EA Sports College Football 25 Best Dynasty & Recruitment Tips

In EA Sports College Football 25's Dynasty mode, you're not going to get very far if you don't have a concrete plan as a coach. Factors like what playstyles and playbooks you use, how you plan your schedule, and more will determine just how smooth your path to glory will be.

More than anything, you'll want to have a good idea of navigating the complex and varied recruiting system that EA Sports College Football 25 offers. From picking the correct backstory to overcoming dealbreakers, here are some helpful dynasty and recruiting tips and tricks. For more, check out the game's best uniforms and which teams you should consider rebuilding first.

Recruiter Backstory

If you're creating a coach, one of the first decisions you'll need to make when building your dynasty is what your backstory is. You're presented with three options: Motivator, Recruiter, or Tactician.

While all of these have their own pros and cons, Recruiter is the most beneficial to those who plan on putting a lot of effort into scouting. With this backstory, you can scout faster and recruit better than other coaches. Just keep quiet when the NCAA asks how you managed to get six five-star recruits to come to Kennesaw State.

Recruiting Board

If you master one thing in EA Sports College Football 25, ensure it is learning the ins and outs of the recruiting board. This is where you'll go to ensure your dynasty's future.

The recruiting board is where you can scout, plan, and sign players for the next season. It is a pretty intricate system, as each player has specific wants and needs that have to be met before you can sign them.

The higher the star rating for the player, the more prominent your university needs to be so that you can even have a shot at landing them.

Team Needs

While it may be enticing to go after the best prospects in order of ranking, the most important metric you should use for spotlighting players is team needs. As the name suggests, EA Sports College Football 25 lays out where your team needs to improve with this feature.

The team needs to be seen in the recruiting section as you start each new week in the Prospect List tab. It is pretty hard to miss, as it is highlighted in all caps and in red next to players who fit the position you need to fill.

You can even press the right stick in to see a screen devoted to team needs. This page shows everything from the total signed and targeted for each position to their year and average letter grades.

Proximity to Home & Pipeline

Humans are simple creatures, and as such, one of the most important metrics for being able to land players is how close your university is to their home. This obviously isn't the case for every prospect, but it never hurts.

You can see how close you are by comparing their hometown and pipeline on the recruiting screen to where your school is located. For many recruits, you'll even need to meet a minimum grade for them to consider you as one of their top schools. If you don't, you've got no shot at landing them.

Top Schools

Speaking of top schools, this is another metric in the recruiting screen you'll want to track starting at Week 0. When in the Prospects tab, you can actually sort which prospects already have you listed as one of their top five schools.

These are the ones you should go after immediately, especially if they meet your team's needs. Pursuing these higher potential signings means spending fewer hours that can be used to pursue higher caliber players who might not have you on their top school's list from the start.

Target Hours & Scholorships

If you've been paying attention so far, you've likely learned that recruiting players is a delicate ecosystem in EA Sports College Football 25. You only have so much time and resources to sign the right players.

This is represented by the target hours and scholarships area, located on the board's upper-right screen. Be sure to keep track of how many of each of these you still have left as the season goes on.

If you just start using hours handing out scholarships willy-nilly to players and spending scouting hours on ones you have no shot of recruiting, you'll end up with a pretty poor recruitment class. This means your incoming freshman will have a much lower grade, and your current and future rosters will suffer.

Transfer Portal & At Risk Transfers

The transfer portal is a game changer in EA Sports College Football 25. It is a way to poach some of the best players in the game from teams that aren't living up to their expectations.

You can monitor this in the recruiting section under the Transfer Portal tab and take action against stealing players from other teams at the end of each season. Remember that your players are just as vulnerable to being taken.

Warnings will pop up at the start of each week, designating the players on your team at risk of transfer. In the playing style section of the My School tab of the recruiting screen, you can find ways to lower their transfer risk. This can be anything from winning more games to changing your style of play.

Encourage Transfer

Speaking of transfers, if you're feeling a little feisty about a certain player, you can always pull a Dion Sanders and encourage them to transfer. You can do this after four weeks have passed during the season.

Encouraging them to transfer is essentially the way to cut prospects that didn't live up to their potential. This way, you can free up the space needed to get them on your team.

While it is odd that this feature can only be implemented after the transfer portal has already occurred, it'll at least save you more space next season when the encouraged talent does transfer. This can only be done if you've signed more than 85 players.

Overcoming Dealbreakers

Dealbreakers in EA Sports College Football 25 can certainly be frustrating. A player might fit your system perfectly but doesn't want to come because of proximity to home.

Fortunately, not all dealbreakers are set in stone. If your recruit's dealbreaker requirements are something like competing for a title or scheme fit, then winning games or changing your playstyle will increase the grade on this section accordingly.

Just be careful when changing schemes too much, as you could lose other players with similar dealbreakers.

Gems & Busts

While it would be nice to be able to get every five-star recruit out there, you've only got so much ability to sway players. That is why you must keep an out for the diamonds in the rough.

When you spot a green diamond while recruiting, their star rating is actually one better than what is listed. Alternatively, red diamonds are the opposite, meaning the player is one star less and likely to be a bust.

The only way to unlock these diamonds is by fully scouting a player. To scout, you'll need to devote hours and scholarships, both of which are in limited supply, so choose wisely.

Tendency & Playstyles

Depending on how you like to play EA Sports College Football 25, you'll want to keep an eye on the tendencies and play styles of who you recruit. Simply because a quarterback is five-stars, it doesn't mean he will play well when you control him.

For example, if you like to throw on the run or make plays with your feet, don't recruit a field general whose strengths are pocket passes. Instead, go for the scrambler, even if they might have a slightly worse rating.

This applies to all positions, from the offensive line to cornerbacks. It might take a bit to figure out what works best for you, but it is an important part of the game if you want to be successful.

Customize Schedule

While it may seem like a small feature, customizing your schedule at the start of each new season in EA Sports College Football 25 can have huge ramifications on your season. Not only can you set bye weeks here, but it also allows for opponent selection.

If you're trying to snag a place in the college football playoffs, you'll need the strength of schedule to back you up. Do this by scheduling games against big schools and ranked teams to improve your standing.

Just keep in mind that if you're a smaller school trying to hang with the big dogs, you're going to have a tough time winning ranked games against higher-starred schools. As such, try to balance your schedule to fit your current roster while also throwing in the occasional tough game where you can pull off the upset.