2StripesCPD Digital, Vol. 9

For those reading on e-mail: click 'view in browser' to see the full contents of today's post

You realize that we're less than 40 days from the start of the season, right? Despite that, it's been a slow(ish) couple of weeks around the world of college football - unless you're super interested in Lane Kiffin burying Paul Finebaum at SEC Media Days. The good news is that we have a CFB video game to lead us into fall for the first time in a decade, and early indications are that it's exactly what we've been missing. Catch up on that, plus everything else happening in this edition of 2StripesCPD Digital!

EA's got one with College Football 25

College Football 25 is officially out, and it's hard to believe we went 10 years without one of these games. The response has been genuinely positive so far - a rarity for any video game, let alone a sports game. (Note: This doesn't include guys who live on Reddit, who are unsurprisingly ripping it to shreds.)

I'm personally enjoying the hell out of it, even though I've only played one game so far. It's overwhelming –in a good way– how deep this game is, and just how far in the weeds you can get with something as simple as setting up your own custom playbook. I've spent most of my time either doing that, or getting a feel for the game in the practice and mini-game modes before I jump into dynasty in a few weeks. There are definitely some bugs to clean up, but CFB 25 has the makings of an all-timer.

My conference setup in dynasty mode

Staying on the subject of CFB 25 - If you're looking for some inspiration on how to align your conferences in dynasty mode, I put out an article last week on how my setup's going to look:

Team Builder is back

Last thought on CFB 25: If you've followed me for a while, you know that I had zero interest in playing any of the college football games from the Playstation 3/Xbox 360 era over the last decade. I'm a PS2/OG Xbox guy, and I'll die on the hill of NCAA 07 being the last true great game in the series. The only downside to that was that I never got to truly experience EA's Team Builder feature, where you (you guessed it) get to build a team from scratch however you want it. I'm excited to finally dive into this, and EA dropped a lengthy blog about its return that you can check out here:

Blake Anderson out at Utah State

Switching to the real world of college football: Two weeks after notifying Head Coach Blake Anderson of their intent to fire him over alleged noncompliance with university policies that implement Title IX, Utah State made the move official on Thursday night. I'm positive that this won't be the last we hear from this situation.