Alright, so I finally got my hands on EA College Football 25, and like many of you probably did, I dove right into seeing what’s new. One of the things I was really looking forward to messing with was building my own custom playbook. You know how it is, the default playbooks are usually fine, but they never feel quite right for how I want to run my team.
So, first thing I did was boot up the game, obviously. Had to poke around the menus for a bit. Found the section for creating stuff – I think it was called ‘Creation Zone’ or something similar. Pretty straightforward once I located it. Inside there, the option for ‘Custom Playbooks’ was waiting for me.
Getting Started
Okay, clicked on that. The game gave me a choice: start totally from scratch with a blank slate, or modify an existing team’s or generic playbook. Starting blank sounded like a ton of work, honestly. Way too much clicking for me right off the bat. So, I decided to grab a base playbook to work from. I scrolled through the teams, looking for one that had a decent foundation for what I like – usually something spread-based but with options to run the ball.
I think I ended up picking one of the generic spread playbooks, or maybe it was a specific team’s, can’t quite recall. Doesn’t really matter which one, the process is the same. Once I selected it, the real work began.
Adding Formations and Plays
This is where you really start making it your own. The screen showed the formations already in the base playbook. My first step was to ditch the formations I knew I’d never use. Just cleared out the clutter, you know? Made space for the good stuff.
Then I went into the ‘Add Formation’ part. Man, there are a lot of formations in this game. I spent a good chunk of time just scrolling through everything. Shotgun, Pistol, Single Back, even some I-Form and Wishbone stuff just for kicks. I grabbed a few different Pistol sets because I like having the back behind the QB. Added some more versatile Shotgun formations too, stuff with 3 or 4 wide receivers.
- Found some cool variations I hadn’t seen before.
- Tried to pick formations that offered both good running and passing plays.
- Made sure I had sets for different personnel – like heavy sets for goal line.
After picking the formations, I had to actually fill them with plays. This was probably the most time-consuming part. For each formation I added, or even the ones I kept, I went play by play.
Clicked on a formation, then ‘Add Play’. You get the whole library of plays available for that specific formation. I looked for bread-and-butter stuff first: inside zone runs, power runs, basic passes like curls and slants. Then I started adding more specific things – some RPOs (Run-Pass Options), play-action deep shots, a couple of decent screen passes. It’s easy to get carried away here and add way too many plays you’ll never call.
My strategy was this: Make sure each formation had a core set of plays. A solid run, a quick pass, a medium pass, maybe a deep shot, and a screen or draw if possible. Don’t need 20 plays per set, just the useful ones.
Organizing and Saving
Once I felt like I had a decent collection of formations and plays, I spent a little time trying to organize them. The game usually lets you reorder formations. I put my most-used formations near the top for easier access during games. Some people organize by situation (1st down, 3rd down, red zone), but I mostly just grouped similar formation types together.
Finally, the moment of truth: saving the playbook. Gave it a name – something creative like ‘My Awesome Book Vol. 1’ – and saved it. Phew. Felt pretty good to have it done.
First Impressions and Testing
What did I do next? Took it straight into practice mode. Wanted to see how the plays looked on the field, check the blocking assignments on my new runs, see the routes on the passes I added. Ran a few plays from each key formation.
Then I jumped into a quick exhibition game against the CPU. That’s the real test. Calling the plays in a live situation, seeing what works and what doesn’t. Found out pretty quick that a couple of the plays I thought looked cool in the playbook were actually kind of duds in practice. Also realized I might have too many similar pass plays.
So yeah, that was my first go at making a custom playbook in CFB 25. Took a couple of hours, involved a lot of navigating menus and scrolling through lists. But having a playbook tailored exactly to my style? It’s definitely worth the effort. Now I just need to go back in and tweak it based on what I saw in that test game. Remove the bad plays, maybe add a few more specific situational ones. It’s a process, but a fun one.
