College Football 27 ratings are fool’s gold — and we chase it every single summer | Opinion
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
There may be no greater case of summer optimism and delusion than in college football video game ratings.
EA Sports released its team ratings for College Football 27, with the next edition of the franchise coming out July 2. As the upcoming season draws closer, it’s the first real big indicator of where teams stack up across the country.
Of course the obvious favorites headline the list, expected to be College Football Playoff and national title contenders.
But don’t you think for a second this is some sort of predictor of what will unfold. It means absolutely nothing — and there’s history to prove it.
College Football 27 top-rated teams
Behold, the top 10 teams in EA Sports College Football 27
- Oregon
- Ohio State
- Indiana
- Notre Dame
- Texas
- Miami
- LSU
- Mississippi
- Georgia
- Oklahoma
If the game developers have any say, we have found the 10 teams that will be in the playoff, and you can throw in Texas Tech at No. 11 and whoever emerges from the Group of Five. Crown Oregon the national champions.
However, if recent history has shown, we have roughly five teams unable to live up to the expectations.
Need an example? Let’s take a look at the top teams in the game last year:
- Alabama
- Texas
- Ohio State
- Penn State
- Notre Dame
- Georgia
- Clemson
- Texas A&M
- Oregon
- LSU
Turns out, just half of these teams made the playoff. What’s worse? National champion Indiana (No. 18) and runner-up Miami (No. 11) didn’t crack the list. It doesn’t help when USA TODAY Sports ran 100 simulations of the 2025-26 season, the team that won the most titles was… Penn State, with 20 and 88 playoff appearances.
The Hoosiers didn’t win the championship in any of those simulations, making the playoffs just 24 times.
The 2024 game was better, with eventual national champion Ohio State at No. 2 and seven playoff participants.
What remains for all rankings though, is that all of this is fool’s gold.
You can’t fault EA Sports for how it lands on its top teams. Plenty of analyzing goes into how it believes every FBS squad stacks up, from returning star players to loaded transfer and recruiting classes, alongside with the brands and coaches that are consistent winners.
Developers marking great teams before a single snap is played are as good of guesses as any expert or fan. If anything, it’s just some rage-bait for people to fume over the same way the preseason polls come out. There have been plenty of arguments since the College Football 27 team rankings came out about which teams are overrated, like “there’s no way X team is better than mine!” or “how is X squad this high?”
Want proof? Well then your team better live up to claims come kickoff, or that team ought to fall apart.
Besides, all of these conversations forget the most important rating of all: chaos.
The beauty of the sport is the randomness of it, that teams on paper sometimes live up to the expectations and others crumble. The ones not really being talked about or making it on EA Sports’ social media pages end up as the surprise contender.
Will some of the top-rated teams in a video game bring it to real life? You can bet on it, but trying to say any specific team will affirm its spot is just summer delusion.
Keep it for the joysticks, while we wait for what will really happen on the real field.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College Football 27 video game ratings are nothing but summer delusion
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos