EA Sports' College Football 25 may have missed out on including the other top awards in the game, but hey, at least they got the most important one: the Heisman Trophy.
College football's highest individual honor will officially be in the upcoming EA Sports game, with the organizers themselves confirming that gamers will have a chance to win the Heisman, at least virtually.
On Friday, The Heisman Trophy's official X (Twitter) account shared a teaser highlighting the award's inclusion in the returning popular video game:
It's definitely exciting to have the Heisman in College Football 25, though it's quite disappointing that other awards–among others–won't be in it. For those not in the know, the National College Football Awards Association opted out of the game, with the award-giving body citing the inadequate offer as a reason for declining to be part of the continuation of the sports series.
That means that awards like the Bednarik, Biletnikoff, Davey O’Brien, Doak Walker, Grozo, Jim Thorpe, Maxwell, Outland and Ray Guy won't be attainable in the game.
Mark Wolpert, the president of the National College Football Awards Association, was critical of College Football 25 and EA Sports' rather underwhelming offer, saying that they feel they won't be compensated properly considering the expected popularity of the game.
“The offer that has been made is not adequate for the rights fee for the awards,” Wolpert told On3. “It was not something that was representative of any either major awards, assigning image rights and usage rights to a game which we all believe is going to be very popular and going to sell a lot of copies based on past history. There's an appetite for that game. And if brands are going to be represented there, we want to be compensated properly. So when I explained that to the EA rep, the response came back to me that if we choose not to do that, they'll just make their own awards up and put them in the game.
Wolpert added, “My thought at that time was, ‘Well, you have approached us about the importance of authenticity in the game, yet you’re very quick to dismiss awards, some of which have existed for eight decades. So how is the game authentic when you don't have the authentic awards in it?'”
Hopefully, in the future iterations of the game–if there's any–we'll be able to see the other awards in the game along with the Heisman Trophy. EA Sports' College Football 25 is expected to be released this July 2024.