College Football 25 Releases Team Offense, Defense, and Overall Rankings
The return of EA Sports’ “College Football 25” has sparked endless excitement and debate among gamers and college football fans since the announcement of its revival. Credit the creators for shrewdly building more hype by slowly leaking more information about the game approaching its release. On that note, EA Sports recently its overall team ratings and top 25 offenses and defenses. They ranked LSU eighth overall while giving the Tigers a top-10 offense and top-20 defense.
These numbers reflect well on LSU considering the talent it has to replace. It’s important to note that the rankings weren’t derived from a group of video game nerds simply bouncing opinions off each other. From the looks of the EA Sports website, the results were laboriously data-driven.
“The Development Team meticulously examined hundreds of thousands of data points to arrive at our team power rankings. With help from our friends at Pro Football Focus (PFF), the team analyzed all 134 rosters, thousands of players, years worth of game film, and mountains of stats, ultimately arriving at our Team Power Rankings,” said an EA staff writer in a prepared statement.
LSU’s Sixth-Ranked Offense
The Tigers lost three first-round picks from their offense in the draft. Consequently, six might seem a little high for those unfamiliar with what LSU brings back. The talented, veteran offensive line is a good starting point. Junior bookend tackles Will Campbell and Emery Jones were named first-team All-SEC and second-team All-SEC, respectively. The Tigers also return starters at both guard spots. LSU was the only team in 2023 to rank in the top ten in both rushing and passing.
O-line talk is great, but who are we kidding? People are waiting impatiently for this game so they can air it out. This brings us to the Heisman winner’s replacement, Garrett Nussmeier. If the LSU offense is expected to rank in the top 10 with new starters at receiver then it seems that EA Sports is boarding the Nuss bus.
LSU’s offensive rating also speaks to expectations for the receivers and backs. Wideouts Kyren Lacy, CJ Daniels, and Kaleb Jackson at running back will likely garner fairly high ratings for the Tiger offense to be this highly regarded.
18th Ranked LSU Defense
Gone are the days of annual automatic top-ten defenses for LSU. An 18th-ranked defense would have drastically changed the 2023 season. The big takeaway from this ranking is the developers obviously think that talent isn’t the issue on this defense. Player ratings play such a large part in overall defense rankings that we can expect the bulk of the defensive starters to have solid ratings. New staff or not, EA Sports thinks these defenders are talented.
Both player and team rankings will change throughout the year according to performance. It will be interesting to see if inexperienced position groups improve. The growth of Dominick McKinley at defensive tackle or Ashton Stamps at cornerback could boost this defense even higher in the rankings.
LSU Overall Rating – 90
The Tigers will start the season with a respectable 90 overall rating, good enough for eighth in the game’s power rankings. Even though LSU is ranked eighth, only five teams have higher overall ratings. In the SEC, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas have higher rankings. EA Sports also rated Clemson and Notre Dame at 90.
LSU fans should be more than happy with where the Tigers fell in these rankings. EA Sports thinks more of the Tigers than teams like Michigan, Ole Miss, and Florida State. If the actual Tigers can be what they’re expected to be in this game, they’ll be squarely in the 12-team playoff hunt.
