The Seminoles and Crimson Tide go head-to-head for their 2025 college football season opener and one star has already gone above and beyond to get under the skin of his opponents

Florida State quarterback Tommy Castellanos says Alabama has no chance of stopping him without Nick Saban “to save them” when the two sides go head-to-head in two months’ time.

The Seminoles open their 2025 college football account with a visit from the Crimson Tide on Saturday, August 30 at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, FL, where they will be hoping to get off to a better start than they did last season when they lost to Georgia Tech in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, before ending the season 2–10 (1–7 ACC).

Things worked out relatively better for Alabama, however, with the Crimson Tide ending at 9–4 (5–3 SEC) in its first season without the legendary Saban. Last month, various reports stated that Donald Trump had put him in charge of co-chairing his commission following crunch name, image and likeness (NIL) reform meetings ahead of a commencement address at the University of Texas.

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Trump’s commission into college athletics then appeared to hit a roadblock after the Saban-led initiative was put on hold, in which he was due to serve alongside Texas businessman Cody Campbell, founder of Texas Tech’s Matador Club NIL collective and chairman of the Texas Tech board of regents.

Regardless of what his next steps are, Saban is bound to have one eye on proceedings at Alabama as they continue life without him, although his focus could now be fully on the season opener against Florida State after one of their players opted to name drop him during some old fashioned trash talk.

Despite Florida State’s horrendous season in 2024, former Boston College star Castellanos now believes they’re back, and has sent Alabama a damning verdict ahead of their season opener in just a few months’ time.

“I’m excited, man. People, I don’t know if they know, but you go back and watch every first game that I played in, we always start fast,” he declared to On3. “I dreamed of moments like this. I dreamed of playing against Alabama. They don’t have Nick Saban to save them. I just don’t see them stopping me.”

It was quite the statement from Castellanos, who also previously played for the UCF Knights prior to entering the transfer portal and signing for Boston College.

He wasn’t done there, however, further divulging how he believes he’s been a step above the rest in the ACC for the last two years. “And then the ACC. I feel like I tore the ACC up by my damn self for the last two years, and now I’m with a squad,” he said.

“I hope people don’t think that Florida State is going to be the same team it was last year because we have weapons. People can’t just sit back in zone coverage and watch me.”

Under ex-NFL coach Bill O’Brien, Castellanos was impressive for the Eagles in 2024, recording an 18:5 touchdown to interception ratio and 4-1 start before three straight losses to Virginia, Virginia Tech and Louisville.

After O’Brien announced that FIU transfer Grayson James would get the start over Castellanos at SMU in November last year, the 21-year-old announced his intention to enter the transfer portal the next day.

Within a month, Castellanos announced that he would transfer to Florida State, and he is now preparing to lead the Seminoles as starting quarterback in 2025 in what is also his final year of college eligibility.

With the series ending in a sweep, the Men’s College World Series Final was no match for last year’s three-game set.

The two-game LSU-Coastal Carolina Men’s College World Series Final averaged 2.50 million viewers on the ESPN networks, down 11% from last year’s three-game Tennessee-Texas A&M series (2.82M) but the most-watched sweep since the final shifted to a best-of-three format in 2003 (ten total series).

Sunday’s Game 2 averaged 2.78 million viewers across ABC and ESPNU, down five percent from Tennessee-Texas A&M Game 2 last year (2.92M) but still the sixth-largest audience for an MCWS game on the ESPN networks.

Facing breaking news coverage, Saturday’s Game 1 averaged 2.18 million on ESPN and ESPNU — down 4% from last year’s opener (2.26M).

This year’s MCWS Final ranks as the fourth-most watched in the best-of-three era. LSU has played in three of the top four, with the Tigers’ 2023 win over Florida (2.86M) and 2009 win over Texas (2.76M) ranking first and third respectively. (Last year’s series, which ranks second, is the lone exception.)

The complete Men’s College World Series averaged 1.21 million viewers, down 22% from last year (1.56M) but still the third-largest audience for the event since 2011 — behind only last year and 2023 (1.65M). The MCWS averaged fewer viewers than the Women’s College World Series earlier this month (1.3M), though the two-game MCWS Final outdrew the three-game WCWS Final (2.2M).

The full NCAA baseball tournament averaged 537,000 viewers.

GRAND FORKS — Sam Laurila was eligible for the NHL Draft last year.

The defenseman from Moorhead watched it on television but did not see his name pop up on the screen.

“I wasn’t really expecting to go,” Laurila said. “I didn’t have a very good year, honestly. I wasn’t watching with too much expectation. I was more watching to see all my buddies go. You’re excited for those guys.”

While many of his teammates from the U.S. National Team Development Program were selected last season and made the jump to college hockey, Laurila opted to spend a year with the Fargo Force in the United States Hockey League.

That year transformed the way NHL scouts looked at him.

They felt the 6-foot, 184-pound left-hander was a sturdy defender a year ago without much offense. Laurila had 11 points in 61 games for the U.S. Under-18 Team in 2023-24.

But playing in Fargo under coach Brett Skinner, an All-American defenseman at Denver, Laurila’s offense popped.

Laurila tallied 41 points in 57 games and was one of three finalists for the USHL’s Defenseman of the Year award. He was two points shy of leading the USHL in defenseman points per game.

“We knew it was there,” Skinner said. “He really developed a strong base of defending at the Program. But we put him in situations where not only was he allowed to be creative and showcase his offensive talent, he was encouraged and pushed to do so. It’s one thing to want someone to do it. It’s another thing to encourage them to explore the offensive side.”

As the offense emerged, scouts began re-thinking their evaluations of him.

Laurila rose up NHL Draft boards (he’s still eligible to be picked for two more years).

He began doing interviews with NHL teams — 18 of them in all.

He was one of 90 players invited to participate in

the NHL Combine

in Buffalo, N.Y.

“He’s an interesting one based on the fact that he played a completely different style than he did at the Program,” an NHL scout told the Herald. “I think he’s going to have to find a balance between the two when he gets to North Dakota and when he turns pro. But I think you got to see what he’s got in his toolkit a little more this year.

“You got to see him use his legs, use his skill and some offensive things came out of him in doing that. He’s still learning the risk-reward side, but I think he was encouraged to take chances. I think it paid off in his growth and development. He’s still learning and developing, but his game grew a lot and there’s a nice player in there.”

This weekend, Laurila is likely to be selected in the NHL Draft.

The first round is scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday on ESPN and streaming on ESPN Plus.

The second through seventh rounds — where Laurila is expected to go — will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday on NHL Network and ESPN Plus.

The draft is being held at Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, but Laurila will not attend. He’ll be with family members at their lake home.

“I’m excited,” he said. “The draft doesn’t mean a whole lot, I would say. Getting drafted is really cool, but it’s just another step on the road toward the end goal.”

Laurila averaged 25 minutes, 19 seconds of ice time last season — most of any player in the USHL.

“I was put into a really good situation,” Laurila said. “I got to play top-line minutes. I was put in a role to be successful, running a power play and killing penalties. Coach Skinner really helped me a lot. He pushed the offensive side of my game more, too, which really helped me.”

Laurila was an offensive defenseman growing up in Moorhead.

But when he went to the National Team Development Program, he was behind other offensive players and didn’t get the opportunity. Although the offense re-emerged with the Force, that’s not necessarily where he’ll impact games at UND.

“His base is defending,” Skinner said. “It would take me years to teach a lot of defensemen to defend how he does as far as closing and ending plays. Offensively, he has the ability to move the puck quickly, and if needed, he can transport it and lug it end-to-end and make entries.”

Laurila committed to UND two years ago when Brad Berry was the head coach. Athletic director Bill Chaves made a coaching change in March, firing Berry after the Fighting Hawks missed the NCAA tournament.

Chaves hired longtime assistant Dane Jackson as the next head coach. Jackson filled out his staff with associate head coach Matt Smaby, assistant coach Dillon Simpson and general manager Bryn Chyzyk.

Smaby and Simpson are both former UND captains and defensemen who reached the NHL.

“It was definitely eye-opening,” Laurila said of the coaching change. “It makes you wonder, ‘OK, what if they bring in someone you don’t know?’ I was really excited when I saw Dane got hired and he called me. I’m really excited for the staff we have. I think we’ll have a really good group. It should be a really good year.”

Laurila will be part of a loaded defensive corps that also features All-American Jake Livanavage, Bennett Zmolek, New York Rangers first-rounder E.J. Emery, Vegas Golden Knights seventh-rounder Abram Wiebe, potential 2026 first-rounder Keaton Verhoeff, Columbus Blue Jackets fourth-rounder Andrew Strathmann and Jayden Jubenvill.

“We think Sam is going to be able to battle for some good ice time,” Jackson said. “We have a lot of respect for how Sam looked at his development. That’s one thing we took into account when we originally recruited him.”

Jackson said Laurila didn’t hesitate to push back his college arrival and play a year in Fargo.

“He said, ‘Yep, that’s what I want to do, there are a lot of areas I can grow before coming to school,'” Jackson said. “He embraced it. The year he had in Fargo — we knew he had it in him — his offensive game flourished. We think he’s a strong two-way player. He defends well. He has good defensive instincts. And he has a lot of poise and good vision to be able to add offense.”

Laurila said he doesn’t have any expectations for where he’ll be picked Saturday during Day 2 of the NHL Draft.

“It’s all up in the air,” he said. “Whatever happens, happens. It’s another part of my journey.”

Where: Peacock Theater, Los Angeles.
First round: 6 p.m. Friday, ESPN and ESPN Plus.
Second-seventh rounds: 11 a.m. Saturday, NHL Network and ESPN Plus.

Scroll to the bottom of the article to see which stadiums are the Top 25 Toughest Places to Play

Welcome Back to the Campus Huddle, your home for news and information about EA SPORTS™ College Football 26!

We know you have been awaiting more information about the fan favorite Dynasty Mode and that time is now here! Before we get started with the Campus Huddle, let’s hear from Kirk Herbstreit for a video deep dive on Dynasty Mode. 

Now, it’s time for you to hear from the people behind Dynasty Mode, Chad Walker, Producer, and Ben Haumiller, Principal Game Designer, for College Football 26. Let’s get started! 

BUILDING ON THE FOUNDATION

When we set out to design College Football 25, we had a multi-year vision for what we wanted Dynasty Mode to become. That journey began by laying the foundation under three core pillars: Build Your Coach, Build Your Program, and Deliver the World of College Football.

• Build Your Coach: This encompasses the decisions you make on your coaching journey to the top of the college football world. Whether that’s starting as a coordinator at a small school and making a name for yourself before getting that first head coaching job, or starting as a head coach at your dream school. Every decision you make on your journey matters.
• Build Your Program: As the old saying goes, “to win in College Football it’s not the X’s and the O’s, it’s the Jimmy’s and the Joe’s”. Recruiting is the lifeblood of College Football and having a consistent winner means you need a roster that is built to reload rather than rebuild. That all starts on the high school recruiting trail, but in modern College Football roster retention and utilizing the Transfer Portal are instrumental in your ability to field a championship team.
• Deliver the World of College Football: The College Football landscape continues to evolve. In College Football 26, we’ve pushed to reflect the ever-changing reality of the sport, from custom conferences and scheduling to protected opponents and playoff structure. Whether you’re staying true to tradition or reshaping the map, the world of college football is yours to define.

College Football 26 represents Year 2 of that vision — a year focused on building on the foundation we set and adding meaningful depth to each pillar. It’s about evolving Dynasty while staying true to what makes it special, and delivering on the feedback we’ve heard from our incredibly passionate community.

Just like last year, we spent countless hours talking with community members, college football experts, and coaches. We also spent a ton of time watching Dynasty live streams, program rebuilds, wishlist videos, and of course reading thousands of message board posts and tweets. A large part of our research was focused not just on what is discussed, but how the mode is actually played and experienced by our community.

Because as we said last year and still strongly believe today — our team has one singular motto: “Satisfy the Core Community” because “This is THEIR Game”.

BUILD YOUR COACH

At the heart of Dynasty Mode is your coach. Every decision, every upgrade, and every hire helps define your journey to the top of the college football world and the legacy you leave behind.

Last year, we talked at length about what we learned from studying coaches in depth. No coach is great at everything, and there’s no single path to becoming a great coach. That belief continues to shape our approach in College Football 26, and remains central to everything we’ve built. This year, we’ve focused on deepening that experience, introducing more meaningful decision points and further emphasizing that every decision matters.

CREATE YOUR COACH

When starting your Dynasty, just like last year you’ll choose between creating your own coach or stepping into the role of an existing one. This year, existing coaches are now authentic real-life head coaches and coordinators, with more than 300 authentic coaches. Each one comes equipped with their authentic playbook, scheme, playcalling tendencies, historical career stats, and archetypes and abilities that reflect their coaching skillset.

Throughout your Dynasty, you will have the opportunity to compete against these authentic coaches in-game and on the recruiting trail. As described in the Gameplay Deep Dive, when you play them on Saturday’s, you can expect their playcalling and tendencies to match their real world counterpart, adding a new layer of immersion. Of course, you’ll also have the opportunity to poach them and bring them onto your staff in the Coaching Carousel. 

If you choose to build your own coach, we’ve added new ways to customize your appearance. New gear options let you show off your drip and deck your coach out in everything from a hoodie and joggers to a quarter zip and jeans. If you’re really feeling nicey, you can grace the sidelines with a sleeveless shirt and shorts that lets everyone know you mean business.

We’ve also introduced coach demeanor and stance customization. Is your coach cool, calm, and collected? Or are they the high-energy, emotionally charged leader that fires up the sideline? Your choice will influence how your coach stands and acts throughout the game giving your coaching persona even more personality on the field.

COACH PROGRESSION

From the beginning, our design intent for our RPG archetype based abilities and progression system has been that no coach can be great at everything. How you build your coach and manage your staff matters. Your coordinators either complement your strengths or shore up your deficiencies. This intent still holds true in College Football 26 and we have continued to expand upon it.

Last year, we saw players hitting the level cap too early — maxing out progression well before the later years of their Dynasty, which was not what we intended. While we still believe you cannot be great at everything, your coaching journey should evolve over time, with new decisions and challenges emerging each season.

In College Football 26, the maximum coach level has been increased from 50 to 100. Additionally, we’ve completely rebalanced the amount of XP each goal earns to better reflect its frequency and difficulty. We’ve also introduced a new level progression curve designed to provide early momentum while creating a much longer tail of growth. You’ll still see meaningful development in the early years, but reaching the top now requires sustained success across the full arc of your coaching career.

Progression is heavily influenced by your active archetype’s perk, and we’ve rebalanced all archetype perks to improve overall balance and create more distinct trade-offs. Among the three base archetypes — Recruiter, Motivator, and Tactician — Tactician now offers the highest XP ceiling, but only if you’re consistently winning. It also carries the greatest downside if you’re not. Conversely, Motivator and Recruiter will provide a more consistent gain, but a lower ceiling and maximum upside. 

The amount of XP from each archetype perk now scales by archetype tier. Elite archetypes (Elite Recruiter, Master Motivator, and Scheme Guru) offer double the amount of XP as the three base archetypes, Hybrid archetypes (Talent Developer, Strategist, and Architect) offer more than Elite archetypes, and Program Builder and CEO can offer upwards of 10x more more XP than a base tier archetype. In order to quickly and efficiently scale your coach level and power, it is imperative that you invest in higher level archetypes and then focus on activating that perk as many times as you can.

Remember, your staff doesn’t just help you with their abilities. Their active archetype perks contribute to your XP growth as well. Any time your team triggers one of your coordinators’ perks, you share in the XP gains. Choosing the right coordinators can significantly increase your progression speed. 

As part of this perk rebalance, we’ve also updated several archetype perks. For example, Talent Developer now has the Draft Dividends perk, which awards 3,000 bonus XP when your players are drafted. The CEO archetype’s Big Game Bonus now provides 12,500 bonus XP for each College Football Playoff win, as opposed to only National Championship wins.

COACH ARCHETYPES

While progression is the engine of your coaching journey, archetypes are the blueprint for how your coach grows and where your strengths lie. In College Football 26, we’ve made a number of updates to how archetypes are unlocked, balanced, and expanded — all with the goal of making each coaching path more strategic and distinct.

To start, the three base archetypes — Recruiter, Motivator, and Tactician — now require a minimum coach level to unlock. This change encourages more focused investment early in your career, making that initial archetype choice even more meaningful. It’s no longer a quick jump between archetypes — instead, your coach will grow into their identity over time. This helps reinforce the rock-paper-scissors relationship not just between archetypes, but also between you and your coordinators. Choosing a staff that complements — or counters — your strengths is more important than ever.

We’ve also introduced scaling archetype costs. Each archetype you unlock becomes incrementally more expensive, encouraging more intentional choices as your coaching journey evolves. Archetypes that are closely related to your current specialization will cost significantly less than those that require you to learn a new skillset. For example, if you start as a Recruiter, becoming an Elite Recruiter will be much cheaper than trying to learn a completely new skillset and become a Motivator. Just like in real life, it’s easier to grow within an existing area of expertise than to take on a new and unrelated skillset.

Program Builder and CEO archetypes are the exceptions. As broader, leadership-focused archetypes rather than specific coaching disciplines, they are not impacted by scaling costs and remain more accessible once you meet their unlock requirements.

It’s always easier to learn a new skillset when you’re working alongside someone who’s already mastered it. That idea is reflected in the Friends & Family Discount ability within the Program Builder archetype, which reduces the cost of unlocking archetypes already owned by another coach. Scaling archetype costs make it even more important that you surround yourself with the right people. The right staff doesn’t just support your strategy on the field — it can shape the path of your growth off it, too. Every coaching decision you make matters.

Alongside these structural changes, we’ve also rebalanced the abilities within each archetype. This rebalance creates clearer trade-offs between archetypes, further emphasizing the rock-paper-scissors relationship between coaching styles. In addition, we’ve adjusted the cost of abilities within each archetype tier to better reflect their impact and importance, encouraging more thoughtful progression as you build out your coach. We’ve also added new abilities across various archetypes, giving you even more ways to specialize and differentiate your coaching identity over time.

COACH CAROUSEL

We introduced the foundation of the carousel last year, and in College Football 26, we’ve added more polish, feedback, and quality-of-life improvements to make it easier to track movement and make smarter staff decisions.

You’ll now receive notifications when your coordinators accept or decline job offers, as well as alerts when one is poached for a new opportunity. Whether they’re leaving for a promotion or jumping ship unexpectedly, you’ll stay informed and ready to react.

With coordinators playing such a pivotal role in your team’s performance and your coach’s overall development, we’ve added three new Program Builder abilities that give you more control over the hiring and retention process:

• Forever Home: Your coordinators are less likely to leave for another job.
• Deal Sweetener: Coordinators are more likely to accept your job offer.
• Cream of the Crop: Increases the caliber of coordinators available for you to hire.

We’ve also rebalanced offer logic so that head coaches at top-tier programs now receive better and more consistent job opportunities when the carousel spins. If you’ve earned your spot among the elite, the market will better reflect it.

Finally, within the Staff Moves screen, you can now view each coach’s previous role and school, their new role and destination, and the reason for the job change. Whether they were promoted, fired, or simply found a better fit, you’ll have more context for every coaching movement.

FILLING OUT YOUR TROPHY ROOM

Every great Dynasty leaves behind a legacy — now you have a place to showcase it. The Trophy Room is your central hub for tracking the championships, rivalries, and awards you collect throughout your journey. Whether you’re chasing your first conference title or building a Heisman factory, the Trophy Room keeps a running history of your program’s most meaningful moments.

As you play through Dynasty, every time you win a rivalry game, bowl game, conference championship, national championship, or earn an individual award, you will receive a notification and the trophy will be added to your Trophy Room. You can access it anytime from the Dynasty Hub, or from the main menu and your global profile.

Each Dynasty you create has its own dedicated Trophy Room tied to your coach, tracking every trophy you’ve earned. For team-based achievements, you’ll see the season year, team, opponent, and final score of the game. For individual awards, you’ll see the player who won, the team they were on, and the year they took home the hardware. You can also select any trophy to view more detailed information — including the trophy’s history and significance in college football.

In total, there are more than 160 rivalry, bowl, and individual award trophies to collect. Whether you’re flexing your fifth Heisman, third natty, or just looking back on the legends that defined your Dynasty, the Trophy Room is built to celebrate your legacy. Every Dynasty has its greats — those unforgettable players who become stories we tell for years. Now, their names and moments live on, immortalized forever in your Trophy Room.

And it’s not just limited to Dynasty. The Trophy Room is global across all modes, including Road to Glory, Play Now, and Road to the College Football Playoff — so no matter how you play, your accomplishments are remembered.

BUILD YOUR PROGRAM

Talent acquisition and roster management remain at the forefront of College Football. How you approach building and keeping your roster has never been more important. The transfer portal continues to grow and evolve, becoming an even bigger force in shaping programs across the country. Whether you’re reloading through high school recruiting or retooling through the portal, your success depends on how well you execute your strategy and continue to evolve with players ever changing expectations.

In College Football 26, we still have the same core goals in mind — making recruiting feel personal, differentiating players and regions, and making the portal even more authentically unpredictable. From the way prospects evaluate schools to how expectations evolve over time, building your program now means more than just landing talent — it’s about understanding it, developing it, and keeping it.

THE TRANSFER PORTAL

Some schools see a mass exodus. Others stay almost completely untouched. That’s the unpredictability of the modern transfer portal. In College Football 26, we’ve pushed to fully capture the essence and chaos that defines this era of roster movement. College Football 25 laid the groundwork, but this year, we wanted the portal to feel authentically unpredictable, forcing tough decisions around team retention, roster construction, and win-now urgency. Now, you can expect to see a consistent pool of around 2,000 players entering the portal.

As a part of this rebalance, we have also changed how we assign star ratings to transfer prospects. In College Football 25, players were assigned their star rating based on their OVR. Now, star rating is more heavily influenced by a player’s position and class year. For example, an 85 OVR freshman quarterback will be scored higher than an 85 OVR senior guard.

The transfer portal isn’t just a mechanic — it’s a philosophical choice. Do you build for the future with high school talent, or lean into immediate-impact veterans from the portal? It’s a real-world debate playing out across college football. Programs like Colorado have leaned heavily on the portal, flipping their rosters in a single offseason. Meanwhile, schools like Clemson have committed to developing high school talent through long-term investment. In College Football 26, both paths are viable — and each one comes with distinct trade-offs.

This also applies to retaining your own roster. Managing player expectations is just as important as recruiting new talent. In today’s game, players want more — more playing time, more exposure, more alignment with their goals — and sometimes, those expectations change over time.

DEALBREAKERS

At the heart of the transfer portal is a simple truth: every player has expectations — and when those expectations aren’t met, they may decide to leave. Some players may have expectations you don’t agree with — or even find unreasonable — but that doesn’t change the reality of college football today. In College Football 26, every player now has a dealbreaker, giving each one a clearly defined expectation and a chance to enter the portal if that expectation isn’t met. Additionally, Conference Prestige has been added as a dealbreaker, reflecting the mindset of players who value competing in the best conferences against the toughest competition.

We’ve also refined how the Playing Time dealbreaker works to better reflect the realities of roster management. In College Football 25, players with the Playing Time dealbreaker evaluated their projected depth chart position over the next four years. This helped simulate situations where a returning starter could see a highly rated freshman coming in and anticipate losing their job. But it missed an important piece — cases where a lower-rated player was actually logging significant snaps. Even if that player was contributing week after week, the system still saw them as buried on the depth chart based purely on overall rating. In College Football 26, Playing Time now factors in snaps played, ensuring that players who are actually seeing the field feel properly valued — regardless of where they sit on the depth chart.

Even if Playing Time isn’t a player’s official dealbreaker, it can still be a deciding factor in whether or not they stay. This is especially true for former five-star recruits, high-rated backups, and most notably, quarterbacks.

We’ve seen it play out before: in 2016, Alabama’s quarterback led the team to the national championship game as a true freshman. In 2017, he returned and once again helped Alabama reach the title game, but he was benched at halftime. The following season, he lost the starting job, only to later lead a dramatic comeback in the SEC Championship Game. While his initial motivations were centered around competing for championships in the best conference, his priorities eventually shifted. Entering his final season of eligibility, playing time became top of mind, and he transferred to Oklahoma, where he put together a Heisman-caliber season.

In College Football 26, that same logic now applies. Five-star prospects, highly rated players, and quarterbacks will evaluate playing time, even if it isn’t their listed dealbreaker. If they’re not getting on the field or they see a logjam ahead they may decide it’s time to leave. This helps prevent stockpiling talent in a way that doesn’t reflect real-world behavior, and makes roster management feel more dynamic and authentic. 

This also prevents your friend in your Online Dynasty from being a cheese artist and redshirting every player on their roster even when a guy is a borderline starter. Now redshirting comes with a risk. Do you want to redshirt a player and limit his playing time at the risk of him leaving in the offseason due to a lack of playing time?

EVOLVING EXPECTATIONS

In College Football 25, all dealbreakers had a fixed grade requirement of B-, and that threshold never changed, regardless of how good a player was. In College Football 26, we now have Dynamic Dealbreakers — a system that actively reflects a player’s evolving and changing expectations over time. As players become more talented and productive, their expectations grow alongside them. 

This makes it more difficult for some schools to meet those rising demands, and often results in players organically transferring as their goals outgrow their current situation. A school that once felt like a great fit may suddenly feel mid. It’s the “big fish in a small pond” effect we see so often in real life — breakout stars at smaller programs who transfer to larger schools seeking a bigger stage. With Dynamic Dealbreakers, the required grade now scales based on a player’s overall rating, high school star rating, or transfer portal star rating. The better the player, the higher the expectations.

We saw this most recently with Tennessee’s quarterback, who, as a freshman, led the team to the College Football Playoff in a breakout season. As he grew into a bigger name in the sport, so did his expectations — particularly around his Brand dealbreaker, which increased significantly the following year. 

With his rising profile he expected more, especially in the NIL space. Tennessee ultimately chose not to meet those expectations, and he decided to transfer to UCLA as a result. This is just one of many stories we’ve seen in today’s college football landscape — where players’ priorities evolve naturally over time, and decisions to enter the transfer portal stem from more than just playing time or fit. College Football 26 now reflects this behavior, creating a world that feels organic, reactive, and alive.

How you build your coach and staff can significantly impact your ability to manage evolving player expectations and retain your roster. To help with evolving player expectations you can purchase the Lower the Bar ability in the Strategist archetype. This lowers the grade threshold required to meet a player’s dealbreaker, up to a maximum of a full letter grade. You can also purchase the Family Atmosphere ability within the Master Motivator archetype, which makes players less likely to transfer if their Dealbreaker has been broken.

If players do decide to leave, abilities within the Program Builder archetype can help:

• Gift of Gab: Additional persuasion attempts
• Roster Retainer: Increased chance of persuading a player to stay
• Full Refund: Get an additional persuasion attempt if one of your attempts is successful

As expectations evolve, so too must your coaching strategy. The players you recruit as freshmen may not be the same player or have the same demands when they are upperclassmen. How you manage that growth and evolving expectations will significantly impact how successful you are.

TRANSFER PORTAL CUSTOMIZATION

With Dynamic Dealbreakers, the addition of the Conference Prestige dealbreaker, and improved Playing Time logic, the College Football 26 Transfer Portal is more reactive and unpredictable. While this brings the chaos of modern college football to life, we also want you to have the tools to customize that experience and make it your own.

Whether you want a wild, modern-era portal or a throwback to the days when transferring was far less common, you now have full control over how the portal behaves in your Dynasty.

New settings include:

• Max Transfers Per Team: Adjust how many players can transfer from a single team (0–30). Setting this to 0 disables the portal entirely for a more traditional experience.
• Transfer Probability (User Teams): Scale how likely players on user-controlled teams are to transfer if their dealbreaker is violated.
• Transfer Probability (CPU Teams): Do the same for CPU teams, allowing you to align or differentiate how the AI handles player retention.

MY SCHOOL

At the foundation of every program is one question: What is your identity? The My School grades define who your program is and what its strengths and weaknesses are across 14 core categories. It’s one of the clearest separators between powerhouse programs and those still trying to find their footing.

In addition to the Playing Time improvements we outlined earlier — which now consider actual snaps played — we’ve made several key updates across the My School system to deepen realism and improve differentiation between programs. First, we’ve rebalanced the grade curve across all 14 categories. Fewer teams now sit in the A or B range, meaning most schools will fall somewhere between D and C — creating more visible separation between the haves and have-nots, and making meaningful improvement something you’ll need to earn over time.

One of the biggest changes this year comes in Pro Potential. Previously, this grade estimated a program’s ability to produce NFL talent based on the current roster. Now, Pro Potential is based on a school’s historical draft results over the past four seasons, and it’s tracked by position. This means you can now clearly see which schools are consistently sending talent to the next level — and who truly deserves the title of Wide Receiver U.

We’ve also made improvements to Playing Style, the stat-driven grade tied to how your team performs on the field. Every archetype, including the new ones added in College Football 26, has had its Playing Style tracking re-evaluated. Last year, many defensive player types were overly reliant on individual stats like interceptions or tackles for loss — often leading to small-sample skew. This year, more player types — especially on defense — evaluate team-level stats like average passing yards allowed or rushing yards allowed per game. The result is a more stable, fair reflection of how your program actually plays.

As part of these updates, we’ve also re-evaluated and adjusted the starting grades for every team to better reflect their real-world standing and to take full advantage of the new grading distribution.

LOCATION BASED RECRUITING

It’s easier and cheaper to get a player to campus when they live nearby. Driving 100 miles is a very different challenge than flying across the country — and in College Football 26, we’ve replicated that reality through Location-Based Recruiting. The cost of a visit is now tied directly to how close a recruit is to your campus, making geography a meaningful factor in your weekly recruiting strategy.

The higher a recruit’s Proximity to Home grade with your school, the cheaper it will be to bring them in for a visit. Costs can range from as low as 10 recruiting hours for nearby players to as high as 40 hours for cross-country visits. That’s a significant swing — and one that forces you to think more strategically about where your targets are located and what your program can realistically afford week to week.

In College Football 25, every visit cost a flat 40 hours, which often made it cost prohibitive to bring recruits to campus — especially if you were working with a limited budget. Now, visits are much more efficient for local and regional players. But flying in a top recruit from across the country still comes at a premium — one that power programs may be able to absorb, while smaller schools will need to pick their spots.

To help you maximize your visits, the CEO archetype now includes a new ability: More the Merrier. This ability doubles the number of players who can visit your campus in a single week — increasing the cap from four to eight total visitors. That extra flexibility can make a big difference during critical stretches of the season, especially when you’re juggling high-priority targets or trying to align visit timing for multiple recruits.

And if you’re running a staff with a coordinator whose active archetype is Strategist, the benefits can stack even further. The Strategist perk grants bonus XP for every recruit who visits during a win — so if you’re hosting a full slate of eight visitors, you have the potential to significantly boost coach XP across the board. As we covered earlier, active archetype perks are now one of the most important drivers of coach progression, and this type of coordination between abilities can have a massive impact on how quickly your staff levels up throughout a season.

Location-based recruiting costs create a sharper divide between the haves and have-nots and reinforce the importance of building a recruiting strategy that reflects your program’s reach, identity, and resources.

DISCOVERING THE NEXT STAR

Scouting is a critical part of identifying which players fit your program and which recruits you want to go after. Coaches often refer to this as finding their OKGs — “our kind of guys.” In College Football 26, we’ve made two key improvements to the scouting system that make it easier to use and more impactful as you build your recruiting board.

First, we’ve reordered how attributes are displayed during scouting, ensuring that shared ratings across archetypes appear in a consistent order for every position. In College Football 25, this often made comparing prospects at the same position frustrating — especially when the same ratings would appear in different spots depending on the archetype. Now, when you’re comparing two players at the same position — regardless of archetype — you’ll see their shared attributes lined up the same way every time, making comparisons easier.

Second, we’ve expanded the power of the Mind Reader ability within the Strategist archetype. Previously, Mind Reader only revealed a recruit’s Development Trait during a campus visit — which often came too late to meaningfully influence your recruiting decisions. Now, if you possess Mind Reader for a recruit’s position group, you’ll be able to reveal their Dev Trait directly through scouting, giving you a critical head start in identifying high-potential prospects early in the cycle. Knowing which players have a huge potential upside and are truly special talents is now a strategic edge you can learn and identify early in the recruiting process to maximize how you spend your recruiting hours.

RECRUITING BATTLES

In College Football 25, there were moments when two schools were locked in a close recruiting race — and it wasn’t always clear why one team ultimately won out. When both programs were neck and neck, it could feel a little random which school landed the commitment.

Now, when one school reaches the commitment threshold and another is right behind them, a Recruiting Battle will be triggered. The recruit won’t commit right away, and instead they will set a new, higher commitment threshold, giving both schools a short window to make the one final push. It’s not a long extension — just enough to create space for a true head-to-head finish. From that point on, it becomes a race. Whichever school reaches the new commitment threshold first secures the commitment.

This is when you pull out all the stops. It’s a dead sprint to the finish line. Do everything you can to push across the threshold before your rival does — because once that new threshold is hit, that recruit is off the board.

RECRUIT GENERATION

This year, we’ve increased the number of recruits generated each season to 4,100, providing a deeper and more varied pool of talent for programs at every level. As part of this expansion, we’ve also rebalanced several key aspects of recruit generation, including physical and mental abilities, as well as each prospect’s individual ratings.

You’ll still be able to find players with high-level attributes and silver or gold-tier abilities — the kinds of elite prospects that can transform a program — but there will be fewer of them overall. In particular, when it comes to athletes, we’ve reduced both the quality of top-end athlete prospects and the quantity generated across each position. That means it’s going to be rarer to find truly elite prospects, but when you do, it will feel special, and landing them will be a major win for your recruiting class.

We’ve also reworked how pitches and dealbreakers are assigned to better reflect the wants and needs of players today. Glamor positions like quarterback, running back, wide receiver, corner, and edge rusher now put a much heavier emphasis on Brand Exposure — to better reflect their expectations around NIL opportunities.

Additionally, we’ve rebalanced the motivations and assignment of dealbreakers across pitches to create more overlap. The goal is to make it harder to immediately pinpoint a recruit’s ideal pitch based solely on their dealbreaker — requiring you to dig deeper to uncover what truly matters to each player.

We’ve also reduced the weights that most high school prospects will start at to better reflect players entering college with a less mature body. This allows weight to scale more naturally over time as they grow into their body and physically mature. More on that later. We’ve also introduced a brand-new lean body type, which is most noticeable at the wide receiver position. The lean body type better represents long, wiry athletes who may not be physically developed yet.

TO SWAY OR NOT TO SWAY

Sway is one of the most powerful tools in your recruiting arsenal — but it’s also one of the most misunderstood. In College Football 26, we’ve made several improvements to make this feature clearer, more actionable, and easier to take advantage of when your school doesn’t fully align with a recruit’s motivations.

Sway is designed for those moments when your My School grades don’t match up with a prospect’s ideal pitch — or when you want to expand what a recruit cares about to include another pitch that plays to your strengths. A successful sway allows you to add a second ideal pitch, giving you more flexibility in how you engage with that recruit. In some cases, it can even unlock a third ideal pitch by creating additional overlaps.

This year, when you select the Sway action, you’ll now see the probability of success before making your move — giving you much more clarity around when and how to take your shot. Your chance of success increases based on how much motivational overlap exists between the pitch you’re trying to sway a recruit toward and their existing ideal pitch. For example, if the two pitches share two motivations, your odds are much higher than if they only share one — and that difference is now clearly reflected in the UI.

Once a sway is successful, you’ll see visual indicators both in the left recruiting board list and next to the specific motivations the recruit now cares about. These new markers make it easy to identify recruits you have successfully swayed.

Your chances of success still depend on overlap, but players looking to maximize their odds can unlock the Persuasive Personality ability in the Recruiter archetype. It gives you a critical edge in situations where you’re trying to open up new recruiting paths — especially when you’re trailing and need to shift the balance in your favor.

Used correctly, sway can completely change the dynamic of a recruiting battle — giving you an angle of attack that other schools simply don’t have.

RECRUITING QUALITY OF LIFE

We know how important it is to have the right tools in place to manage your board, prioritize your targets, and respond to key moments as they happen. In College Football 26, we’ve made a number of quality-of-life improvements across the entire recruiting experience — helping you spend less time digging through menus and more time making meaningful decisions.

In College Football 25, Team Needs was only accessible by pressing R3. While the screen could be accessed at any time from anywhere within the Recruiting Hub, many players simply missed it — or found it inconvenient to jump between views just to check their positional needs. In College Football 26, we’ve brought Team Needs front and center by pinning it to the top of the Prospect List. This makes it easy to quickly identify what your team needs at a glance while you’re adding prospects to your board from the Prospect List. The module updates in real time as you add or remove players, helping you make informed decisions in the moment. This module is meant to provide a quick summary of your immediate roster needs — while the full Team Needs screen, which includes a year-by-year breakdown and your overall grade at each position, is still accessible by pressing R3/RS anywhere within the recruiting UI.

In the Recruiting Board, you’ll now see up and down arrows appear on the left-hand list next to each recruit’s name. These arrows indicate whether you’ve moved up or down on that recruit’s Top Schools list compared to the previous week. This makes it easy to quickly identify which recruits are trending in your favor — and which ones may require a shift in strategy or signal that something in the recruitment dynamic has changed week over week.

Once a recruit has entered the Pitch stage and narrowed their Top Schools list to five, a red dot will appear during the first week to let you know that new recruiting actions are available. Additionally, the recruit’s stage indicator on the left-hand list will become highlighted, making it easier to spot which players are close to committing and may require more focus and attention to secure the commitment before your competitors do.

In College Football 25, it was easy to lose track of key recruits you wanted to monitor week over week. In College Football 26, you can now favorite recruits by double-tapping Triangle/Y. Favoriting acts as a bookmark — a simple way to highlight the recruits you’re prioritizing or want to remember as the season progresses. It allows you to stay focused on your top targets, keep tabs on competitive battles, and make sure you’re not missing out on critical follow-up actions. We’ve also added a new filter that lets you quickly view only your favorited recruits — helping you stay locked in on your most important prospects.

Finally, we’ve added a set of advanced search filters to give you more ways to filter and search the Prospect List to identify prospects who meet your needs or are potential targets for your team. You can now filter by:

• Maximum Star Rating
• Minimum Pipeline Level
• Recruiting Stage

These updates are all about helping you recruit smarter, stay organized, and take action at the right time — whether you’re leading the pack or fighting to close the gap.

PLAYER PROGRESSION

Player development is at the core of building a successful program. While talent acquisition is without question the most important thing in College Football, inability to develop your players will keep them from reaching their full potential and prevent you from realizing your dreams of winning a National Championship. In College Football 26, we’ve rebalanced and expanded how progression works to create more player differentiation, realism, and separation between programs.

Living in the Iron paradise

At times in College Football 25 players would go long stretches without any progression, only to suddenly take a big leap when they finally leveled up a skill group. In College Football 26 we have increased the number of skill group levels from 10 to 20, allowing for more gradual and natural progression.

A player’s Development Trait also plays a bigger role in offseason progression. While there’s still variability in how much a player develops during the offseason, players with Impact, Star, and Elite development traits now have a higher minimum amount they will progress. This increases the likelihood that players with a better development trait will progress more than players with a normal trait.

Every year we see freshmen arrive on campus and undergo significant physical changes during their first season. Now, when your players hit the Iron Paradise and put in the #work during the offseason you will also see physical changes to their body. Players will now gain weight during offseason progression. The amount they gain is influenced by their player position and year in school. This simulates the real world difference in physical maturity between a freshman and senior.

Lastly, your school’s Athletic Facilities grade in My School now increases the amount of progression your players receive. No different than the real world where the schools with the best sports performance and nutrition programs seemingly perform at a higher level than the rest. The higher your Athletic Facilities grade is, the bigger your player progression boost will be. Athletic Facilities are just another factor that contributes to long-term program building and highlights the divide between powerhouse programs and those still finding their footing.

Physical Abilities

As Scott described in the Gameplay Deep Dive, we’ve introduced new physical and mental abilities this year. In addition to the new physical abilities, we’ve also modified the requirements to unlock physical ability tiers. 

Previously, all physical abilities required a single attribute level to unlock each tier, for example 95 Toughness to unlock Platinum Workhorse. Now, some abilities like Shifty require two attribute ratings to upgrade them. For example, Platinum Shifty now requires both 97 Change of Direction and 96 Acceleration for a Wide Receiver. These added thresholds make top-tier abilities even rarer — further increasing player differentiation.

We’ve also completely overhauled our archetype system, introducing new player types and physical ability combinations that better reflect the diversity of players across college football. More on that later.

From Impact Player to Star

Player performance during the season now plays a huge role in their long-term potential. If a player absolutely cooks during the season, they can now upgrade their Development Trait during offseason progression. Performance is determined by their season stat line relative to their position. Upgrading a Development Trait is not guaranteed, and the better a player’s current trait is, the harder it becomes to move up. For example, moving from Normal to Impact is more likely than jumping from Star to Elite. 

You can increase the odds of players upgrading their development trait by purchasing the Gainz Getter ability within the CEO archetype. If a player does upgrade their development trait, you’ll receive a notification and it will also be highlighted in the Training Results screen.

Training Results

Speaking of Training Results, this screen has undergone a major overhaul to give you better visibility into the growth and progression of each player during the offseason. For each player, you can now see exactly how much each attribute increased. Additionally, the player module on the right hand side displays their weight gain, any abilities that upgraded, and if their development trait upgraded. 

Manual Progression

If you’re looking for more direct control over how your players develop, you can enable manual progression in league settings. Manual progression is an individual team setting, so it does not require all members of an Online Dynasty to have the same setting. If you choose to enable manual progression, your players will earn skill points like normal, however they will never automatically spend them to progress their attributes and abilities. You can see how many skill points each player has accumulated in the player module anywhere a player is shown in a spreadsheet or within their Player Card.

To manually progress a player, just access their Player Card. Within the Player Card, you can spend their skill points to purchase ratings and physical abilities. If you only want to manually progress specific players, you can do so — and then automatically progress the rest of your roster by holding Triangle on the roster screen. This will automatically progress all players who have skill points remaining using the standard autoprogression logic.

Manual progression can offer a significant advantage in shaping player growth, so when it’s turned on, it comes with a default 25% progression nerf to help maintain balance. This nerf is fully customizable by the Dynasty Commissioner. It can be turned off completely or increased to 100% to fully prevent users from auto progressing players.  

POSITION CHANGES

Position changes are a key part of building and evolving a roster in Dynasty Mode, but transitioning to a new role isn’t always seamless. When a player moves to a new role they must learn a new position and skillset — one that may not directly translate from their previous experience. While they can certainly grow into the role over time, that development doesn’t happen overnight. To better reflect, now when a player changes positions, they will only retain abilities that are shared between their previous archetype and the new one. 

Their skill group caps are also adjusted based on how closely the new position relates to their original one. For example, shifting a running back to wide receiver results in a smaller drop in development ceiling than moving that same player to offensive tackle. The farther apart the positions are in terms of required traits and responsibilities, the steeper the learning curve – which naturally limits their potential and current abilities.

As you evaluate changing a player’s position, the player module on the right side of the screen will display a preview of which abilities the player would retain at the selected position. The player’s development trait will stay the same, ensuring a consistent growth rate as they adapt to their new role.

MANAGING WEAR AND TEAR

Much like a boxer, a football player’s body can only take so many hits before it starts to break down. It’s not just about whether a player is injured — it’s about how their body responds to the physical demands of the season. Every hit adds up and as our friend OG says “not all hits are created equal”. Some players are able to endure the wear and tear over the long term, while others wear down under the weight of repeated impacts. 

Season and Career Health

In College Football 26 every player now has season and career health pools that determine how much wear and tear damage they can recover in a single season and over the course of their career. Each time a player recovers wear and tear damage, it draws from these pools. Once the season health pool is depleted, that player can no longer recover wear and tear damage until the offseason when they will fully recover.

We saw the effects of season health play out in last year’s National Championship game. Entering the matchup, Notre Dame’s quarterback had logged a career-high 167 rushing attempts on the season — 53 of those coming in just the last three games. On the opening drive, he led an 18-play, 75-yard touchdown march, carrying the ball nine more times. That drive alone added a significant amount of wear and tear, and when combined with the workload he’d taken on all season, it was clear his body had started to break down. From that point forward, his performance dipped noticeably — and he wasn’t the same player for the rest of the game.

How Does Season Health Change Season to Season?

At the end of each season, the pool replenishes, however, the size of the pool is determined by how full it was at the end of the season. For example, a player who finishes the season with their health pool nearly empty will begin the next year with a significantly smaller season health pool. This reflects the physical wear they carried over the course of the season. Conversely, a player who finished the year with a pool that is almost full will begin the next year with an almost identical health pool size. 

You will be able to see the impacts of a player’s season health on their career health bar over the course of the season. In effect, you are now having to manage a player’s “career clock”. How heavily a player is used from year to year will significantly impact their longevity, adding a new layer of decision making and wear and tear management week to week and season to season.

Where Can I See It?

You can view a player’s season health anywhere that wear and tear is displayed. This year we have also updated the player module to include a wear and tear sub panel that can be accessed with the RS. This allows you to quickly view a player’s wear and tear health at a glance.

Auto Subs Strategy

Auto Subs now incorporate wear and tear strategies by position, giving you control over how players are rotated in and out during games based on accumulated wear and tear damage.

There are four sub strategies that you can choose from:

• Keep Fresh: Prioritize rotating players out early to limit accumulated wear and tear damage
• Normal: Balanced approach that will keep a steady rotation
• Grind It Out: Players will stay on the field even when they have incurred significant Wear and Tear damage
• Custom: Create a custom sub in and out wear and tear strategy using sliders

Custom Settings

As detailed in the Gameplay Deep Dive, we’ve also added a suite of wear and tear sliders that give you full control over how wear and tear behaves across Dynasty and gameplay. These settings let you fine-tune how much wear and tear is applied based on tackle type (such as normal tackles versus hit sticks), how much is recovered during the game (including per play, at quarter breaks, or halftime), and how much players recover during week advances in Dynasty.

DELIVERING THE WORLD OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL

College football is constantly changing, and Dynasty Mode needs to evolve with it. This year, we’ve added Missouri State and Delaware, expanding to 136 teams you can start your Dynasty with.

While we will always look to stay current in the ever changing world of college football, we are also focused on expanding the depth of Dynasty Mode — building a more complete and immersive world through better access to stats, deeper historical tracking, storylines, and ongoing quality of life improvements that make reduce friction in your Dynasty experience. 

A PART OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL HISTORY

One of the most powerful parts of Dynasty mode is looking back — reliving the moments, debating the greats, and remembering the champions that shaped your Dynasties of the past. Whether it’s your boss telling you about his sweet two star recruit that won the three Heismans and a national championship at a small school or arguments with friends over whose team was truly the best, those memories are what make Dynasty mode special.

In College Football 26, we’re introducing College Football History, which is accessible from the Stats & Records tab of the Dynasty Hub. This is your hub for the legacy of the sport and your Dynasty — from Yale winning the very first National Championship in 1869 to every moment you create across your 30-year Dynasty.

College Football History features:

• National Champions going back to 1869, including split National Champions
• Conference Champions dating back to 1896, including historical conferences no longer in existence
• For each national and conference champion you will be able to see the year they won the championship, their top 25 ranking, season record, and the name of the coach that won the championship. If this was a championship game, you will also be able to see the losing team, their top 25 rank, season record, and the score of the game.
• 21 Individual player and coach award winners, for example historical Heisman Trophy and Bear Bryant Coach of the Year Winners

Within the College Football History you are able to filter the spreadsheet by team and conference. This gives you the ability to see every Heisman winner from Alabama, every SEC team that has reached the national championship game, or simply view every conference champion from the Big Ten or the Pac-12. 

When viewing conference championships, you will be able to see historical conferences and the evolution of conferences. For example, when you are looking at the Pac-12 conference champions, you will see the conference evolve from PCC, to AAWU, to Pac-8, to Pac-10, and eventually the Pac-12 Conference. 

As your Dynasty unfolds, this history grows with you. Every national champion, conference champion, winning coach, and award winner is etched into the record books for all 30 seasons.

Speaking of awards, in College Football 26 we’ve added 14 authentic awards, including the Maxwell Award and the Walter Camp Award. Additionally, we’ve also rebalanced how defensive stats – in particular tackles, tackles for loss, and sacks – are evaluated in our awards logic.

In addition to College Football History, you can now view all of a players awards and accolades from their player card. Within the player card, go to the more tab and then stats. Once you are within the stats screen filter to Awards. This will show all of their individual awards like Heisman Trophies, conference championships, national championship, All-American and All-Conference selections, how many times they have been national and conference player of the week, and their transfer history.

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

Just like you, the community, we’re stat junkies. We believe the numbers tell the story. This year, we’ve expanded stat tracking across players, teams, and conferences to give you a fuller, more detailed view of performance throughout Dynasty Mode.

Tie Goes to the Runner…?

In College Football 25, it could be difficult to understand how conference tiebreakers were resolved — or why one team advanced over another. This year, we made it a priority to bring clarity and transparency to that process. The updated logic is designed to better align with how real-world conferences settle their standings, and to ensure outcomes make sense at a glance.

Improved Tiebreaker Logic:

• First, we look at the head-to-head record between tied teams.
• If the teams didn’t all play each other or the head-to-head doesn’t resolve the tie, we check the team’s record against common conference opponents.
• If they are still tied, we use the CFP ranking to determine placement.

Tiebreaker Example:

Let’s say a conference ends the regular season with a three-way tie for first place between Team A, Team B, and Team C. All three finish conference play with identical 7–1 records.

Step 1: Head-to-Head

We first look at the head-to-head matchups between the tied teams:

• Team A beat Team B
• Team B beat Team C
• Team C beat Team A

Each team is 1–1 against the other two. The head-to-head tiebreaker doesn’t resolve the tie.

Step 2: Record vs Common Conference Opponents

We next check how each team performed against shared conference opponents:

• All three teams played Teams D, E, F, and G
• Team A: 4–0
• Team B: 4–0
• Team C: 4–0

Still no separation. The tie remains.

Step 3: CFP Ranking

We now look at each team’s current CFP ranking to determine who advances:

• Team A: Ranked #12
• Team B: Ranked #17
• Team C: Ranked #21

Team A wins the tiebreaker based on the highest CFP ranking and advances to the conference championship game.

In addition to improved tiebreaker logic, we have also added columns showing a team’s point differential and average margin of victory. When entering conference standings, the screen now defaults to your team’s conference, so the information that matters most is front and center.

Stat Padding

We’ve also added deeper stat tracking for both individual players and entire teams. The box score now displays the total number of plays and yards per play. We’ve also added new metrics within the Season Stats, Career Stats, and Team Stats screens — all accessible from the Stats & Records tab in the Dynasty Hub.

Player Season and Career Stats

• Quarterbacks:
  • Touchdown %: Number of touchdowns divided by the number of pass attempts
  • Sack Rate: Number of times sacked as a percentage of pass attempts
  • Interception %: Number of interceptions divided by the number of pass attempts
  • TD:INT Ratio
  • Net Yards per Attempt: (pass yards – sack yards) / (pass attempts + sacks)
  • Adjusted Net Yards per Pass Attempt: Gives bonuses for touchdowns and penalties for interceptions
• Running Backs:
  • Fumble Rate: Number of fumbles divided by the number of carries
• Punters:
  • Touchback %: Number of touchbacks divided by the number of kickoffs

Team Stats

• Offense:
  • Total Yards per Game
  • Rushing Yards per Game
  • Passing Yards per Game
  • Yards per Play
• Defense:
  • Yards Allowed per Game
  • Rush Yards Allowed per Game
  • Pass Yards Allowed per Game
  • Points Allowed per Game
  • Sacks per Game
• Penalties:
  • Penalties per Game
  • Penalty Yards per Game
• Other:

NEW POSITIONS AND ARCHETYPES

In College Football 26, we’ve overhauled positions and archetypes across the game to bring them in line with the way modern college football is played. Positions have been updated to reflect current-day schemes and terminology.

We’ve made key positional updates to reflect how teams align in today’s game. Defensive Ends are now Edge Rushers, and Outside Linebackers are labeled as SAM or WILL, with MIKE replacing Middle Linebacker. These roles better reflect real-world defensive structures and responsibilities. We’ve also introduced support for smarter formation-based movement, so players adjust their alignment based on your defensive front. Additional depth chart updates include Long Snapper (LS), Gadget (GAD) for trick-play specialists, and Nose Tackle, specifically used in 3-4 fronts.

We also took a hard look at every archetype in College Football 25 and found that many didn’t fully capture how college players move, play, and contribute. Some players fell between styles, while others had skill sets unique enough to deserve their own identity — for example, a gadget wide receiver. To address this, we’ve expanded to 59 total archetypes, each with its own unique combination of physical abilities. In addition to adding new archetypes, we also reworked our existing ones to better represent the full range of play styles and roles within each position group.

Some positions, like Wide Receiver, now feature seven unique archetypes — each designed to capture a distinct play style. Here’s a breakdown of what makes each one unique:

• Speedster: A pure burner who takes the top off the defense. Not a technician, but lethal in open space.
• Route Artist: Precise, smooth, and always open. Wins with footwork and timing.
• Physical Route Runner: Big-bodied and technical, but not fast. Great for contested third downs.
• Elusive Route Runner: Shifty before and after the catch. Combines smooth routes with elite YAC ability.
• Gritty Possession: Tough, reliable, and physical. Ideal for option offenses and run blocking on the perimeter.
• Gadget Receiver: A do-it-all player who might take snaps at QB or RB. Built for trick plays and misdirection.
• Contested Specialist: Dominates tight coverage. High-points the ball and wins in jump-ball scenarios.

These archetypes not only shape how a player performs, but also determine which physical abilities they have access to, creating meaningful gameplay and recruiting variation. Whether you want to recruit a possession guy who seals the edge or a true deep threat to stretch the field, there’s an archetype to match.

FORMATION SUBS

One of the things that makes college football so dynamic is the variety of formations and alignments across different programs. Each week, college coaches find creative ways to use personnel, designing packages that create mismatches and exploit opponent team weaknesses.

Formation Subs bring that same flexibility allowing you to assign specific players to specific formations. This is a great way to take advantage of the new positions archetypes. 

Within Formation Subs you will be allowed to set up 50 formation subs per team. Subs will persist season to season unless the player leaves the team or you change teams. If you switch playbooks, any formations shared between the old and new playbook will retain their assigned subs.

CUSTOM CONFERENCES & PROTECTED OPPONENTS

Scheduling in college football has become more complex than ever — and in College Football 26, we’ve revisited how Custom Conferences work to ensure that your scheduling choices hold up across multi-year Dynasties. As part of this reassessment, we identified that some custom conference combinations were mathematically impossible to support within the scheduling system. To maintain long-term schedule integrity, those edge cases have been removed from the custom conference matrix.

As a part of Custom Conferences, you can now set Protected Opponents — giving you the ability to lock in annual matchups regardless of divisional alignment. Want to ensure Michigan plays Ohio State every year, no matter how your Big Ten realignment shakes out? Now you can.

Most conference configurations can support one or two protected opponents per team, depending on the number of teams in the conference, whether divisions are enabled or disabled, and the number of conference games played each season. Some conference configurations and setups will not be able to support Protected Opponents due to scheduling being mathematically impossible.

To use Protected Opponents, open the Conference Rules screen by pressing Square/X on the conference you want to customize. Here, you can enable or disable Protected Opponents along with other key conference settings. From that screen, press Triangle/Y to access the Protected Opponents screen, where you can view current protected matchups and assign or edit them for each team. If you don’t feel like manually setting all of the protected opponents in a conference, you can press R3 to regenerate all of the protected opponents in the conference.

Whether you’re building a new super-conference from scratch or preserving the rivalries that define college football, Protected Opponents give you the tools to keep the most meaningful games on the schedule every year.

SCHEDULING UPDATES

All known future season games, including kickoff games, have been added through 2040, ensuring that teams follow their actual schedules year over year. This includes updates to annual games like Florida vs. Georgia, which will no longer be played in Jacksonville for the 2026 and 2027 seasons. We’ve also updated conference rotations for both the MAC and Conference USA to reflect their latest real-world alignment and expansion.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF

The world of college football is ever changing and in College Football 26 we are excited that you will have the opportunity to experience the new playoff format in Dynasty before you experience it in real life. This offseason, the College Football Playoff has changed its format so that now the top four teams in the CFP rankings receive first round byes. Previously, the byes were awarded to the four highest ranked conference champions.

QUALITY OF LIFE

We’ve added a number of improvements that make it easy to navigate, manage and access key information within your Dynasty. 

• Quick Access to Player Info: Anytime a player appears in a spreadsheet, you can now press Triangle/(Y) to open their Player Card or R3/RS to view their stats and award history.
• Player Stats and Attributes Everywhere: Now anywhere a player appears in a spreadsheet you will be able to see their season stats on the player module. This makes it easy to compare award candidates on the award watchlists. The second new panel is player attributes, which shows six attributes that are key to the player’s position.

• Development Traits in the Player Module: In addition to the two new player module panels, you can now view a player’s Dev Trait in the Abilities sub-panel. Note, the development trait will only be viewable for players on your team.
• Quick Access to Team Schedules: Within the Conference Standings and Top 25 Polls screens, you can now Press Triangle/(Y) on a team view their full schedule and quickly compare resumes.
• Members Tab: In Dynasty Hub we have added a new tab called Members. The Members tab lets you see every user in your Online Dynasty or every coach character in your Offline Dynasty. For each team it shows their username, team, top 25 rank, current week matchup and result, platform, online status, and whether they’re ready to advance. As a Commissioner, the Members tab is now where you will make all of your Commissioner actions like::
  • Adding or removing users
  • Toggling Auto Pilot
  • Promoting or demoting other commissioners
  • Transferring Dynasty ownership to another user
  • Inviting new users to join the Dynasty

CROSSPLAY

College Football 26 Online Dynasty now supports cross-play across Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. You can run a 32 person Online Dynasty with friends regardless of platform. Within the Members tab, you’ll be able to see each user’s system.

To use cross-play, you’ll need an internet connection, the latest game updates, and a valid EA Account. Cross-play is enabled by default in Online Dynasties but can be turned off at any time by the Commissioner in League Settings.

For more info, check out the [Cross-Play FAQ for full details].

PREORDER BONUS

To give players a head start on building their program, all preorders of College Football 26 will receive a bonus of 100 Coach Points* when you start a Dynasty. This bonus applies to every Dynasty you start, and is in addition to the 1,000 Coach Points you can earn over time through progression — giving you an early edge when shaping your coaching identity. 

We also know that not every league wants to start with these bonuses, so Commissioners will have the option to enable or disable preorder bonuses within league settings.

IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS

It’s the little things that bring everything together — subtle touches that elevate the experience. Here are a few little things that we have added this year:

• Dynamic Time of Day: As Christian described in the Presentation Deep Dive College Football 26 introduces Dynamic Time of Day. Within Dynasty mode, the calendar date will impact the sun positioning and lighting. Now, a 5:00pm game in September will be brighter with a higher sun when compared to a 5:00pm game in November at the same stadium.

• Super Sim Tempo Adjustements: Teams who run up tempo style of play will now have an increased number of snaps during their game better reflecting their style of play.
• Broken Records Feedback: When a player on your team breaks a single game, season, or career record, you will now receive a full screen takeover celebrating the achievement.

• Coach Stats: Within the Coach Stats screen you can now see offensive and defensive coordinator stats.
• Force Win Update: When forcing a win or loss it now says the name of the team you are forcing a win for so you no longer have to guess which team is home or away.
• Combined Opponent Record: When viewing a team’s schedule, you can now see their combined opponent record giving you a quick snapshot of their strength of schedule.
• Advance Week Confirmation: A confirmation popup will now appear when you go to advance to the next week, helping prevent accidental clicks that could cost you a national championship.
• Sim to Points: When advancing the week you can now sim to any week in the season rather than only specific weeks.
• Redshirt Updates: Players can now play in postseason games without them counting against their redshirt eligibility. Additionally, now when you redshirt a player, it will not reset the entire depth chart. Instead, it will only alter the positions that player was in the depth chart for.
• Scouting Ability Info: If you’d like to know more about what an ability is when scouting a player, you can highlight the ability on the right side panel and it will display a tooltip informing you what that ability does.
• Increased Spreadsheet Row Count: We’ve increased the number of rows you can see in multiple spreadsheet screens. The Prospect List and Transfer Portal spreadsheets now display 600 rows instead of 300. The player season and career stats screens now display 700 rows of stats giving you better insight into the nations best players.

TEAM BUILDER

When we launched Team Builder last year, we were blown away by the creativity and passion from the community. It was incredible to watch players not only build their own teams, but also help others bring their fantasy creations to life with templates and other assets. We loved seeing everything you put together and we can’t wait to see what you build next. 

Just like Dynasty Mode, Team Builder is part of a multi-year vision for us — one where we continue to expand and deepen the experience over time. Last year was about laying the foundation. We launched Team Builder as a Beta and now we are removing that tag. Our team has been hard at work polishing and improving the overall site performance. Team Builder now has a completely new look and the site is 2X faster. Overall render performance is greatly improved, so Team Builder will now work on a wider array of devices and lower end machines. 

In addition to performance updates, College Football 26 was about building on the foundation we built with even tighter integration into Dynasty and more customization. In College Football 25, you were limited to 10 custom images per team. In College Football 26, you now have an upload limit of 5 MB per team. This means you can upload as many custom images and textures as you want until you hit the 5 MB limit, increasing your creative power.

IMPORT TEAMS FROM COLLEGE FOOTBALL 25

We know how much time and creativity you poured into your Team Builder teams last year and we wanted to ensure you could bring your College Football 25 creations directly into College Football 26 without having to start over from scratch.

With College Football 26, you can import your teams directly from College Football 25. From the Team Builder, press the Import button in the top-right corner, which will open a dropdown asking you which title you would like to import from. After selecting College Football 25, you’ll see a list of every team you created in CFB25.

Pick the team you want to bring forward, and you’ll be taken to the Edit Team page. Here, we’ll flag any assets or details that couldn’t carry over from last year’s game — and give you the chance to make adjustments before you republish. Make sure you take a few moments to fill out the new Team Builder features we’ve added this year. If you do not make any changes, your team will receive the default values for those features.

Once your team’s ready for primetime, hit Submit, and your creation will be live and available for download in College Football 26. 

DEFINING YOUR PROGRAM

In Dynasty, all teams have a set of My School grades that define who they are as a program. Are they great at academics? Are they a traditional powerhouse? Within the Program tab, you’ll now be able to choose your starting grades by selecting from a list of unique templates, each representing a different school identity. Whether you’re a Powerhouse, a Pro Factory, or a Cupcake trying to establish yourself, there’s a foundation that fits your vision.

Once you pick a template, you’ll see your projected Team Prestige and My School grades. Some of these grades will show up as exact values, while others appear as ranges — and that’s by design. Several elements of your team setup can influence how these grades shake out.

For example, your Stadium Atmosphere grade will adjust based on the size of the stadium you select, and your Championship Contender grade depends on which team you replace in Dynasty Mode — since you’ll inherit their preseason ranking. Other attributes like Coach Stability, Coach Prestige, and Conference Prestige won’t come from your template at all. Instead, they’ll reflect your coach setup when you start your Dynasty and where you choose to place your team in Custom Conferences.

ENHANCED ROSTER EDITING

Roster editing now lives in its own dedicated tab, and it has been enhanced with deeper customization designed to give you more control over each player on your team. 

One of the biggest feedback points we heard from the community was that it was difficult to assess how good or bad a player and team were when you were editing the roster. In College Football 26, you will be able to see your team’s Overall, Offensive and Defensive ratings at all times at the top of the website. These will update in real time as you make changes. When viewing an individual player, you will be able to see their Overall Rating (OVR), so you always know the impact of each edit.

Bio & Appearance

When editing a player, there are now two editing tabs: Bio and Skill Ratings & Abilities. In the Bio tab, you can modify a player’s general information and appearance. Within the Bio tab we have added several new editable fields:

• First and last name
• Previous Redshirt (i.e., has the player already used their redshirt year)
• High school star rating
• Dealbreaker
  • As we talked about in our Dynasty discussion, all players now have Dynamic Dealbreakers, so the Dealbreaker threshold will be determined when you import the team into Dynasty mode based on the player’s final OVR

Skill Ratings & Abilities

Within the Skill Ratings & Abilities tab, you will be able to have more control how good (or bad) each player is. This year we have added the following editing capabilities:

• Player Archetype: This determines which five physical abilities are available for that player.
• Development Trait: Choose how fast a player develops over time.
• Player Potential: Players can now have a potential of Low, Medium, or High. This will set the player’s skill group caps, which determine a player’s ceiling or how high they can progress a given attribute. The cap is scaled based on potential and class year. A freshman with high potential will have more room to grow than a junior with high potential, just like in real life.
• Physical Abilities: Once you set your player archetype, you will be able to determine what tier each physical ability is (None, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum). Each tier has a required attribute rating in order to qualify for it. The required attributes will be visible when you are selecting the tier and if the player doesn’t meet that requirement, you’ll get a prompt asking if you want to automatically adjust their rating to match the ability tier.
• Mental Abilities: Which mental abilities are available is determined by the player’s position. You will be able to choose from a dropdown which mental abilities they have (if any) and what tier each ability is (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum). Remember, mental abilities cannot be upgraded, so choose wisely.

GENERIC STADIUMS

We’ve added three generic stadiums and a high school stadium to give you more flexibility when creating or customizing your team. All generic stadiums are small to medium sized and do not feature any team branding.

PIPELINES

Pipelines are a powerful part of the Dynasty recruiting experience. Having a stronghold in a particular part of the country can completely change your recruiting dynamic. In College Football 26, you now have full control over which pipelines your Team Builder team has. Within the Program tab, you can fully customize your pipelines, including where your team has recruiting influence and how strong that influence is.

Each pipeline is assigned a tier from 1 to 5, with Tier 5 representing your strongest recruiting presence and Tier 1 being the weakest. You can configure this on a pipeline-by-pipeline basis, giving you more flexibility to shape your recruiting footprint based on your school’s history or your own strategic priorities.

RIVALRIES

Rivalries are a core piece of college football and now you have complete control of your Team Builder team’s rivalries. Within the Program tab, you can now create up to five rivalries for your Team Builder team. 

For each rivalry, fill out historical information:

• Rival team
• Rivalry name
• The first year it was played
• All-time series record
• Who won the last matchup
• The score of the last game

This information will carry with you into Dynasty Mode. If you want to set up a Team Builder rivalry, simply set that team’s rival to an existing team, then replace that team with your Team Builder school.

TOUGHEST PLACES TO PLAY

The crowd. The noise. The overwhelmingly hostile atmosphere. See which teams you don’t want to face on their home turf in our Top 25 Toughest Places to Play.

1. Tiger Stadium | LSU
2. Beaver Stadium | Penn State
3. Ohio Stadium | Ohio State
4. Sanford Stadium | Georgia
5. Bryant-Denny Stadium | Alabama
6. Memorial Stadium | Clemson
7. Ben Hill Griffin Stadium | Florida
8. Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium | Oklahoma
9. Autzen Stadium | Oregon
10. Michigan Stadium | Michigan
11. Kyle Field | Texas A&M
12. Neyland Stadium | Tennessee
13. Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium | Texas
14. Doak S. Campbell Stadium | Florida State
15. Camp Randall Stadium | Wisconsin
16. Williams-Brice Stadium | South Carolina
17. Jordan-Hare Stadium | Auburn
18. Husky Stadium | Washington
19. Kinnick Stadium | Iowa
20. Rice-Eccles Stadium | Utah
21. Notre Dame Stadium | Notre Dame
22. Carter-Finley Stadium | NC State
23. Boone Pickens Stadium | Oklahoma State
24. Spartan Stadium | Michigan State
25. Davis Wade Stadium | Mississippi State

POST-GAME SPEECH

If you’ve made it this far — thank you. This blog isn’t just a feature list or a changelog. It’s a reflection of the care, passion, and purpose that this team brings to Dynasty mode every single day. We’re continuing to build on the foundation we laid last year, always with one goal at the center: “Satisfy the Core Community” because “This is THEIR Game”.

That mindset has never wavered. The team has fully rallied behind it, and what we’ve built together in College Football 26 is something we’re incredibly proud of. But this is just Year Two of a multi-year journey and we’re incredibly excited about where we are going. 

To the community: don’t lose your passion and excitement. That energy is the fuel that drives us. Your support, your feedback, and your love for this game are the reason we’re here, and we never take that for granted.

With that being said, we will see you again soon for the next deep dive on Road To Glory and Superstar! 

— Chad Walker, Ben Haumiller (@BenHaumiller), and the entire College Football 26 Development team

College Football 26 launches worldwide on July 10, 2025. Pre-order the Deluxe Edition** or the EA SPORTS™ MVP Bundle* and play 3 days early. Stay in the conversation by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Answers HQ.

*Conditions & restrictions apply. See ea.com/games/ea-sports-college-football/college-football-26/game-disclaimers for details.

**Conditions & restrictions apply. See https://www.ea.com/games/madden-nfl/madden-nfl-26/game-disclaimers for details.

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. — USF finally has a women’s ice hockey team.

That’s thanks to senior Bella Buontempo. Her freshman year, she realized she wasn’t quite ready to hang up her skates. So, she decided to create a club team for USF.

“It wasn’t really a big thing in the south, the only team in the south that had a women’s program was University of Tampa at the time.”

She gauged interest and for months worked on founding the team. 

In 2021, USF women took the ice for their inaugural season. 

“When I started I had about five girls that wanted to join my team and now we’ve gotten up to 22 girls on the roster, and I have a lot of incoming freshman too, so it’s really just growing,” Buontempo said.  

The team has grown bigger every year, and the impact has gone beyond Tampa Bay. 

Buontempo teamed up with a few other college hockey leaders who had a similar vision. 

Together, they created a space for women’s hockey within college hockey south. 

“We created the women’s division within the CHS which is the first ever collegiate women’s hockey program in the south.”

Now, it’s expanding into other teams in the south — giving college women the chance to continue playing the sport they love. Senior Emily Anderson is one of the women who has benefited.

“It’s beyond words how grateful I am for her to start this program, it gave me a little slice of my childhood in Florida and bringing it all around the south to other young girls and seeing the chains that we’re making makes me even more grateful to her for starting this program,” Anderson reflected.

What started as a way for Buontempo to play hockey in college has impacted so many lives.

“I’ve had a lot of girls come up to me and say, ‘I’m dreaming of playing for USF, you’re really an inspiration — seeing how you’ve grown the team,’” Buontempo said.

Buontempo created more than a club sport — she helped form a special kind of sisterhood and a league of their own.

Each July, downtown State College transforms into a colorful, crowded celebration of creativity for the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, better known as Arts Fest. This year, the festival runs from Wednesday, July 9 through Sunday, July 13, with all the festival days being designated as a Penn State holiday.

Now, in its 59th year, Arts Fest remains a hallmark of State College summer. It was founded in 1967 and the first festival was sponsored by Penn State’s College of Arts and Architecture and the State College Chamber of Commerce. The festival attracts more than 125,000 visitors annually; it showcases everything from fine art and live music to local food vendors and community performances.

Here’s what you need to know for Arts Fest 2025.

Travel

Getting to the heart of Arts Fest is easier with a little planning. Festival organizers recommend parking at Penn State’s West Parking Deck on White Course Dr., just a short 10-minute walk from downtown. Parking rates range from $2 for the first hour to a maximum of $10 for ten hours, and both cash and cards are accepted.

From Thursday through Saturday, a free shuttle runs from the deck directly to the festival center at College Ave. and Allen St., with a stop at the Palmer Museum of Art. Thursday through Saturday the shuttle runs from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., but Sunday the shuttle service ends at 4 p.m.

Accommodation

For those parking downtown, municipal garages on Beaver Ave., Fraser St. and Pugh St. are available at $2.25 per hour, with a daily max of $32 — but they fill up quickly, so early arrival is recommended.

If you’re visiting from out of town, several local hotels are partnering with the festival, including Hyatt Place and Scholar Hotel, both centrally located near Old Main and within easy walking distance of the action. Additional lodging options include the Ramada Conference Center, Country Inn & Suites, Days Inn and more.

To plan your stay, check out the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau for a full list of accommodations.

A run-down of events

The festival kicks off on Wednesday, July 9 with Children and Youth Day, a family-oriented opening featuring free hands-on activities, craft booths and performances geared towards young attendees. Children ages 8 to 18 can sell their artwork in a special sidewalk sale. The day concludes with the beloved Grand Procession at 3:00 p.m., marching from the Old Main patio to Sidney Friedman Park.

Beginning Thursday, July 10, the downtown streets are filled with more than 300 juried artists from around the country. Tents line South Allen Street, College Avenue and the surrounding blocks, featuring everything from ceramics and jewelry to paintings and digital art.

Inside the festival’s Images 2025 Exhibition, juried by Richard Rinehart, the director of the Samek Art Museum at Bucknell University, visitors can view award-winning work from regional artists. The exhibition is hosted at the Schlow Centre Region Library and includes both professional and student categories.

Live performances run throughout the festival on outdoor stages including the Allen St. Stage, Sidney Friedman Park and Old Main lawn. This year’s lineup includes local bands, dance groups, classical ensembles and pop-up acts. On Children and Youth Day alone, audiences can expect appearances from Suzuki Strings, CC4H Robotics, Black Cat Belly Dance and more.

With dozens of performances scheduled each day, festival goers are never far from live music, whether it’s a jazz quartet, a singer-songwriter or a Penn State student ensemble.

Arts Fest is as much about community as it is about art. For many, it’s a time to reconnect with old friends, especially alumni who make the trip back to Happy Valley for informal reunions. Sidewalks fill with familiar faces, while local restaurants and food trucks roll out festival specials ranging from funnel cakes and fresh lemonade to artisan grilled cheese.

For State College residents and Penn Staters alike, Arts Fest is more than just a tourist event — it’s a tradition.

Whether you’re a local, a student sticking around for the summer or an alum making your annual return, Arts Fest 2025 promises five days of color, sound, sunshine and celebration in the heart of downtown.

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