New Pitt Football Feature in EA CFB 25

The Pitt Panthers have a new feature in the upcoming EA Sports College Football 25 video game coming out in July.

EA Sports College Football 25 Pitt Football /

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers will feature in the upcoming EA Sports College Football 25, the new college football video game, set to come out in less than a month, which will see unique features not in previous editions.

Electronic Arts released a new trailer for the game called "Sights and Sounds." It focused on the stadiums, fans, mascots, traditions, walk-outs and more for all 134 Division I FBS teams.

Pitt doesn't appear in the latest trailer, but in a press release from EA, they confirmed a new feature at Acrisure Stadium.

In the section titled "Crowd Section Layouts," it states that Panthers fans will have towels in the stands.

One example of this is in the Clemson game back in 2021, and fans can be seen waving yellow towels after linebacker Sirvocea Dennis picked off the option and ran it all the way back for the score.

Towels are commonplace at football games in Pittsburgh, as Pittsburgh Steelers fans wave their famous "Terrible Towels"

Other teams mentioned in that section include South Carolina, who also have towels, Tennessee and Michigan fans who will have pom-poms and Missouri fans have their tiger tails.

The EA Sports College Football video game will likely serve as one of the biggest games of the year. It is the first college football video game to come out since 2013, ending an 11-year hiatus. 

Bill Walsh College Football was the first college football video game and it came out in 1993. The legendary head coach of Stanford and the San Francisco 49ers served as the cover for the first two editions and then College Football USA 96/97 would feature as the next two.

The NCAA started to brand the video game in 1997 with NCAA College Football 98 and would continue to do so through 2013 with NCAA College Football 14. All FBS teams then came into the video game, but with the NCAA branding, so too did official bowl games and awards like the Heisman, Biletnikoff and others. 

The game had different modes that people could play, like dynasty mode, ultimate team in later editions and Road to Glory, which allowed players to play as themselves and become a star.

NCAA College Football came out on a number of consoles, including Wii, PlayStation, XBOX, GameCube, Windows and more. This new edition will come out for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Pitt even had a player grace the cover, as Biletnikoff winner Larry Fitzgerald was the cover on NCAA College Football 2005.

The reason for the hiatus of a college football video game came when the NCAA, Electronic Arts and the use of college athletes' likenesses all came together. 

Disputes included some conferences backing out of the game, the NCAA continuing to argue the amateur status of student-athletes, and a lack of understanding of how to pay college athletes, which forced EA to choose to shelve the game for the foreseeable future.

NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) allows student-athletes to profit off of themselves, which made it easier for EA to figure out how to make a new college football game.

Student-athletes also have the ability to truly play as themselves. Previous editions didn't have names of the players or any descriptions. They will now have their own pictures, names and more for the game.

NIL will pay student-athletes around $600 for participating and the game for free, which costs around $70. 

Electronic Arts has worked with One Team Partners, who work with NIL rights and CLC, the country’s top college trademark licensing company, allowing more 15,000 current student-athletes to make merchandise deals, and now, a video game deal too. 

With the last game selling around 1.5 million copies, expect a much higher number than that this summer, with the game coming out on July 19. 

Make sure you bookmark Inside the Panthers for the latest news, exclusive interviews, recruiting coverage, and more! 

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