What’s our NFL Draft expert think about EA Sports College Football’s prospect ratings?

Since the very beginning, EA Sports has prided itself on making football games that are as close to real life as possible.

The first video game to carry John Madden’s name, released in 1988 (John Madden Football) gave players the ability to change the weather and audible at the line of scrimmage. The EA Sports tradition held firm throughout the ’90s and 2000s. With expansions of the wildly popular Madden and NCAA Football franchises, gamers saw advancements and changes to the products designed to give them a true-to-life feel.

The most recent and long-awaited installment, College Football 25, is no exception — just ask any of the players who have spent time cussing out their (virtual) coach for not recruiting a better kicker.

But how did EA Sports do in analyzing and grading potential NFL Draft prospects? The popular Dynasty mode produces (slightly bare-bones) draft results at the end of each season. I simulated the 2025 season 10 times to get a feel for what those results would be. Do they hold up against what we expect of the 2025 draft class? Let’s take a look at how accurate these player rankings — and draft results — might be.

The CFB 25 draft engine

The game does generate draft results after each season in franchise mode. It doesn’t give an actual order, just “first round” or “second round” and so on. And, unfortunately, players do not have the option of exporting a class to the Madden universe as they could in previous versions of the game.

So, I simulated the upcoming season 10 times to get a feel for how College Football 25 saw the 2025 NFL Draft playing out. Even though the results weren’t unanimous, a core number of players appeared as first-rounders far more than the rest.

Those players:

If that group looks shockingly similar to the game’s top-ranked players overall, it’s no coincidence. Those rankings pretty clearly drive the mock draft engine the game uses to determine which players land in which round. Those rated in the 30-50 range — guys like Michigan’s Colston Loveland, Alabama’s Parker Brailsford and LSU’s Harold Perkins Jr. — often were first-rounders but not every time.

The QB ratings

The biggest issue with how the game has rated players is one that appeals to the casual football watcher and inherently makes the game more fun to play: Nearly all the quarterbacks and running backs are rated way too high.

Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel, for example, is the 30th-ranked player in the game and the fourth-rated QB (behind Shedeur Sanders, Carson Beck and Quinn Ewers, in that order). Thus, Gabriel shows up as a first-round pick quite a bit. A sixth-year player, he has thrown for nearly 15,000 yards and is about to start for his third major program — a great college player now in charge of arguably college football’s most talented team.

He’s also 5 feet 10, barely 200 pounds and decidedly not a first-round prospect for the 2025 draft. In fact, The Athletic’s Dane Brugler recently rated him as the 14th-best senior passer entering the season.

Other quarterbacks I believe the game is too high on: Liberty’s Kaidon Salter (QB5), Kansas’ Jalon Daniels (QB7), Arizona’s Noah Fifita (QB8) and Utah’s Cameron Rising (QB10). Conversely, quarterbacks I believe the game has too low: Texas A&M’s Conner Weigman (QB12), Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard (QB14), Penn State’s Drew Allar (QB17), USC’s Miller Moss (QB28) and Florida’s Graham Mertz (QB37).

It’s pretty obvious what’s going on — the guys with the best stats and metrics, regardless of competition or context, tend to get rated higher than those who haven’t been in the spotlight as long. At the same time, the game does a really nice job of making sure players like Memphis’ Seth Henigan (QB11) get recognition.

For me, Gabriel is the game’s most overrated offensive player. But if the biggest critique is that competitive veterans like Gabriel and NC State’s Grayson McCall have been rewarded with ratings a bit higher than they’d get in real life, so be it.

Most underrated prospects in the game

I’ve got two, actually.

This game did a better-than-I-remember job of making offensive line play (and player ratings, in general) more accurate to real life. Even so, it’s one of the game’s more inconsistent areas. Take LSU right tackle Emery Jones Jr. Like his teammate/linemate Will Campbell, Jones will begin the season with first-round grades — he’s way up at No. 13 on Brugler’s initial Big Board. Not in the video game, though, where he’s the 92nd-ranked player, for some reason.

There also are nine running backs rated inside the game’s top 50, and 14 in the top 100. That makes sense in a video game world, but it’s not realistic when we talk about the NFL Draft.

Plus, if we’re bulking up running backs, why not do it with the guy who’s hardest to tackle? Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty is far better than the No. 10 running back in the class, which is where EA Sports has him. He’s absolutely in the top three for 2025, and possibly the best overall (Brugler has him No. 1 right now). Rutgers’ Kyle Monangai gets a runner-up vote for most disrespected running back.

GO DEEPER

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Most overrated prospects in the game

Linebackers got the quarterback/running back treatment, too. One game mode allows you to develop a career as a player at an individual position, with middle linebacker an option. That’s entertaining, as the MLB position is one of the easiest to play in a video game, but that spot as a whole gets way too much love.

Iowa linebacker Jay Higgins, for example, is not one of the country’s 16 best prospects. Neither is Clemson linebacker Barrett Carter. College Football 25 has both of them reaching those elite heights.

Higgins counts as an exception in my book, though, as he made 171 tackles last season at Iowa, in the heart of a defense that has been forced to prop up an essentially quarterback-less offense for most of Higgins’ career. That rating is off, but the intent — both in video game and from a “this is what college football should be about” standpoint — is fine.

Final thoughts

As is the case annually with Madden’s preseason ratings, everything is in the eye of the beholder. However, I was impressed by how many legit small-school NFL Draft prospects are properly rated within the game and, moreover, with how every player on every team (for the most part) is about where they should be.

There are exceptions, of course. Here’s a look at how the top of my preseason positional stacks differ from those in College Football 25:

If you’ve played the game, share your thoughts on the draft engine and player ratings in the comments. Who’s EA Sports overlooking? Who’s getting too much credit right now?

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(Gameplay screenshots courtesy of EA Sports)