Lovers of college football video games had to wait 11 long years for another officially licensed game after NCAA Football 14. That edition, EA Sports College Football 25, arrived to the masses on July 19, 2024. The hype surrounding this new edition was unprecedented, as fans of the series had over 10 years to contemplate and salivate at the potential opportunities an updated version of an official college football game could offer.

With the newest edition of the EA Sports College Football series finally arriving, the question arises: Which video game in the series was the best?

For many, the previous installment, NCAA Football 14, was considered the greatest in the series. Between the timeframe the series came out and playing with loosely designed versions of Jamies Winston, Johnny Manziel, and Jadeveon Clowney, among others, to the different and equally entertaining game modes Road to Glory, Coach Mode, and Dynasty Mode, NCAA Football 14 was a great installment. However, the love for this installment may have more to do with it being the last edition in the series for an extended period of time rather than for its gameplay.

When looking for the greatest college football video game of all time, look no further than NCAA Football 06.

What makes this edition so great?

The Teams and Players

NCAA Football 06 arrived to video game shelves in 2005. Much like other editions in the EA Sports College Football series, the best players in college football at the time were featured in talent and likeness, being named solely by their position and uniform number. The choices of torching defenses with USC using QB #11 (Matt Leinhart) and RB #5 (Reggie Bush), leading Ohio State with Heisman winner QB #10 (Troy Smith), or using Oklahoma standout RB #28 (Adrian Peterson) to run to victory made for interesting decisions when playing against friends.

Home Field Advantage

If playing as the home team at one of the Top 25 toughest places to play, all it took was a few hits of the L2 button on the Playstation 2 controller while on defense to get the screen shaking and the crowd loud enough to get into the offensive players’ heads. Depending on which stadium is used depended on how much the crowd effected the play.

The Greatest Announce Team

This edition of the college football video game series employed some of the most memorable announcers in college football history. Brad Nessler led the crew with play-by-play, while Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso were his color commentators. In addition, prior to each game, there would be an animation similar to ESPN’s popular pregame show College GameDay, where the three announcers would analyze the matchup. This was the only edition of the series where Corso would make his famous “headgear pick,” as his video game character would appear with the headgear of the mascot of the team he predicted would win, just like on College GameDay.

The Music

As of EA Sports College Football 25, NCAA Football 06 is the only game to have a main soundtrack; and it is a list of excellent music. Prior to and after NCAA Football 06, the only music featured in the EA Sports College Football series were the fight songs of each individual college. While that is still included in this game post scoring plays, the main soundtrack included music that any fan of college rock, punk rock, and post-punk rock would appreciate and enjoy. There were familiar bands such as The Clash, Pixies, De La Soul, and Bad Religion, but the lesser known artists also provided an entertaining twist to the soundtrack.

Pennants

When NCAA Football 06 was released, it came at a time before microtransactions and automatic updates. Prior to that, it was not unfamiliar for games to provide extra help within through cheat codes. NCAA Football 06’s cheat codes came in the form of pennants. Pennants could be acquired either through points earned through accomplishments during games (or through hacking via a GameShark), or through cheat codes. Pennants fell into five categories: team boosts, game cheats, stadiums, historic teams, and mascot teams.

For team boosts, the pennant would increase, for one game, the overall performance of the specific team selected. There were 30 game cheats, which included boosts such as giving a team five downs instead of four and making the uprights skinnier for the opposing team. Like team boosts, these pennants would last for only one game. Stadium pennants unlocked all of the stadiums that hosted bowl games. Historic teams pennants unlocked the all-time teams for each college in the game as well as the all-American teams from 1991 to 2004. The mascot teams unlocked teams made up entirely of each program’s mascot.

Race for the Heisman

The most memorable game mode in NCAA Football 06 was Race for the Heisman. This was a new edition to the series, as none of the prior games had a career mode like this. The mode began with the player being a high school standout looking to be recruited by a program. After designing the player and picking a position, users would go through a position-specific drill. After the drill, the player would get the opportunity to either select a scholarship offer from one of three different schools or walk on to a school of their choice (in which the player would be a starter from day one anyways).

As the player progressed through the season, a Heisman hype meter found at the home screen would begin filling based on performance. Once the meter was completely full, the player could be found on the list of Heisman favorites located on the player’s computer. This process continued through all four years of college. Once the player graduated, the user had the option to export the player into Madden 06‘s career mode.

The gameplay in Race for the Heisman was entertaining and fun, but the minute details were the most impressive part of the game mode. The home screen would be in the form of a dorm room. Freshman year, the player began in a typical small dorm. As the player progressed to sophomore, junior, and senior years, the dorm room would get nicer and bigger.

One section of the dorm room was the calendar, where users would go to play games during the season. Another section of the room was the trophy case, where players collected trophies that they would win. It could be team trophies, such as bowl game trophies and the BCS National Championship trophy, or it could be individual trophies, like the Heisman.

Players also had desktop computers. This is where different statistics could be retrieved. Users could see the player’s season and career stats, teammates’ season stats, and the different Top 25 teams polls. This is also where users accessed the Heisman favorites list where they could compare and see how their player held up against the other Heisman hopefuls.

The smallest detail in Race for the Heisman was found in the photos of the player’s girlfriends. Attached to the top of the desktop computer would be a picture of the player’s girlfriend. As the player played better and became older, the photo would change as his girlfriends would become objectively more attractive.

Time will tell how EA Sports College Football 25 will rank amongst the rest of the games in the EA Sports College Football series. If it wants to be the best, NCAA Football 06 is the one it will have to dethrone.

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