The upcoming release of “College Football 25” is sure to have a stranglehold on gamers who have waited more than a decade for the series to return. And that likely includes some of the student-athletes featured in the game. But Mike Elko knows what’s coming — he’s been through this before.
On Tuesday, Bryan-College Station Eagle reporter Travis Brown asked the Texas A&M head football coach if Aggies players seemed excited for the new video game. In response, Elko explained how he navigated the release of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II” in October 2022, while he was the head coach at Duke.
“In full disclosure, because I’ve been a part of this before, you can’t imagine how much the release of a hot new video game can impact your football team,” Elko said. “I remember going all the way back to when the second ‘Call of Duty’ came out, and it got released in October in the middle of one of our football seasons.
“We literally were having meetings with our defense about why it was not good to stay up until 4 in the morning playing ‘Call of Duty.’ We had practice at 7 o’clock the next morning.”
Mike Elko was the coach of the Duke Blue Devils in 2022 and 2023.
(Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
EA Sports' last release of the popular series was in 2013, and now it's (literally) a completely different game, with “College Football 25” being the first version of the game to be released in the NIL era.
Past versions have featured loose portrayals of players because they couldn't use their real names, but now, for the first time ever, players can be paid for their likeness in the game — if they agree, of course.
Related: Clemson college big man Walker Parks isn't happy that EA Sports made him appear overweight in the College Football 25 game.
If Elko players thought “Call of Duty” was cool, surely it must be even cooler to become an actual character in your own video game — maybe even cool enough to stay up late to play when you have practice in the morning?
Coach, maybe we should reschedule our team meeting.
