College Football 26 - Dynasty & Team Builder Deep Dive

Hey football fans,

We've got some highlights from the Dynasty & Team Builder Deep Dive to share with you! 

Be sure to check out the full Dynasty & Team Builder Deep Dive for full details. 

BUILDING ON THE FOUNDATION

When we set out to design College Football 25, we had a multi-year vision for what we wanted Dynasty Mode to become. That journey began by laying the foundation under three core pillars: Build Your Coach, Build Your Program, and Deliver the World of College Football.

• Build Your Coach: This encompasses the decisions you make on your coaching journey to the top of the college football world. Whether that’s starting as a coordinator at a small school and making a name for yourself before getting that first head coaching job, or starting as a head coach at your dream school. Every decision you make on your journey matters.
• Build Your Program: As the old saying goes, “to win in College Football it’s not the X’s and the O’s, it’s the Jimmy’s and the Joe’s”. Recruiting is the lifeblood of College Football and having a consistent winner means you need a roster that is built to reload rather than rebuild. That all starts on the high school recruiting trail, but in modern College Football roster retention and utilizing the Transfer Portal are instrumental in your ability to field a championship team.
• Deliver the World of College Football: The College Football landscape continues to evolve. In College Football 26, we’ve pushed to reflect the ever-changing reality of the sport, from custom conferences and scheduling to protected opponents and playoff structure. Whether you’re staying true to tradition or reshaping the map, the world of college football is yours to define.

College Football 26 represents Year 2 of that vision — a year focused on building on the foundation we set and adding meaningful depth to each pillar. It’s about evolving Dynasty while staying true to what makes it special, and delivering on the feedback we’ve heard from our incredibly passionate community.

Just like last year, we spent countless hours talking with community members, college football experts, and coaches. We also spent a ton of time watching Dynasty live streams, program rebuilds, wishlist videos, and of course reading thousands of message board posts and tweets. A large part of our research was focused not just on what is discussed, but how the mode is actually played and experienced by our community.

Because as we said last year and still strongly believe today — our team has one singular motto: “Satisfy the Core Community” because “This is THEIR Game”.

BUILD YOUR COACH

At the heart of Dynasty Mode is your coach. Every decision, every upgrade, and every hire helps define your journey to the top of the college football world and the legacy you leave behind.

Last year, we talked at length about what we learned from studying coaches in depth. No coach is great at everything, and there’s no single path to becoming a great coach. That belief continues to shape our approach in College Football 26, and remains central to everything we’ve built. This year, we’ve focused on deepening that experience, introducing more meaningful decision points and further emphasizing that every decision matters.

CREATE YOUR COACH

When starting your Dynasty, just like last year you’ll choose between creating your own coach or stepping into the role of an existing one. This year, existing coaches are now authentic real-life head coaches and coordinators, with more than 300 authentic coaches. Each one comes equipped with their authentic playbook, scheme, playcalling tendencies, historical career stats, and archetypes and abilities that reflect their coaching skillset.

Throughout your Dynasty, you will have the opportunity to compete against these authentic coaches in-game and on the recruiting trail. As described in the Gameplay Deep Dive, when you play them on Saturday’s, you can expect their playcalling and tendencies to match their real world counterpart, adding a new layer of immersion. Of course, you’ll also have the opportunity to poach them and bring them onto your staff in the Coaching Carousel. 

 

We’ve also introduced coach demeanor and stance customization. Is your coach cool, calm, and collected? Or are they the high-energy, emotionally charged leader that fires up the sideline? Your choice will influence how your coach stands and acts throughout the game giving your coaching persona even more personality on the field.

COACH PROGRESSION

From the beginning, our design intent for our RPG archetype based abilities and progression system has been that no coach can be great at everything. How you build your coach and manage your staff matters. Your coordinators either complement your strengths or shore up your deficiencies. This intent still holds true in College Football 26 and we have continued to expand upon it.

Last year, we saw players hitting the level cap too early — maxing out progression well before the later years of their Dynasty, which was not what we intended. While we still believe you cannot be great at everything, your coaching journey should evolve over time, with new decisions and challenges emerging each season.

In College Football 26, the maximum coach level has been increased from 50 to 100. Additionally, we’ve completely rebalanced the amount of XP each goal earns to better reflect its frequency and difficulty. We’ve also introduced a new level progression curve designed to provide early momentum while creating a much longer tail of growth. You’ll still see meaningful development in the early years, but reaching the top now requires sustained success across the full arc of your coaching career.

COACH ARCHETYPES

While progression is the engine of your coaching journey, archetypes are the blueprint for how your coach grows and where your strengths lie. In College Football 26, we’ve made a number of updates to how archetypes are unlocked, balanced, and expanded — all with the goal of making each coaching path more strategic and distinct.

To start, the three base archetypes — Recruiter, Motivator, and Tactician — now require a minimum coach level to unlock. This change encourages more focused investment early in your career, making that initial archetype choice even more meaningful. It’s no longer a quick jump between archetypes — instead, your coach will grow into their identity over time. This helps reinforce the rock-paper-scissors relationship not just between archetypes, but also between you and your coordinators. Choosing a staff that complements — or counters — your strengths is more important than ever.

COACH CAROUSEL

We introduced the foundation of the carousel last year, and in College Football 26, we’ve added more polish, feedback, and quality-of-life improvements to make it easier to track movement and make smarter staff decisions.

You’ll now receive notifications when your coordinators accept or decline job offers, as well as alerts when one is poached for a new opportunity. Whether they’re leaving for a promotion or jumping ship unexpectedly, you’ll stay informed and ready to react.

FILLING OUT YOUR TROPHY ROOM

Every great Dynasty leaves behind a legacy — now you have a place to showcase it. The Trophy Room is your central hub for tracking the championships, rivalries, and awards you collect throughout your journey. Whether you're chasing your first conference title or building a Heisman factory, the Trophy Room keeps a running history of your program’s most meaningful moments.

As you play through Dynasty, every time you win a rivalry game, bowl game, conference championship, national championship, or earn an individual award, you will receive a notification and the trophy will be added to your Trophy Room. You can access it anytime from the Dynasty Hub, or from the main menu and your global profile.

Each Dynasty you create has its own dedicated Trophy Room tied to your coach, tracking every trophy you've earned. For team-based achievements, you’ll see the season year, team, opponent, and final score of the game. For individual awards, you’ll see the player who won, the team they were on, and the year they took home the hardware. You can also select any trophy to view more detailed information — including the trophy’s history and significance in college football.

In total, there are more than 160 rivalry, bowl, and individual award trophies to collect. Whether you’re flexing your fifth Heisman, third natty, or just looking back on the legends that defined your Dynasty, the Trophy Room is built to celebrate your legacy. Every Dynasty has its greats — those unforgettable players who become stories we tell for years. Now, their names and moments live on, immortalized forever in your Trophy Room.

And it’s not just limited to Dynasty. The Trophy Room is global across all modes, including Road to Glory, Play Now, and Road to the College Football Playoff — so no matter how you play, your accomplishments are remembered.

BUILD YOUR PROGRAM

Talent acquisition and roster management remain at the forefront of College Football. How you approach building and keeping your roster has never been more important. The transfer portal continues to grow and evolve, becoming an even bigger force in shaping programs across the country. Whether you're reloading through high school recruiting or retooling through the portal, your success depends on how well you execute your strategy and continue to evolve with players ever changing expectations.

In College Football 26, we still have the same core goals in mind — making recruiting feel personal, differentiating players and regions, and making the portal even more authentically unpredictable. From the way prospects evaluate schools to how expectations evolve over time, building your program now means more than just landing talent — it’s about understanding it, developing it, and keeping it.

THE TRANSFER PORTAL

Some schools see a mass exodus. Others stay almost completely untouched. That’s the unpredictability of the modern transfer portal. In College Football 26, we’ve pushed to fully capture the essence and chaos that defines this era of roster movement. College Football 25 laid the groundwork, but this year, we wanted the portal to feel authentically unpredictable, forcing tough decisions around team retention, roster construction, and win-now urgency. Now, you can expect to see a consistent pool of around 2,000 players entering the portal.

As a part of this rebalance, we have also changed how we assign star ratings to transfer prospects. In College Football 25, players were assigned their star rating based on their OVR. Now, star rating is more heavily influenced by a player's position and class year. For example, an 85 OVR freshman quarterback will be scored higher than an 85 OVR senior guard.

 

TRANSFER PORTAL CUSTOMIZATION

With Dynamic Dealbreakers, the addition of the Conference Prestige dealbreaker, and improved Playing Time logic, the College Football 26 Transfer Portal is more reactive and unpredictable. While this brings the chaos of modern college football to life, we also want you to have the tools to customize that experience and make it your own.

Whether you want a wild, modern-era portal or a throwback to the days when transferring was far less common, you now have full control over how the portal behaves in your Dynasty.

New settings include:

• Max Transfers Per Team: Adjust how many players can transfer from a single team (0–30). Setting this to 0 disables the portal entirely for a more traditional experience.
• Transfer Probability (User Teams): Scale how likely players on user-controlled teams are to transfer if their dealbreaker is violated.
• Transfer Probability (CPU Teams): Do the same for CPU teams, allowing you to align or differentiate how the AI handles player retention.

MY SCHOOL

At the foundation of every program is one question: What is your identity? The My School grades define who your program is and what its strengths and weaknesses are across 14 core categories. It’s one of the clearest separators between powerhouse programs and those still trying to find their footing.

In addition to the Playing Time improvements we outlined earlier — which now consider actual snaps played — we’ve made several key updates across the My School system to deepen realism and improve differentiation between programs. First, we’ve rebalanced the grade curve across all 14 categories. Fewer teams now sit in the A or B range, meaning most schools will fall somewhere between D and C — creating more visible separation between the haves and have-nots, and making meaningful improvement something you’ll need to earn over time.

One of the biggest changes this year comes in Pro Potential. Previously, this grade estimated a program’s ability to produce NFL talent based on the current roster. Now, Pro Potential is based on a school’s historical draft results over the past four seasons, and it’s tracked by position. This means you can now clearly see which schools are consistently sending talent to the next level — and who truly deserves the title of Wide Receiver U.

 

 

PLAYER PROGRESSION

Player development is at the core of building a successful program. While talent acquisition is without question the most important thing in College Football, inability to develop your players will keep them from reaching their full potential and prevent you from realizing your dreams of winning a National Championship. In College Football 26, we’ve rebalanced and expanded how progression works to create more player differentiation, realism, and separation between programs.

Living in the Iron paradise

At times in College Football 25 players would go long stretches without any progression, only to suddenly take a big leap when they finally leveled up a skill group. In College Football 26 we have increased the number of skill group levels from 10 to 20, allowing for more gradual and natural progression.

A player’s Development Trait also plays a bigger role in offseason progression. While there’s still variability in how much a player develops during the offseason, players with Impact, Star, and Elite development traits now have a higher minimum amount they will progress. This increases the likelihood that players with a better development trait will progress more than players with a normal trait.

Every year we see freshmen arrive on campus and undergo significant physical changes during their first season. Now, when your players hit the Iron Paradise and put in the #work during the offseason you will also see physical changes to their body. Players will now gain weight during offseason progression. The amount they gain is influenced by their player position and year in school. This simulates the real world difference in physical maturity between a freshman and senior.

Lastly, your school’s Athletic Facilities grade in My School now increases the amount of progression your players receive. No different than the real world where the schools with the best sports performance and nutrition programs seemingly perform at a higher level than the rest. The higher your Athletic Facilities grade is, the bigger your player progression boost will be. Athletic Facilities are just another factor that contributes to long-term program building and highlights the divide between powerhouse programs and those still finding their footing.

Physical Abilities

As Scott described in the Gameplay Deep Dive, we’ve introduced new physical and mental abilities this year. In addition to the new physical abilities, we’ve also modified the requirements to unlock physical ability tiers. 

Previously, all physical abilities required a single attribute level to unlock each tier, for example 95 Toughness to unlock Platinum Workhorse. Now, some abilities like Shifty require two attribute ratings to upgrade them. For example, Platinum Shifty now requires both 97 Change of Direction and 96 Acceleration for a Wide Receiver. These added thresholds make top-tier abilities even rarer — further increasing player differentiation.

We’ve also completely overhauled our archetype system, introducing new player types and physical ability combinations that better reflect the diversity of players across college football. More on that later.

From Impact Player to Star

Player performance during the season now plays a huge role in their long-term potential. If a player absolutely cooks during the season, they can now upgrade their Development Trait during offseason progression. Performance is determined by their season stat line relative to their position. Upgrading a Development Trait is not guaranteed, and the better a player's current trait is, the harder it becomes to move up. For example, moving from Normal to Impact is more likely than jumping from Star to Elite. 

You can increase the odds of players upgrading their development trait by purchasing the Gainz Getter ability within the CEO archetype. If a player does upgrade their development trait, you’ll receive a notification and it will also be highlighted in the Training Results screen.

Training Results

Speaking of Training Results, this screen has undergone a major overhaul to give you better visibility into the growth and progression of each player during the offseason. For each player, you can now see exactly how much each attribute increased. Additionally, the player module on the right hand side displays their weight gain, any abilities that upgraded, and if their development trait upgraded. 

Manual Progression

If you’re looking for more direct control over how your players develop, you can enable manual progression in league settings. Manual progression is an individual team setting, so it does not require all members of an Online Dynasty to have the same setting. If you choose to enable manual progression, your players will earn skill points like normal, however they will never automatically spend them to progress their attributes and abilities. You can see how many skill points each player has accumulated in the player module anywhere a player is shown in a spreadsheet or within their Player Card.

To manually progress a player, just access their Player Card. Within the Player Card, you can spend their skill points to purchase ratings and physical abilities. If you only want to manually progress specific players, you can do so — and then automatically progress the rest of your roster by holding Triangle on the roster screen. This will automatically progress all players who have skill points remaining using the standard autoprogression logic.

Manual progression can offer a significant advantage in shaping player growth, so when it's turned on, it comes with a default 25% progression nerf to help maintain balance. This nerf is fully customizable by the Dynasty Commissioner. It can be turned off completely or increased to 100% to fully prevent users from auto progressing players.  

POSITION CHANGES

Position changes are a key part of building and evolving a roster in Dynasty Mode, but transitioning to a new role isn’t always seamless. When a player moves to a new role they must learn a new position and skillset — one that may not directly translate from their previous experience. While they can certainly grow into the role over time, that development doesn’t happen overnight. To better reflect, now when a player changes positions, they will only retain abilities that are shared between their previous archetype and the new one. 

Their skill group caps are also adjusted based on how closely the new position relates to their original one. For example, shifting a running back to wide receiver results in a smaller drop in development ceiling than moving that same player to offensive tackle. The farther apart the positions are in terms of required traits and responsibilities, the steeper the learning curve – which naturally limits their potential and current abilities.

As you evaluate changing a player's position, the player module on the right side of the screen will display a preview of which abilities the player would retain at the selected position. The player’s development trait will stay the same, ensuring a consistent growth rate as they adapt to their new role.

MANAGING WEAR AND TEAR

Much like a boxer, a football player’s body can only take so many hits before it starts to break down. It’s not just about whether a player is injured — it’s about how their body responds to the physical demands of the season. Every hit adds up and as our friend OG says “not all hits are created equal”. Some players are able to endure the wear and tear over the long term, while others wear down under the weight of repeated impacts. 

Season and Career Health

In College Football 26 every player now has season and career health pools that determine how much wear and tear damage they can recover in a single season and over the course of their career. Each time a player recovers wear and tear damage, it draws from these pools. Once the season health pool is depleted, that player can no longer recover wear and tear damage until the offseason when they will fully recover.

We saw the effects of season health play out in last year’s National Championship game. Entering the matchup, Notre Dame’s quarterback had logged a career-high 167 rushing attempts on the season — 53 of those coming in just the last three games. On the opening drive, he led an 18-play, 75-yard touchdown march, carrying the ball nine more times. That drive alone added a significant amount of wear and tear, and when combined with the workload he’d taken on all season, it was clear his body had started to break down. From that point forward, his performance dipped noticeably — and he wasn’t the same player for the rest of the game.

How Does Season Health Change Season to Season?

At the end of each season, the pool replenishes, however, the size of the pool is determined by how full it was at the end of the season. For example, a player who finishes the season with their health pool nearly empty will begin the next year with a significantly smaller season health pool. This reflects the physical wear they carried over the course of the season. Conversely, a player who finished the year with a pool that is almost full will begin the next year with an almost identical health pool size. 

You will be able to see the impacts of a player's season health on their career health bar over the course of the season. In effect, you are now having to manage a player’s “career clock”. How heavily a player is used from year to year will significantly impact their longevity, adding a new layer of decision making and wear and tear management week to week and season to season.

Where Can I See It?

You can view a player’s season health anywhere that wear and tear is displayed. This year we have also updated the player module to include a wear and tear sub panel that can be accessed with the RS. This allows you to quickly view a player's wear and tear health at a glance.

Auto Subs Strategy

Auto Subs now incorporate wear and tear strategies by position, giving you control over how players are rotated in and out during games based on accumulated wear and tear damage.

There are four sub strategies that you can choose from:

• Keep Fresh: Prioritize rotating players out early to limit accumulated wear and tear damage
• Normal: Balanced approach that will keep a steady rotation
• Grind It Out: Players will stay on the field even when they have incurred significant Wear and Tear damage
• Custom: Create a custom sub in and out wear and tear strategy using sliders

Custom Settings

As detailed in the Gameplay Deep Dive, we’ve also added a suite of wear and tear sliders that give you full control over how wear and tear behaves across Dynasty and gameplay. These settings let you fine-tune how much wear and tear is applied based on tackle type (such as normal tackles versus hit sticks), how much is recovered during the game (including per play, at quarter breaks, or halftime), and how much players recover during week advances in Dynasty.

DELIVERING THE WORLD OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL

College football is constantly changing, and Dynasty Mode needs to evolve with it. This year, we’ve added Missouri State and Delaware, expanding to 136 teams you can start your Dynasty with.

While we will always look to stay current in the ever changing world of college football, we are also focused on expanding the depth of Dynasty Mode — building a more complete and immersive world through better access to stats, deeper historical tracking, storylines, and ongoing quality of life improvements that make reduce friction in your Dynasty experience. 

A PART OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL HISTORY

One of the most powerful parts of Dynasty mode is looking back — reliving the moments, debating the greats, and remembering the champions that shaped your Dynasties of the past. Whether it’s your boss telling you about his sweet two star recruit that won the three Heismans and a national championship at a small school or arguments with friends over whose team was truly the best, those memories are what make Dynasty mode special.

In College Football 26, we’re introducing College Football History, which is accessible from the Stats & Records tab of the Dynasty Hub. This is your hub for the legacy of the sport and your Dynasty — from Yale winning the very first National Championship in 1869 to every moment you create across your 30-year Dynasty.

College Football History features:

• National Champions going back to 1869, including split National Champions
• Conference Champions dating back to 1896, including historical conferences no longer in existence
• For each national and conference champion you will be able to see the year they won the championship, their top 25 ranking, season record, and the name of the coach that won the championship. If this was a championship game, you will also be able to see the losing team, their top 25 rank, season record, and the score of the game.
• 21 Individual player and coach award winners, for example historical Heisman Trophy and Bear Bryant Coach of the Year Winners

Within the College Football History you are able to filter the spreadsheet by team and conference. This gives you the ability to see every Heisman winner from Alabama, every SEC team that has reached the national championship game, or simply view every conference champion from the Big Ten or the Pac-12. 

When viewing conference championships, you will be able to see historical conferences and the evolution of conferences. For example, when you are looking at the Pac-12 conference champions, you will see the conference evolve from PCC, to AAWU, to Pac-8, to Pac-10, and eventually the Pac-12 Conference. 

As your Dynasty unfolds, this history grows with you. Every national champion, conference champion, winning coach, and award winner is etched into the record books for all 30 seasons.

Speaking of awards, in College Football 26 we’ve added 14 authentic awards, including the Maxwell Award and the Walter Camp Award. Additionally, we’ve also rebalanced how defensive stats – in particular tackles, tackles for loss, and sacks – are evaluated in our awards logic.

In addition to College Football History, you can now view all of a players awards and accolades from their player card. Within the player card, go to the more tab and then stats. Once you are within the stats screen filter to Awards. This will show all of their individual awards like Heisman Trophies, conference championships, national championship, All-American and All-Conference selections, how many times they have been national and conference player of the week, and their transfer history.

NEW POSITIONS AND ARCHETYPES

In College Football 26, we’ve overhauled positions and archetypes across the game to bring them in line with the way modern college football is played. Positions have been updated to reflect current-day schemes and terminology.

We’ve made key positional updates to reflect how teams align in today’s game. Defensive Ends are now Edge Rushers, and Outside Linebackers are labeled as SAM or WILL, with MIKE replacing Middle Linebacker. These roles better reflect real-world defensive structures and responsibilities. We’ve also introduced support for smarter formation-based movement, so players adjust their alignment based on your defensive front. Additional depth chart updates include Long Snapper (LS), Gadget (GAD) for trick-play specialists, and Nose Tackle, specifically used in 3-4 fronts.

We also took a hard look at every archetype in College Football 25 and found that many didn’t fully capture how college players move, play, and contribute. Some players fell between styles, while others had skill sets unique enough to deserve their own identity — for example, a gadget wide receiver. To address this, we’ve expanded to 59 total archetypes, each with its own unique combination of physical abilities. In addition to adding new archetypes, we also reworked our existing ones to better represent the full range of play styles and roles within each position group.

Some positions, like Wide Receiver, now feature seven unique archetypes — each designed to capture a distinct play style. Here’s a breakdown of what makes each one unique:

• Speedster: A pure burner who takes the top off the defense. Not a technician, but lethal in open space.
• Route Artist: Precise, smooth, and always open. Wins with footwork and timing.
• Physical Route Runner: Big-bodied and technical, but not fast. Great for contested third downs.
• Elusive Route Runner: Shifty before and after the catch. Combines smooth routes with elite YAC ability.
• Gritty Possession: Tough, reliable, and physical. Ideal for option offenses and run blocking on the perimeter.
• Gadget Receiver: A do-it-all player who might take snaps at QB or RB. Built for trick plays and misdirection.
• Contested Specialist: Dominates tight coverage. High-points the ball and wins in jump-ball scenarios.

These archetypes not only shape how a player performs, but also determine which physical abilities they have access to, creating meaningful gameplay and recruiting variation. Whether you want to recruit a possession guy who seals the edge or a true deep threat to stretch the field, there’s an archetype to match.

FORMATION SUBS

One of the things that makes college football so dynamic is the variety of formations and alignments across different programs. Each week, college coaches find creative ways to use personnel, designing packages that create mismatches and exploit opponent team weaknesses.

Formation Subs bring that same flexibility allowing you to assign specific players to specific formations. This is a great way to take advantage of the new positions archetypes. 

Within Formation Subs you will be allowed to set up 50 formation subs per team. Subs will persist season to season unless the player leaves the team or you change teams. If you switch playbooks, any formations shared between the old and new playbook will retain their assigned subs.

CUSTOM CONFERENCES & PROTECTED OPPONENTS

Scheduling in college football has become more complex than ever — and in College Football 26, we’ve revisited how Custom Conferences work to ensure that your scheduling choices hold up across multi-year Dynasties. As part of this reassessment, we identified that some custom conference combinations were mathematically impossible to support within the scheduling system. To maintain long-term schedule integrity, those edge cases have been removed from the custom conference matrix.

As a part of Custom Conferences, you can now set Protected Opponents — giving you the ability to lock in annual matchups regardless of divisional alignment. Want to ensure Michigan plays Ohio State every year, no matter how your Big Ten realignment shakes out? Now you can.

Most conference configurations can support one or two protected opponents per team, depending on the number of teams in the conference, whether divisions are enabled or disabled, and the number of conference games played each season. Some conference configurations and setups will not be able to support Protected Opponents due to scheduling being mathematically impossible.

To use Protected Opponents, open the Conference Rules screen by pressing Square/X on the conference you want to customize. Here, you can enable or disable Protected Opponents along with other key conference settings. From that screen, press Triangle/Y to access the Protected Opponents screen, where you can view current protected matchups and assign or edit them for each team. If you don’t feel like manually setting all of the protected opponents in a conference, you can press R3 to regenerate all of the protected opponents in the conference.

Whether you’re building a new super-conference from scratch or preserving the rivalries that define college football, Protected Opponents give you the tools to keep the most meaningful games on the schedule every year.

SCHEDULING UPDATES

All known future season games, including kickoff games, have been added through 2040, ensuring that teams follow their actual schedules year over year. This includes updates to annual games like Florida vs. Georgia, which will no longer be played in Jacksonville for the 2026 and 2027 seasons. We’ve also updated conference rotations for both the MAC and Conference USA to reflect their latest real-world alignment and expansion.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF

The world of college football is ever changing and in College Football 26 we are excited that you will have the opportunity to experience the new playoff format in Dynasty before you experience it in real life. This offseason, the College Football Playoff has changed its format so that now the top four teams in the CFP rankings receive first round byes. Previously, the byes were awarded to the four highest ranked conference champions.

QUALITY OF LIFE

We’ve added a number of improvements that make it easy to navigate, manage and access key information within your Dynasty. 

• Quick Access to Player Info: Anytime a player appears in a spreadsheet, you can now press Triangle/(Y) to open their Player Card or R3/RS to view their stats and award history.
• Player Stats and Attributes Everywhere: Now anywhere a player appears in a spreadsheet you will be able to see their season stats on the player module. This makes it easy to compare award candidates on the award watchlists. The second new panel is player attributes, which shows six attributes that are key to the player’s position.

• Development Traits in the Player Module: In addition to the two new player module panels, you can now view a player’s Dev Trait in the Abilities sub-panel. Note, the development trait will only be viewable for players on your team.
• Quick Access to Team Schedules: Within the Conference Standings and Top 25 Polls screens, you can now Press Triangle/(Y) on a team view their full schedule and quickly compare resumes.
• Members Tab: In Dynasty Hub we have added a new tab called Members. The Members tab lets you see every user in your Online Dynasty or every coach character in your Offline Dynasty. For each team it shows their username, team, top 25 rank, current week matchup and result, platform, online status, and whether they’re ready to advance. As a Commissioner, the Members tab is now where you will make all of your Commissioner actions like::
  • Adding or removing users
  • Toggling Auto Pilot
  • Promoting or demoting other commissioners
  • Transferring Dynasty ownership to another user
  • Inviting new users to join the Dynasty

CROSSPLAY

College Football 26 Online Dynasty now supports cross-play across Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. You can run a 32 person Online Dynasty with friends regardless of platform. Within the Members tab, you’ll be able to see each user's system.

To use cross-play, you’ll need an internet connection, the latest game updates, and a valid EA Account. Cross-play is enabled by default in Online Dynasties but can be turned off at any time by the Commissioner in League Settings.

For more info, check out the [Cross-Play FAQ for full details].

PREORDER BONUS

To give players a head start on building their program, all preorders of College Football 26 will receive a bonus of 100 Coach Points* when you start a Dynasty. This bonus applies to every Dynasty you start, and is in addition to the 1,000 Coach Points you can earn over time through progression — giving you an early edge when shaping your coaching identity. 

We also know that not every league wants to start with these bonuses, so Commissioners will have the option to enable or disable preorder bonuses within league settings.

IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS

It’s the little things that bring everything together — subtle touches that elevate the experience. Here are a few little things that we have added this year:

• Dynamic Time of Day: As Christian described in the Presentation Deep Dive College Football 26 introduces Dynamic Time of Day. Within Dynasty mode, the calendar date will impact the sun positioning and lighting. Now, a 5:00pm game in September will be brighter with a higher sun when compared to a 5:00pm game in November at the same stadium.

• Super Sim Tempo Adjustements: Teams who run up tempo style of play will now have an increased number of snaps during their game better reflecting their style of play.
• Broken Records Feedback: When a player on your team breaks a single game, season, or career record, you will now receive a full screen takeover celebrating the achievement.

• Coach Stats: Within the Coach Stats screen you can now see offensive and defensive coordinator stats.
• Force Win Update: When forcing a win or loss it now says the name of the team you are forcing a win for so you no longer have to guess which team is home or away.
• Combined Opponent Record: When viewing a team’s schedule, you can now see their combined opponent record giving you a quick snapshot of their strength of schedule.
• Advance Week Confirmation: A confirmation popup will now appear when you go to advance to the next week, helping prevent accidental clicks that could cost you a national championship.
• Sim to Points: When advancing the week you can now sim to any week in the season rather than only specific weeks.
• Redshirt Updates: Players can now play in postseason games without them counting against their redshirt eligibility. Additionally, now when you redshirt a player, it will not reset the entire depth chart. Instead, it will only alter the positions that player was in the depth chart for.
• Scouting Ability Info: If you’d like to know more about what an ability is when scouting a player, you can highlight the ability on the right side panel and it will display a tooltip informing you what that ability does.
• Increased Spreadsheet Row Count: We’ve increased the number of rows you can see in multiple spreadsheet screens. The Prospect List and Transfer Portal spreadsheets now display 600 rows instead of 300. The player season and career stats screens now display 700 rows of stats giving you better insight into the nations best players.

TEAM BUILDER

When we launched Team Builder last year, we were blown away by the creativity and passion from the community. It was incredible to watch players not only build their own teams, but also help others bring their fantasy creations to life with templates and other assets. We loved seeing everything you put together and we can’t wait to see what you build next. 

Just like Dynasty Mode, Team Builder is part of a multi-year vision for us — one where we continue to expand and deepen the experience over time. Last year was about laying the foundation. We launched Team Builder as a Beta and now we are removing that tag. Our team has been hard at work polishing and improving the overall site performance. Team Builder now has a completely new look and the site is 2X faster. Overall render performance is greatly improved, so Team Builder will now work on a wider array of devices and lower end machines. 

In addition to performance updates, College Football 26 was about building on the foundation we built with even tighter integration into Dynasty and more customization. In College Football 25, you were limited to 10 custom images per team. In College Football 26, you now have an upload limit of 5 MB per team. This means you can upload as many custom images and textures as you want until you hit the 5 MB limit, increasing your creative power.

IMPORT TEAMS FROM COLLEGE FOOTBALL 25

We know how much time and creativity you poured into your Team Builder teams last year and we wanted to ensure you could bring your College Football 25 creations directly into College Football 26 without having to start over from scratch.

With College Football 26, you can import your teams directly from College Football 25. From the Team Builder, press the Import button in the top-right corner, which will open a dropdown asking you which title you would like to import from. After selecting College Football 25, you’ll see a list of every team you created in CFB25.

Pick the team you want to bring forward, and you’ll be taken to the Edit Team page. Here, we’ll flag any assets or details that couldn’t carry over from last year’s game — and give you the chance to make adjustments before you republish. Make sure you take a few moments to fill out the new Team Builder features we’ve added this year. If you do not make any changes, your team will receive the default values for those features.

Once your team’s ready for primetime, hit Submit, and your creation will be live and available for download in College Football 26. 

DEFINING YOUR PROGRAM

In Dynasty, all teams have a set of My School grades that define who they are as a program. Are they great at academics? Are they a traditional powerhouse? Within the Program tab, you’ll now be able to choose your starting grades by selecting from a list of unique templates, each representing a different school identity. Whether you’re a Powerhouse, a Pro Factory, or a Cupcake trying to establish yourself, there's a foundation that fits your vision.

Once you pick a template, you’ll see your projected Team Prestige and My School grades. Some of these grades will show up as exact values, while others appear as ranges — and that’s by design. Several elements of your team setup can influence how these grades shake out.

For example, your Stadium Atmosphere grade will adjust based on the size of the stadium you select, and your Championship Contender grade depends on which team you replace in Dynasty Mode — since you’ll inherit their preseason ranking. Other attributes like Coach Stability, Coach Prestige, and Conference Prestige won’t come from your template at all. Instead, they’ll reflect your coach setup when you start your Dynasty and where you choose to place your team in Custom Conferences.

ENHANCED ROSTER EDITING

Roster editing now lives in its own dedicated tab, and it has been enhanced with deeper customization designed to give you more control over each player on your team. 

One of the biggest feedback points we heard from the community was that it was difficult to assess how good or bad a player and team were when you were editing the roster. In College Football 26, you will be able to see your team’s Overall, Offensive and Defensive ratings at all times at the top of the website. These will update in real time as you make changes. When viewing an individual player, you will be able to see their Overall Rating (OVR), so you always know the impact of each edit.

Bio & Appearance

When editing a player, there are now two editing tabs: Bio and Skill Ratings & Abilities. In the Bio tab, you can modify a player’s general information and appearance. Within the Bio tab we have added several new editable fields:

• First and last name
• Previous Redshirt (i.e., has the player already used their redshirt year)
• High school star rating
• Dealbreaker
  • As we talked about in our Dynasty discussion, all players now have Dynamic Dealbreakers, so the Dealbreaker threshold will be determined when you import the team into Dynasty mode based on the player’s final OVR

Skill Ratings & Abilities

Within the Skill Ratings & Abilities tab, you will be able to have more control how good (or bad) each player is. This year we have added the following editing capabilities:

• Player Archetype: This determines which five physical abilities are available for that player.
• Development Trait: Choose how fast a player develops over time.
• Player Potential: Players can now have a potential of Low, Medium, or High. This will set the player’s skill group caps, which determine a player's ceiling or how high they can progress a given attribute. The cap is scaled based on potential and class year. A freshman with high potential will have more room to grow than a junior with high potential, just like in real life.
• Physical Abilities: Once you set your player archetype, you will be able to determine what tier each physical ability is (None, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum). Each tier has a required attribute rating in order to qualify for it. The required attributes will be visible when you are selecting the tier and if the player doesn’t meet that requirement, you’ll get a prompt asking if you want to automatically adjust their rating to match the ability tier.
• Mental Abilities: Which mental abilities are available is determined by the player’s position. You will be able to choose from a dropdown which mental abilities they have (if any) and what tier each ability is (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum). Remember, mental abilities cannot be upgraded, so choose wisely.

RIVALRIES

Rivalries are a core piece of college football and now you have complete control of your Team Builder team’s rivalries. Within the Program tab, you can now create up to five rivalries for your Team Builder team. 

For each rivalry, fill out historical information:

• Rival team
• Rivalry name
• The first year it was played
• All-time series record
• Who won the last matchup
• The score of the last game

This information will carry with you into Dynasty Mode. If you want to set up a Team Builder rivalry, simply set that team’s rival to an existing team, then replace that team with your Team Builder school.

TOUGHEST PLACES TO PLAY

The crowd. The noise. The overwhelmingly hostile atmosphere. See which teams you don't want to face on their home turf in our Top 25 Toughest Places to Play.

1. Tiger Stadium | LSU
2. Beaver Stadium | Penn State
3. Ohio Stadium | Ohio State
4. Sanford Stadium | Georgia
5. Bryant-Denny Stadium | Alabama
6. Memorial Stadium | Clemson
7. Ben Hill Griffin Stadium | Florida
8. Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium | Oklahoma
9. Autzen Stadium | Oregon
10. Michigan Stadium | Michigan
11. Kyle Field | Texas A&M
12. Neyland Stadium | Tennessee
13. Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium | Texas
14. Doak S. Campbell Stadium | Florida State
15. Camp Randall Stadium | Wisconsin
16. Williams-Brice Stadium | South Carolina
17. Jordan-Hare Stadium | Auburn
18. Husky Stadium | Washington
19. Kinnick Stadium | Iowa
20. Rice-Eccles Stadium | Utah
21. Notre Dame Stadium | Notre Dame
22. Carter-Finley Stadium | NC State
23. Boone Pickens Stadium | Oklahoma State
24. Spartan Stadium | Michigan State
25. Davis Wade Stadium | Mississippi State

POST-GAME SPEECH

If you’ve made it this far — thank you. This blog isn’t just a feature list or a changelog. It’s a reflection of the care, passion, and purpose that this team brings to Dynasty mode every single day. We’re continuing to build on the foundation we laid last year, always with one goal at the center: “Satisfy the Core Community” because “This is THEIR Game”.

That mindset has never wavered. The team has fully rallied behind it, and what we’ve built together in College Football 26 is something we’re incredibly proud of. But this is just Year Two of a multi-year journey and we’re incredibly excited about where we are going. 

To the community: don’t lose your passion and excitement. That energy is the fuel that drives us. Your support, your feedback, and your love for this game are the reason we’re here, and we never take that for granted.

With that being said, we will see you again soon for the next deep dive on Road To Glory and Superstar! 

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College Football 26 launches worldwide on July 10, 2025. Pre-order the Deluxe Edition** or the EA SPORTS™ MVP Bundle* and play 3 days early. Stay in the conversation by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and the EA Forums. 

*Conditions & restrictions apply. See ea.com/games/ea-sports-college-football/college-football-26/game-disclaimers for details.

**Conditions & restrictions apply. See https://www.ea.com/games/madden-nfl/madden-nfl-26/game-disclaimers for details.