Miami beat Ole Miss on Thursday<\/a> to advance to the CFP Championship. The Hurricanes will face the winner of Friday\u2019s semifinal between Indiana and Oregon.)<\/p>\nYoung fans as gamers, however, are looking for realism down to the smallest detail. EA Sports creative director Scott O\u2019Gallagher said a lot of the feedback the company receives from gamers goes beyond gameplay. With football video games, there are gamers who want to see players in the right helmet style, the right style of shoe, even the correct number of wristbands.\u00a0That detail, O\u2019Gallagher said, resonates particularly when young gamers are playing with the team that features certain athletes they admire.<\/p>\n
Before becoming immersed in video games as a career, O\u2019Gallagher was an NAIA basketball All-American at Warner Pacific University in Portland, Ore. He played professionally overseas in Europe and Australia. He learned as a professional athlete in Europe that passionate fans care about every aspect of their favorite team.<\/p>\n
The details that go into making football video games as real as possible include keeping the playbook updated. EA Sports works throughout the season to add any wrinkles to the playbook that can be added to its games. A young player can follow a team they like and not only understand what plays are used, but also see the changes over the course of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a live service, so if things are happening during the year, we\u2019re definitely going out there and trying to add them,\u201d O\u2019Gallagher said. \u201cI can talk to one of our playbook guys about what USC was doing and say, \u2018Hey, did we get this? It\u2019s a new wrinkle that Lincoln Riley\u2019s put in. Let\u2019s make sure we have it.’\u201d<\/p>\n
A more intricate game doesn\u2019t just help Pollack\u2019s young players, but also gives more for Pollack to discuss in his role as an in-game analyst. When recording for the game, it\u2019s no longer about simply saying \u201cfirst down.\u201d Announcers will record game analysis in studios with tons of energy but without seeing an actual play. They will spend hours preparing to record for several scenarios.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe technology\u2019s getting so much better that we\u2019re able to do so much more now and give layered concepts,\u201d Pollack said. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy how much they can learn about the game and are ahead of the curve on playing the real game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Football education by way of video games isn\u2019t limited to a specific squad, either.\u00a0Evan Dexter, EA Sports vice president of brand and marketing, said data shows football games make a strong connection with young fans who don\u2019t have allegiance to a particular team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you were to pull the analytics of (College Football) 25 and 26, I\u2019m sure Colorado is being used far more than what you might think, based on the population of alumni or people geographically around the school,\u201d Dexter said, referring to the popularity of Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter and quarterback Shedeur Sanders, who led Colorado during the 2024 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s certainly true that younger sports fans will abandon allegiance in favor of some form of hero worship, some form of individual superstar,\u201d Dexter said. \u201cAs the sport becomes a little more superstar driven, the Travis Hunters move through it, and the Arch Mannings (of Texas) and those narratives start to transcend the old-school rivalries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether rivalries are traditional or budding, the evolution of football video games will continue to be an introduction to the sport for young gamers who ultimately want to become football players. They\u2019ll now have a lot more than four plays to choose from to learn the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely raising the football intelligence of kids all around the world by playing the game and understanding what\u2019s going on,\u201d Pollack said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When David Pollack played linebacker at the University of Georgia from 2001-04, he was considered one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,594,2331,596,1853,1215,68477,7531,33627,593,718,1219,85,3276],"class_list":["post-402064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-college-football","tag-culture","tag-football","tag-gaming","tag-georgia-bulldogs","tag-indiana-hoosiers","tag-memorabilia-collectibles","tag-miami-hurricanes","tag-nfl","tag-ole-miss-rebels","tag-oregon-ducks","tag-sports","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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