College Football 26 deep dive includes major fix. Plus: MWC title drama

New York Times

21-06-2025

Until Saturday Newsletter 🏈 | This is The Athletic's college football newsletter. Sign up here to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox.
Today in college football news, absolutely, I will try the Takis Fuego Wendy's meal.
The first official 'deep dive' video on EA Sports' upcoming College Football 26 is here, narrated by Kirk Herbstreit and focusing on gameplay. A video on Dynasty Mode will follow on Tuesday.
It shows off what looks to be improved blocking, tackling, pass rushing and so forth, along with new wrinkles for QBs (shorter passers will be affected more by taller linemen, for instance). That's all fine and good, suggesting several key improvements to the series' comeback edition last year, some of them addressing pretty common complaints. (In particular, following your blockers in last year's game often felt like navigating the Lost Woods in a Zelda game.)
There are also '2,800-plus new plays,' going along with the game's '300-plus real coaches,' the first 300-plus real coaches to ever appear in an EA Sports game, other than Bill Walsh's mid-'90s bootleg editions.
But among all this razzle dazzle, I (and so many other nerds) am most excited about mass substitutions, a typical feature in sports games, but one that was absent last year. Yep, while winning by 38 and wanting to get your second-stringers some playing time, you had to manually bench every last starter individually. Now you can send out mass lineup changes, plus configure how much 'wear and tear' players at each position group are allowed to take before automatically having a seat. Punters, I am expecting iron-man hero ball from you.
The game comes out July 10. I am going to substitute so many masses. What are you excited about? Let us know. ICYMI, here's Chris Vannini on other new stuff in the game this year.
🎬 'I've been a celebrity in this state for over 30 years.' Extremely rare thing to hear from a MAC coach, but when 1995 Heisman Trophy winner and 2000 NFL All-Pro Eddie George says it, it's undeniable. Hey, did you know Bowling Green's new head coach is also an actor? Let Cameron Teague Robinson tell you all about it.
Advertisement
💎 A College World Series finale fitting this chaotic baseball season: No. 6 LSU vs. No. 13 Coastal Carolina, beginning tomorrow at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN. It will be either the Tigers' eighth title (still second behind USC, though the Trojans have won it just once since 1978) or the Chanticleers' second (2016).
🌽 Still have to remind yourself Dana Holgorsen is at Nebraska as OC? Well, he might actually be in Austria, Greece or Mexico right now, but you know what I mean.
🧢 Tennessee, Houston and Texas QB commits were among the stars at what Bruce Feldman calls one of the best Elite 11 crops he's seen in decades.
🦓 'The Athletic spoke with more than a dozen people in charge of and around officiating. Almost all said officiating is better than it's ever been, that the correct call percentage is somewhere around 98 percent, though some say it hasn't improved enough or become consistent enough with technology. Coaches' feelings are mixed.'
If the Boise State Broncos win the Mountain West again this year before leaving to turn the Pac-12 into Basically The Mountain West, they'll leave with seven MWC titles in their 14 years as a member.
Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State are also leaving with the Broncos after this season. Since 2010, the only team outside this group to have won the MWC was San Jose State in 2020.
Odds are good that, this December, defending league champ Boise State will make like 2011 CM Punk (or 2023 SMU, Texas and Washington) and leave with the title. Despite the departure of Ashton Jeanty, one of history's greatest Heisman runners-up, FPI grades the Broncos as FBS' single biggest conference favorite, with 45.6 percent odds of repeating.
But how's this for a tidy storyline: No. 5 on the list of the nation's biggest conference favorites is Dan Mullen's UNLV (37.7 percent) — the team that spurned the zombie Pac-12 to stick around as the neon star of next year's zombie MWC. This season, UNLV-Boise (round one?) is on Oct. 18.
Advertisement
Now let's turn to region expert Chris Kamrani with a couple Qs.
In your recent UNLV story, Mullen said, 'I've always thought this could be a sleeping giant here.' The Rebels have always ranked right behind UNC at making people say that. After last year's run and this big hire, is there reason to believe it's finally happening?
'It boils down to how much you believe in Mullen as a program builder. He did it at Mississippi State at a level never seen before, but failed to do the same when the stakes were much higher at Florida. Mullen is taking over a winning culture cultivated by former head coach Barry Odom, but the Rebels lost a ton of talent to graduation, especially on the defensive side of the ball. If you remember, UNLV did as good of a job on Jeanty as anyone in the country last year, and did so twice.
'Mullen's bread-and-butter will always be on offense. That's what will ultimately determine if UNLV can win the Mountain West. He landed former Virginia starting QB Anthony Colandrea and former Michigan QB Alex Orji. He's loaded up on receivers in the portal, because, duh. Players know Mullen's offense can be symphonic. They have accumulated talent to help them compete with the alpha of their world, Boise State. Now it's about waking that snoozing giant Mullen speaks of.'
All things considered, Bronco Mendenhall going .500-ish at Virginia and New Mexico is probably about as impressive as him going 8-4 or 9-3 at BYU. Do you imagine him sticking around at Utah State long enough to build something better than .500-ish?
'I can't think of a more head-scratching move in the coaching carousel in recent years than Mendenhall returning to the state of Utah. I guess there have been others that made my scalp itch. And they all involve Mendenhall. I was stunned when he left BYU for Virginia and more stunned when he returned to coaching in Albuquerque. Bronco has always marched to the beat of his own drum.
'Building a winner in Logan will be a tall task. Utah State has been relevant in the MWC twice in the last decade. The talent on the roster had slipped in recent years. But one trait Mendenhall has is adaptability. He's a defensive-minded coach who had high-octane offenses at BYU. Just last year, despite New Mexico's average season, the Lobos ranked fourth in the country in total offense. I'm going to assume USU will be Mendenhall's last stop as a college football head coach. If I were a betting person, which I am not, I would say he'll have the Aggies in conference contention in a few years' time.'
And now let's lateral the ball to Stewart Mandel for some mailbag before we head out for the weekend:
Will the new CEO (Bryan Seeley) of the College Sports Commission publicize what the penalties will be moving forward for improper NIL or under-the-table recruiting enticements? — Nick K.
All we've gotten are some nebulous quotes from administrators assuring us the penalties will be 'substantive,' 'stiff,' and 'severe.' Either this is the most leakproof endeavor in the history of college athletics, or, more likely, they're not finished devising them.
While we're at it, here's a list of some other specifics notably missing so far about a body that we're being told will get the NIL landscape fully under control and fundamentally change how the enterprise operates.
I've got more, but I'll hang up and listen for now.
(More Mandel mailbag here.)