Re-Evaluating Program Prestige Ratings For EA's Upcoming College Football Game

One of the keys to recruiting in NCAA Football 14 was to increase your college’s program prestige rating.

Every college in the game was rated from 1-star prestige to 6-star prestige with colleges most people have never heard of at the bottom and legendary powerhouse school at the top.

The last time this list was updated was in 2013 and a lot has changed since then.

Today we are going to look at the 5 and 6 star prestige programs from NCAA Football 14 and re-rate them for the modern era.

Let’s first start with the highest rated, 6-star prestige schools. In NCAA 14. There were 11 programs who received this honor.

Alabama, Michigan, and Ohio State immediately jump out as schools that will undoubtedly keep their 6 star prestige rating in the new game.

Texas, USC, Notre Dame, LSU, and Oklahoma should also keep their ratings. Even though each one of them have had their share of struggled recently, they all have incredible history and are destinations that top recruits want to go to every year.

Another way to put it is that if any of these teams won a national championship in the next 3-5 years, you wouldn’t be surprised at all.

It is this author’s opinion that the University of Florida and University of Oregon should receive a 1 star downgrade to put them at a 5 star prestige.

If either one of them put together a few good seasons in a row, they’ll be right back up there with the other 6 stars.

That leaves Stanford who should be downgraded significantly.

When NCAA Football 14 was released, Stanford was on the upswing. From 2010-2013 Stanford’s record was 46-8. For 4 seasons in a row they won at least 11 games. It makes sense why EA put them in the top tier at the time.

However, in the most recent 4 year stretch the Cardinal haven’t won more than 4 games in a season.

We’d put them all the way down at a 3 star program heading into this season.

Next up, lets look at the 5 star prestige schools in NCAA Football 14. EA Sports put 12 teams in the 5-star tier at that time.

Among the 5 star schools, Georgia and Penn State immediately jump out as worthy of receiving a bump to the prestigious 6-star program rating.

Both programs have a long history and have fielded competitive teams fighting for a national championship in recent years.

Florida State and TCU probably deserve to keep their 5 star prestige rating.

Many of the other programs need to be changed out. Boise State, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Miami, and Virginia Tech should all be downgraded 1 star. Each one of those programs has an impressive history during different time periods but none of them have competed for national championships lately.

South Carolina should also see a downgrade while a case can be made either way for Oklahoma State and Texas A&M.

If we were to add a few programs to the 5 star prestige list in the new game game, we’d start with:

Clemson
Utah
Tennessee
Kansas State

There is still an entire college football season to be played before EA Sports College Football 25 releases so our opinions might change as time goes on.

In fact, while we assume the program prestige system will be a part of dynasty mode, we don’t 100% know that for sure. There are plenty of things we do know for sure though and we’ve put together a resource of those things for anyone interested.

What are your thoughts? What other programs do you think should get a 5 or 6 star rating in the new game? Let us know in the comments below or in the CollegeFootball.gg forum.