EA needs to fix this game for competitive players.
First off, I have played a good amount of football games going all the way back to madden 06/07 so I have been here to see the worst of spectacular catches making the game arcade-like, along with playing NCAA 14 (in my opinion a much more balanced game than even CFB 25).
I want to see if anyone else is having these consistent problems at least on the PC edition, first if you have a custom playbook on offence randomly your play will not be the one chosen (about 1 out of every 10-20 plays in my testing). If you use a custom defensive playbook you cannot guarantee you will ever come out on kickoff in anything besides onside kick (how is that even a thing???). The game will randomly crash mid road to CFB playoff (not often but happens). If someone exploits what I can only assume is a bug they can kick an onside kick about 1 or 2 yards and then pick it up - 100% of the time used to be a penalty in every football game I have ever played in last 20 years and SUDDENLY WE MESS THAT UP TOO?!? If you are playing someone online weather a friendly or "competitive" match against a random if you go up 2+ scores it is very clear to me the game begins to "cheese" your defense basically making them not stick to their man in man coverage, abandon their zones (not in "beater plays") and get demolished against the run, to me if EA is serious about people playing this game and their being a competitive mode, why in the hell are we trying to make bad players able to compete with good players? So now this brings me to my final three points that should 100% be addressed, first is obvious: the run game... I am an avid run-first player so this year it feels nice that it is 100% too strong, but with that in mind how often in real life do we see teams averaging 300-500 rushing yards per game and multiple 40-60+ yard rushes? Secondly it seems they have adjusted the catch meter to be less OP witch is nice, but some players still know how to user their WR on a back shoulder fade and essentially render your defender useless no matter what you do to try and stop it (height is a factor here for sure but if its 100% of the time its time for a change). Last and this is something I am beginning to see used is the linebacker glitch against the run, if you are unaware you user the LB, put him in his gap and then as the ball is snapped turn around with your back facing the offence, the AI will never attempt to block the linebacker turning what should've been a 4-6 yard gain into a 2 yard loss because the AI in this game is legitimately very very bad.
Now that I have ranted, I am only posting this not because I am going to stop playing, but I am going to stop grinding the game and trying to rank up in Road to CFP, the bugs and exploits have become so outrageous to play against that everyone I play I either win by 28 and then they some how get 3 kick return touchdowns with everyone on the field getting a pancake, OR I am playing someone who knows the onside kick glitch, will exploit every "cheese play".
If anyone knows anyone at EA I would love to go in depth on this and even show them clips of these awful game mechanics, hell I will even compare it to NCAA 14 and show how the AI from 13 years ago can still to this day somehow cover the run AND pass better than the current AI...
Please let me know any other game breaking bugs / exploits that you are consistently seeing so EA might finally put out a decent product and not just recycle the game year in and out.