What WSU traditions and uniforms made it into EA Sports return to college football video games.
After a long 11-year wait, the world of virtual college football is finally back. EA Sports officially released their first college football video game since the BCS was still a thing on Friday. However, for those who preordered the deluxe version, you were able to pick up the sticks on Monday afternoon.
College Football 25 comes out in a much different collegiate landscape than when it left us in 2014. The last version of the game, NCAA Football 14, came out in the final year of the BCS and it’s hiatus lasted throughout the entire lifespan of the four-team playoff. NIL and the transfer portal boomed just a few years after NCAA 14 and conferences — as we know all too well — look much different.
For the first time we will get to virtually experience the College Football Playoff, manage the transfer portal, watch recruits value NIL opportunities and much more.
As for WSU, things were also much different in 2013. The team was coming off a 3-9 season under first year coach Mike Leach (RIP) and were in the process of renovating Martin Stadium. While NCAA 14 had the brand new press box and suites in the game, the Cougar Football Complex was under construction in 2013 so the east end zone still featured the old bleachers and scoreboard.
The uniforms also looked a bit different as WSU was going into year three of their new Nike uniforms.
Since then, the Cougar Football Complex was completed a year after NCAA 14 and WSU refreshed their uniforms three years after that. So Coug fans will finally be able to see the updated version of now named Gesa Field at Martin Stadium and play around with the hundreds of different uniform combinations that now exist since the 2017 refresh.
Throughout the process of CFB 25’s development, we were promised that this game would be for the fans. The phrase “every team is somebody’s favorite team” was tossed around by the development team as we got closer to the game and started to see what the game looked like. There were promises of making sure every team had their favorite gameday traditions, fight songs and entrances in the game to give it the most authentic college gameday feel they could.
As an avid football fan, I couldn’t be more excited to get my hands on the game and see all the Saturday traditions I was familiar with and learn new ones that I hadn’t known about before. More importantly, as a WSU fan, I was anxious to see what WSU traditions would make it in to the game.
I tried my best to avoid any screenshots or videos of WSU in CFB25 so I could find out for myself when I got in the game on Monday and to be honest, I was incredibly nervous. I feared EA Sports would only give us a handful of helmets options instead of the 14 different helmets we’ve donned since 2017, and have a limited amount of recognizable traditions for games at home.
Would we see the proper pyrotechnics and band lined up along the tunnel as the players took the field? Would Butch be leading them out on his ATV after leading the crowd in the Go Cougs chant? Maybe even hear the crowd sing Back Home after the first quarter?
Finally, after a Monday shift that felt twice as long as normal, I got home, fired up CFB25 and immediately started up a Play Now game in Pullman. Before I could get to that screen, I was presented with a beautiful main menu that really made the game feel tailor-made to each team. This one is complete with a mock-up ticket stub from the classic 1992 Apple Cup.
After setting up my matchup against Oregon State, I scrolled through all the uniforms WSU had in the game and folks, EA hooked us UP.
All three jerseys and all four pants are in the game, we also have every single helmet option available to pair it with. Ranging from the familiar gray and crimson lids, to BOTH iterations of the WAZZU helmet and yes, even the beloved Cougars script made it.
The last time I loaded into virtual Martin Stadium, there was no Cougar Football Complex, the scoreboard was still located in the west end zone and there was no cool team runout in the game or great cinematic shots of fans getting excited.
Loading into virtual Pullman, Washington this time gave me goosebumps.
The entrance was nearly spot-on. The band lined up alongside the tunnel as the WSU cheerleaders led the team onto the field with the fire cannons bookending it. The only thing missing was Butch, who was not one of the fifty mascots to make it into the game. Regardless, it felt like I was getting ready to watch a Cougar Football Saturday.
All my fears of EA Sports letting us slip through the cracks were put to rest very quickly. The stadium looks absolutely amazing on ‘next-gen’ console graphics.
After playing one half at 6pm, I wanted to see what the stadium looked like after dark and man, it did not disappoint.
One of the cool things EA made sure of in this game was correct seating arrangements. Every stadium should have their student sections, band and opposing fan sections right where they are in real life. This can be found at Gesa Field.
You can tell that the student section is in the north stands as the students are standing throughout the game, while the south stands mostly depend on the state of the game. The opposing fans — Oregon State in this game — are located in the corner of the east end zone, just like in real life and the band is located in the west end zone.
As far as traditions, WSU didn’t quite get everything they may see or hear on Saturdays. Back Home (or any non-copyright knockoff of it) can’t be heard after the first quarter, students aren’t seen jingling keys at kickoff and Butch isn’t patrolling the sidelines. Ol Crimson is also unfortunately not in the game at it’s usually spot in the northeast corner, instead replaced by an American flag.
But, you will be hearing that familiar Cougar growl after every WSU first down.
And on defense, you will hear a variation of the band playing Jaws.
I went into this game trying to temper my expectations and ended up blown away. EA nailed almost every little detail in this game from a sights and sound perspective. Listening to the crowd ramp up on a big third down almost sounds like you’re there along yelling side those fans. The more I played, the more little details I found. I mean, even the inside of the WSU tunnel has the WSU decal on it just like it does in real life, the scoreboard has the correct wordmarks and WSU logo on it and more.
May be it’s just the 11-year and two gaming console generation gap that makes everything look even better, but major kudos to EA for getting our school set up with just about everything we could have asked for to make our virtual Saturdays, look just like Cougar Football Saturdays.