are frustrating and could use an upgrade, and there are features that could be added to make the game a lot more enjoyable. In this article, I want to focus on the fixes and features we want to see added in CFB 27, specifically regarding Dynasty mode, which is the game mode that I have the most experience with and the game mode that EA has focused the most on improving over this three-year initial window from 25 to 27.
These ideas and recommendations are a mix of my own thoughts and many online comments I’ve seen on Reddit, Twitter/X, and Operation Sports. None of them are dealbreakers on whether or not I’ll enjoy CFB 27, but seeing some of them implemented should make the experience that much more enjoyable next year.
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Gameplay
The gameplay in College Football 26 is actually really good, and if you can finesse the sliders to match your own skill level and areas of expertise/struggle, you can have a very nice experience in-game. There are a few minor issues/improvements that other community members and I have found that could be fixed or added in the next iteration of the game, including:
- Forcing a timeout on a team when a player gets injured within the two-minute warning, and adding a ten-second runoff if they have no timeouts left. This would reflect the real rules of college football.
- CPU defensive AI adaptive improvements to help deter offenses from spamming plays.
- Fixing the glitch that forces random offsides.
- Fixing the CPU QB play so that they don’t randomly run straight laterally out of bounds when under pressure.
- Fixing field goal kicking, especially when within 20 yards of the endzone.
- An even harder difficulty beyond the Heisman difficulty.
Recruiting
Recruiting is a huge aspect of Dynasty mode that they’ve been focused on improving in the last version of the game, but it still needs a lot of work. The basic recruiting process in the game is very intuitive and has a few holes, but there are plenty of extra add-ons that could make that aspect of the game much more fun. These additional game features include:
- NIL – it’s a reality in the college football landscape that we simply can’t escape, and that should be reflected in some way in CFB 27, even if it’s as simple as changing “scouting hours” to “NIL money” or something more complex that would reward higher status schools with more opportunity to nab top talent from high school and the transfer portal.
- More strategic pursuit options to go after recruits beyond the current set of seven, including a “final push option” or a “desperation plea” to use strategically at certain times to get a chance at players that you are currently behind on.
- A ranking system for your recruits on your board, giving you a higher effectiveness in increasing interest for players higher up on your list, giving you more control and customization of your recruitment game.
- Adding a set number of opportunities each season to flip players that aren’t interested or have you locked out, so that you have an opportunity to recruit guys that you otherwise wouldn’t be.
- FCS transfers: Every year, you’ll see guys like Trinidad Chambliss excel in FCS, DII, or DIII, and get recruited by FBS schools. I want to see that. Just a bunch of guys from FCS East, West, South, or North, each with crazy stats that reflect real FCS or low-tier football competition, who can compete in FBS.
- When you switch teams as a coach, most players should follow you to your new team. This should also happen with CPU coaches.
Coaching
We saw a focus this year from EA on coaching progression and archetype, and a lot of that was successful, with that element of the game being a lot more in-depth and dynamic, with more customizable options and more accurate and enjoyable progression. Now, for 2027, there are fewer things needed for this element of the game, but still, I found some things that could be improved and added to the next game.
- Fixing the coach carousel, so that you can apply to open jobs and teams look for candidates based on scheme, past success, scouting pipelines, and geographical closeness to past jobs and Alma mater.
- Make hiring decisions more realistic and firings more common, especially for top-tier teams.
- They could add more coaching positions, like pass game coordinator and run game coordinator, as the “2nd and 3rd in command” spot on each side of the ball for each team, allowing for a more linear career progression and trajectory.
- More specified and accumulated stats and history for coaches over their career, and divided by whether they were HC or a coordinator.
Miscellaneous
Many specific ideas and features for CFB 27 Dynasty Mode didn’t fit into any category but could improve the game overall. These things include:
- Allowing players to play minigames in Dynasty mode as their dynasty team.
- Adding spring games to the game as one of the things to do in the offseason.
- Add throwback uniforms and more alternate jerseys and helmet combos.
- Add an alternate dynasty game mode that allows you to play as the AD or GM of a university, so you can hire/fire a coaching staff while staying with your university, allowing you to rebuild a team and win consistently through multiple different eras and coaching lineages, like LSU over the last 15 or so years.
- Fix the Heisman and other awards so that it is harder to win on a group of five teams.
Summary
While I don’t purport to be the ultimate word on what should or shouldn’t be in any video game, let alone one as massive as College Football, I do think the fans at large would be disappointed in a rollout of CFB 27 as just a retread of CFB 26. I believe that EA would be smart to make big updates to the game and gameplay, with at least a few of the above suggestions included, if they want to make Fall’s release of CFB a true success.
