EA Sports College Football 25’s Hardest Stadiums To Play In Don’t Make Sense

Summary EA Sports ranks hardest stadiums for away teams, but not all agree with their list in College Football 25.

Metrics like home records, attendance, and winning streaks factored into rankings, sparking debate.

Home-field advantage affects gameplay with Stadium Pulse meter, causing difficulties for away team.

EA Sports College Football 25 ranked which stadiums are the hardest for away teams to play at in College Football 25, but not everyone agrees with the rankings. When playing an away game, teams have to worry about things like crowd noise, intimidation tactics, and playing in an unfamiliar environment. It makes sense for College Football 25 to factor this into the game’s mechanics and make it part of the new Stadium Pulse meter. While the concept is a good one, not everyone agrees with the rankings of which stadium is the hardest to play at.

College Football 25 has been a hot topic among sports game fans since it's the first college football game since NCAA Football 14. That means it is being scrutinized pretty heavily, and any perceived inconsistency will likely be pointed out. The games ranking of top offensive teams also faced some criticism when it was initially released, with some analysts expressing their surprise that certain teams would be ranked so high. While EA Sports has released some hints at its methods for arriving at the numbers, the exact calculations aren’t shared, so it can be hard to see the reasoning.

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EA Sports Ranked The Schools With The Highest Home Team Advantage

Rank Stadium College 1 Kyle Field Texas A&M 2 Bryant-Denny Stadium Alabama 3 Tiger Stadium LSU 4 Ohio Stadium Ohio State 5 Sanford Stadium Georgia 6 Beaver Stadium Penn State 7 Camp Randall Stadium Wisconsin 8 Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium Oklahoma 9 Doak S. Campbell Stadium Florida State 10 Ben Hill Griffin Stadium Florida 11 Autzen Stadium Oregon 12 Memorial Stadium Clemson 13 Neyland Stadium Tennessee 14 Jordan-Hare Stadium Auburn 15 Williams-Brice Stadium South Carolina 16 Michigan Stadium Michigan 17 Lane Stadium Virginia Tech 18 Rice-Eccles Stadium Utah 19 Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium Texas 20 Kinnick Stadium Iowa 21 Notre Dame Stadium Notre Dame 22 Spartan Stadiu m M ichigan State 23 Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium Arkansas 24 Albertsons Stadium Boise State 25 Davis Wade Stadium Mississippi State

According to EA Sports, when their development team was working on this list, they used a variety of different metrics to arrive at their conclusion. Though not all metrics were shared, EA did name home records, attendance, winning streaks, and prestige as some of the things the developers considered when ranking teams. Home winning percentage makes a lot of sense as a metric, as it is one of the easiest ways to quantify what makes a stadium difficult to play at. That said, not every metric makes as much sense.

One metric that might be questionable is attendance numbers. This is due to varying sizes of college football stadiums. According to College Football News, Georgia ranked 8th in terms of total attendance over the last five years. However, their stadium only holds about 93,000 people. Even though the stadium was usually filled to 100% capacity in 2022. Texas A&M, on the other hand, was ranked third in overall numbers, even though their stadium was typically only at 94% capacity in the same year. A fuller stadium would likely indicate more enthusiasm, even with a lower total number.

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Players Agree Texas A&M Did Not Deserve The Top Spot

There seems to be some consensus that EA’s methodology in choosing its ranks was flawed. As Sam Kahn Jr. of The Athletic points out, it seems strange that Kyle Field would score the top spot on the list despite Texas A&M not having a consistently strong home win record. While wins wasn’t the only metric EA scored stadiums on, one would think it would be weighed a bit more heavily. After all, one of the best ways to quantify how difficult a stadium is to play at is by seeing how well away teams perform there.

Even an article on Aggies Wire, a site dedicated to news about Texas A&M powered by USA Today Sports, doesn’t give Kyle Field the top spot. In fact, it is ranked fifth behind several stadiums that it beat out in College Football 25’s rankings. If Texas A&M isn’t the loudest, doesn’t have the highest attendance, and doesn’t have the best win record at home, one starts to wonder why EA Sports decided to give them the top spot on this ranking.

Homefield Advantage Makes It More Difficult For Away Teams To Execute Plays

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If this ranking by EA Sports had just been done for fun, fans wouldn’t likely take as big of an issue with the rankings as they have. However, home-field advantage actually plays a role in the game. Players gain momentum based on their performance in the game, raising the Stadium Pulse meter. The higher the meter goes, the more difficulty the away quarterback has while executing plays. EA says they have weighted the efficacy of this mechanic differently based on their school rankings, so these rankings have a direct impact on gameplay.

Fans of teams like Michigan, LSU, and Oregon will likely take issue with their team not being given higher spots on this list. Oregon especially has a reputation for being one of the loudest stadiums in college football despite its low capacity. EA Sports has mentioned that their rankings may change in future updates, so hopefully, they reconsider their methodology a bit when reconfiguring these numbers.

Sources: EA Sports, College Football News, The Athletic, Aggies Wire