I was only three games into my freshman season when I got the text.
Max Johnson, who was fresh off a five-TD performance against FCS Southeast, was headed to the bench. Instead, North Carolina coach Hector Luna - The Coach Formerly Known as Mack Brown™ - wanted to trot out five-star freshman C Jackson Cowart, whose elite athleticism and high football IQ made him an intriguing prospect for the Tar Heels.
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The early returns were ... suspect. My eponymous QB made some big-time plays through the air and on the ground amid an unbeaten start, but we lost the final four games of the season to tank our playoff dreams before lighting it up in the Birmingham Bowl. That offseason, I turned down some attractive offers in the transfer portal to return to Chapel Hill and settle some unfinished business.
Eight months later, I was third on the depth chart.
It didn't take long for me to win back the job as a sophom*ore, thanks in large part to a practice drill with a 100% success rate (all hail Option Attack), but it was yet another hurdle in an experience full of them. And through my first two-plus seasons in the mode, it feels like EA Sports is daring me to transfer altogether.
A thrilling on-field experience
First, let's start with the positives: I am having an absolute boatload of fun on the field in Road to Glory.
This has been mentioned ad nauseam online and across social media, but I'll add to the chorus of content creators singing the praises of College Football 25's gameplay. It's truly a breath of fresh air after years of stale animations and inconsistent physics in Madden, and it's a vast improvement from the "football players on ice" feeling that you'd get playing the old NCAA Football games.
All of this stands out when playing as a quarterback, as the passing in this year's game is a delight. Fitting throws into tight windows has never been more rewarding, and it actually feels like I can elevate the supporting cast around me without cheesing the game itself. Who knew that was even possible in today's sports gaming landscape?
Sure, the pursuit angles in CFB 25 are a little wonky, and I've thrown an interception in every single game I've played through two seasons of Road to Glory. (OK, that second one might not be the game's fault.) But it's hard to overstate how such incredible gameplay enhances the entire experience of Road to Glory and has me coming back for more every single day.
I'm also a fan of the "campus hub" introduced in this game, which forces you to balance school, social life, NIL deals and training while staying in the good graces of your coaches and teammates. It's not as deep as some aspects from the old Road to Glory mode, but it's still a neat system that requires me to prioritize different aspects of my created character.
The good news? Those two things - gameplay and resource management - are the core offerings in Road to Glory. The bad news? Everything else is either missing or seriously underbaked.
Out of control
When it comes to modern quarterbacking, making the right throw is only half the battle. It's just as crucial to identify the defense's intentions pre-snap and, when necessary, call an audible to avoid playing into the defense's hands.
So you can imagine my utter disbelief that you can't audible in Road to Glory. The developers have suggested that you can eventually call audibles with high enough coach trust, but my junior QB's coach trust is literally off the screen - another bug in this mode - and I still can't change the play call once we break the huddle. That means running into eight-man boxes or passing up an easy gain inside just because we can't change the play ourselves.
I recognize why the devs made this call, and I appreciate the effort to limit our play-calling freedom compared to the laissez-faire approach in Madden's Superstar mode, where your running back (or receiver, or anyone) has free reign to call every play. For many of us, that oversight is enough to break immersion in a mode where progression and limited control are the whole point.
But when you can't even flip the direction of a play as a Heisman-level quarterback, clearly the pendulum has swung too far.
It would help if your coach's play calls weren't so boneheaded, but I've found myself in far too many situations where the only three plays at my disposal are the same run up the middle on a 3rd-and-15. And since you can't audible at the line, you're stuck with it, no matter what the defense is throwing at you before the snap.
If you take matters into your own hands by running no huddle, you're still limited to calling four plays per formation. You're also still locked into that play call once you make it, even if the defense immediately makes you regret it.
Missing the mark
I wish my only complaints were related to play-calling, but there are so many other minor frustrations in Road to Glory.
Every time I earn a medal in practice, my player is awarded 127 skill points, so I haven't practiced in two seasons. Instead, I can only progress by playing games, which award roughly one skill point per week (if it even registers properly, which is no guarantee). With the most meaningful upgrades costing at least 10 skill points, my quarterback has stagnated in skill set even as he's setting records on the field, and he doesn't improve in the offseason like the rest of his teammates - another miss by the developers.
My coach takes me out on nearly every fourth-down attempt (for some unknown reason), and he insists on running nearly every play to the right, which is the weak side of our offensive line. He refuses to bleed the clock on fourth down - even when it could cost us the game - and he doesn't involve me in any of his fourth-down decisions, which is a real treat when our kicker can't hit the broad side of a barn.
Whenever I score a touchdown, I can't replay the previous play without running another on my next drive and searching through the highlights. My GPA resets at the start of each year, which makes zero sense whatsoever to anyone who's ever attended college, and my spot on the depth chart resets every preseason, too.
What exactly is the point of building all that coach trust if your coach forgets who you are every summer and doesn't trust you to run the offense, anyway?
An undercooked feast
Would I recommend playing Road to Glory in its current form? Yes, I would. That's a testament to the tremendous work by the development team to roll out the best gameplay in a football game that I've ever played ... and to my undying love for single-player career modes, which have been treated as a secondary experience by major developers for years.
I don't want to levy that charge on RTG, but I can't shake the feeling this mode was taken out of the oven without so much as a cursory test playthrough - or, if it was tested, a tacit acknowledgement that this is the best they can do after years of development. I have a hard time believing either is the case, so I'm left baffled as to how so many frustrating issues could make it to the final version.
It doesn't mean I'll stop playing, though. It's too rich of an experience when the lights are brightest. Carrying the Tar Heels to the College Football Playoff from strictly under center, even as I led the nation in turnovers, is already one of my more memorable gaming experiences in years. I just wish there weren't so many technical fumbles along the way.
Until those issues are fixed by a patch (if they ever are), I'll keep trotting out my dual-threat dynamo week after week, stripped of his autonomy at the line of scrimmage and on the practice field. There's still unfinished business to tend to, and I've built up too much coach trust to quit now.
C Jackson Cowart is a Featured Columnist for Four Verts. He's an award-winning sports writer, reporter, and editor who still talks about the time he threw a perfect game in Triple-A in MLB: The Show. You can follow him on Twitter (X) @CJacksonCowart.
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