The “base align” defensive adjustment has been in every major football video game for well over a decade. College Football 25 is the first game without it.
For those unfamiliar with base align, it was a way of positioning your defense in a way that would allow you to disguise your coverage.
When using base align, your players would line up the exact same way regardless of what coverage they are in, whether they were blitzing or not, and regardless of what formation the offense was in. It essentially froze all defenders in their default position.
The new system, which EA Sports is calling “coverage shells,” allows you to specify the defensive look you want to show to the offense.
Maybe you want to show a Cover 3 look but then drop into a Cover 4 zone. Or you could show a heavy blitz and then drop into a Cover 2. There are a ton of options!
Here’s how EA describes it:
In play call, use RS while in formation view to command your secondary to position in a range of cunningly disguised looks. These can range from a high pressure Cover 0 blitz to a backed off Cover 4 look.
But the excitement doesn’t stop there! Before the snap, you also have the option to showcase a single high or two high, depending on the formation you’ve chosen.
However, there is one big catch! If a defensive back has low composure there is a chance he might mess up the disguised coverage look.
