One thing you’ll notice right away when you first play College Football 25 is not only an expansion of the number of hot routes available to you but also very different hot routes than we’ve ever seen before.
In today’s post we’ll go over every hot route in the new game, and exactly what those routes will look like (using play art images from Madden 24).
Note: The information below has been pulled from two sources: Conversations with individuals who have played the game and the first deep dive trailer directly from EA Sports.
Hot Route Changes That Apply To All Positions
One big change you’ll notice right at launch is now every player available to be hot routed has access to 14 hot routes instead of the 10 previously.
For those of you familiar with Madden, a couple of players could get access to the additional 4 hot routes but only if they had specific superstar abilities. In College Football 25, you do not need any special ability.
Custom Stems
The introduction of a new feature called “Custom Stems” allows you to be a lot more creative on offense. With custom stems, you have full control over where a player’s route breaks. Maybe you want to do a 35 yard curl route, or make a deep out route just go a couple yards further down the field. All of this is possible with the new custom stems feature.
To use it, just select the receiver you want to adjust (using the normal hot route controls), then press and hold the LB/L1 button. Then move the left stick to modify the distance one yard at a time, or the D-Pad to make changes in 5-yard increments. One you are done, just release the LB/L1 button.
This allows you to create some really unique hot routes.
Outside Wide Receiver Hot Routes
Those of you who played NCAA Football 14 or any Madden game of the last decade, you should be very familiar with the old hot routes.
We’ll first start with the hot routes that outside receivers used to get and then go over what they get in College Football 25.
Old Hot Routes
New Hot Routes
For outside wide receivers you no longer have access to these hot routes:
- Streak
- Out
- Zig
But you do have access to these new hot routes instead:
- Speed Out
- Post
- Corner
- Bang 8
- Deep Cross
- Triple Option
- Deep Dig
You can check out what each of those routes look like (images taken from Madden 24) below:
Speed Out
Post
Corner
Bang 8
Note: In CFB 25, the receiver breaks around 8 yards instead of the 10 yards shown here.
Deep Cross
Triple Option
Deep Dig
Slot Wide Receiver Hot Routes
Old Hot Routes
New Hot Routes
For receivers lined up in the slot, you no longer have access to a fade route.
However, slot receivers now have access to these 5 additional routes:
- Post
- Corner
- Deep Cross
- Short Cross
- Wheel
Post
Corner
Deep Cross
Short Cross
Wheel
Tight End Hot Routes
In NCAA Football 14, tight ends were just treated like slot receivers and given the same hot routes. In College Football 25, they have access to their own unique hot route tree.
They have access to these hot routes:
- Streak
- In
- Out
- Curl
- Post
- Slant
- Corner
- Drag
- Deep Cross
- Trail
- Wheel
- Hook
- Flat
- Pass Block
Below you can view the hot routes that are different from the slot receivers.
Deep Cross
They call this a “Deep Cross” but it is really more of a shallow cross.
Trail
Wheel
Note: In CFB 25, the tight end wheel route is a little tighter than the one shown below but this is pretty close.
Hook
Running Back Hot Routes
Running backs might have undergone a significant change in hot routes as well.
All players lined up at a running back position now have access to these hot routes:
- Streak
- In
- Out
- Curl
- Flat
- Swing left
- Swing right
- Triple Option
- Texas
- Post
- Corner
- Wheel
- Block and Release
- Pass Block
If you’ve played any of the past few Madden games, the “Flat” route is really just a table route and the “Triple Option” route is just a different name for a normal running back option route.
The two routes gamers are most curious about are the running back “post” and “corner” routes. For the running back corner route, we don’t yet know exactly what that will look like and we don’t want to report anything we aren’t 100% sure on. We’ll hold off on that for now.
Here is what the RB post hot route will look like:
These new hot routes will certainly take some getting used to. Even though there may only be about 10 new hot routes in the game, when you combine them with the custom stems feature, your offensive play design options become almost unlimited!
