All College Football 25 Difficulty Modes Explained

College Football 25 is a game that can be picked up and enjoyed by anyone, regardless of their experience level with football games or sports games in general. However, your experience with the game can be fully customized in terms of how difficult it is. Several different difficulty modes in College Football 25 make playing against the AI present across all game modes easier or harder.

However, these difficulty modes can be a little confusing, as the game doesn’t tell you what each mode changes. Below, you can see a complete guide explaining all the difficulty modes in College Football 25 and how to change them.

All Difficulty Modes in College Football 25

In total, four difficulty modes can be selected in College Football 25, and the mode you choose will change your difficulty across all offline game modes. However, if you’re playing online versus another real player, you’ll get to choose the difficulty mode again, which you and the other player will experience.

Freshman

Freshman is the easiest difficulty mode in College Football 25, and it’s meant for brand new players to football/sports games or players who want the AI to act like a pee-wee team on the field. On Freshman difficulty, you’ll be able to survey the field on offense without worrying about a pass rush, and if you happen to throw a bad pass, there’s a slim chance the AI will intercept the ball.

Freshman difficulty is intended for players with no or a lot of experience with football games. So if you’re a veteran of the Madden franchise or even the older College Football games from the 2010s, you’ll want to pick another difficulty mode. A veteran will only want to pick Freshman if they’re trying out a new mechanic or playbook.

Varsity

Varsity is the next difficulty mode in College Football 25, which slightly cranks up the challenge on the field. With this mode, you’ll find that the AI responds faster to your actions and creates more problems on offense and defense. While you won’t completely struggle with varsity difficulty if you’re a veteran of football games, you won’t be able to coast by and win every game simply by default. You have to think about some of your decisions, or else the AI will start putting points up on the board.

All-American

All-American difficulty mode is where things start to get truly challenging. This mode forces you to make careful decisions on both sides of the ball and adapt to what the AI is doing. The opposing offense will burn you if you don’t call the proper defense. Alternatively, you’ll have difficulty scoring points if you don’t get the ball out quickly or run the right way on offense.

Heisman

Finally, we have Heisman difficulty mode in College Football 25, which is only intended for masters of football video games. The AI on this mode is unforgiving, and even Madden and College Football veterans will struggle immensely in every facet of the game. Heisman difficulty often feels like the game is actively trying to put you at a disadvantage, so only select this mode if you can afford to throw your controller at a wall.

How To Change Difficulty Modes In College Football 25

Now that we’ve gone over all of the different difficulty mode options in College Football 25, how do you change between them?

Fortunately, this is a straightforward process; all you need to do is open the settings menu and look under the “Game Options” tab. In the middle of this tab, you’ll find the “Difficulty” header, which allows you to swap between the different “Skill Levels.” You can choose from one of the four modes we explained above and then leave the settings menu. Your game will now change to the difficulty mode you selected.