Welcome to our new series on tips for playing EA’s College Football 25 with Baylor! This first installment covers setting up a Baylor dynasty, recruitment strategy, and coach skill upgrade priorities. Future posts will offer in-game advice and opponent-specific adjustments to maximize your chances of winning on ANY difficulty!

Tip 1: Choose the DEFAULT Roster

When starting a new dynasty, your very first choice is whether to use the “default roster” that shipped with the game or the “active roster” that includes changes to keep rosters up-to-date. 

For Baylor, the biggest difference between the default and active rosters is the medical retirement of the projected starting left guard Kurt Danneker (81 overall). While the health of Danneker clearly takes precedence in the real world, there are no such concerns in the world of default rosters.

Other minor changes from the default roster to the active roster include small ratings downgrades for free safeties Coleman and Wokomah and strong safeties Simpkins and Gordon Jr. 

If you want the stronger of the two rosters to get your dynasty started, you’ll want to go with the default roster. 

Tip 2: Plan Ahead (for the Transfer Portal)

Do you get frustrated after spending hours planning out the perfect recruiting plan, targeting the precise number of players you need for each position, all to get blindsided in the final week of the season with surprise transfer requests? After simming through ten 2024 seasons, here are the players most likely to transfer out:

6 of 10: LE Tonga Lolohea (Playing Style)

5 of 10: CB Jamichael Oakley (Playing Time)

4 of 10: HB Jordan Jenkins (Pro Potential)

4 of 10: HB Dawson Pendergrass (Playing Style)

2 of 10: CB Tevin Williams, III (Championship Contender)

In over half of my seasons, Lolohea wanted to transfer due to playing style. Fortunately, the roster can take that loss, as Lolohea finds himself fourth on the depth chart in year two, behind three underclassmen. Jamichael Oakley might be discouraged by the size of the cornerback room. In year two, he was typically sixth on the depth chart. That concern seems unavoidable in year one.

Halfback is a position that might cause more headaches. Both Jordan Jenkins and Dawson Pendergrass wanted to transfer in 40% of my seasons, though never in the same year. Jenkins wants more Pro Potential, which is hard to achieve since it was very rare for any Baylor players to be drafted in my simulations. If you don’t prioritize running the ball enough, Pendergrass might want to leave. He’s the bigger loss in my opinion, so you should try to mix in some runs now and then to keep him happy.

A significant problem that occurred in about half of my simulations was a mass exodus of players due to Coach Prestige dropping below a B-. This included top rated players like LT Alvin Ebosele, HB Richard Reese, CB Caden Jenkins, TE, Kelsey Johnson, etc. It could be a result of simming through the entire season, but my assistant coaches consistently had their ratings drop from a B to anywhere between a C+ to D. It’s difficult to fix Coach Prestige, as there’s an imperfect correlation between on-field performance and coach rating, and overall prestige depends on the ratings of other coaches around the country. 

Until we know more about how coach ratings are calculated, I suggest manually playing every game to earn experience and boost your coach levels as much as possible. 

Tip 3: Balance Your Class

Baylor’s first recruiting class is a difficult one. You’ll have twenty seniors leaving, including your starting QB, RB1, half your WR room, 3/5ths of your offensive line starters, all three starting LBs, and half of your starting secondary. That’s a lot of snaps to replace!

The transfer portal, a fresh addition for those who remember NCAA ‘14, provides a good opportunity to replenish some of that talent. Unlike high school and JUCO recruiting, the transfer portal does not open up until the end of the season, so you don’t have to sacrifice recruiting hours from traditional recruits to take advantage of recruiting a transfer. It also means it’s harder to manage roster spots if you don’t plan ahead.

If you can take an 80+ QB in the portal, grab him. Otherwise, Robertson should be close to that after another off-season of development. You’ll only have one season of him after Finn leaves, and none of the other QBs on the roster have exceptional throwing power/accuracy or above normal development traits. If you search, you can probably find an under-recruited athlete with better throwing power and accuracy that’s worth picking up in year one.

Reese and Pendergrass would be hard to top at RB with a transfer, so stick with high school recruits. Definitely look for a transfer WR, otherwise your top targets will be Bonner (mid 70s) and Burton (mid 70s). Frankly, you might take two. Don’t take four freshmen receivers. 

You should have good returning players at every offensive line position except for LG. Either take a transfer LG or move Thompkins over from RG to compete with Lengyel. Either way, I always recommend trying to recruit four or five freshmen linemen a year. 

Defensive end is a weak spot for Baylor despite only losing one Senior. A transfer here would help significantly just to improve the grade, but that’s a luxury if you have the hours to spend. Outside linebacker, on the other hand, is a place of need. You’ll enter season two with one junior and four sophomores/RS freshmen. Pick up a run stopper to start over Reed at ROLB if you can since all of your LOLBs have a pass coverage or power rusher tendency. 

You should have adequate returning players across the secondary to mitigate the need for an impact transfer there. 

Tip 4: Invest in Tactician FIRST.

Baylor has two decent assistant coaches to help your freshly hired inexperienced head coach out. You’ll have a 20% boost to scouting for every position except running backs/full backs and kickers/punters, reducing the number of hours required to fully scout most players from 50 to 30. Investing in a scouting ability yourself will reduce that time from 30 hours to 20. Not a huge benefit! And luckily your defensive coordinator provides a tier 3 recruiting benefit for your defensive line and linebackers. 

Neither coordinator has any points in Motivator, so you might be tempted to start there to balance out the staff. I recommend against this. The tier 1 benefits in Motivator are useless until the end of the season, and even then, you are unlikely to have a top 3 round draft pick in year one anyway. The big benefit doesn’t occur until tier 3, and that’s a lot of points to invest in early on.

I recommend starting with Tactician for two reasons: a poor first season can knock Baylor’s prestige down from a 3.5 to a 2.5, decreasing your recruiting hours and effectiveness in year two, and the aforementioned risk of losing all your top players to the transfer portal if coaching prestige falls below a B-. Tactician provides the most immediate benefits that can help you eke out an extra win or two. It also has the earliest XP bonuses of all three starting backgrounds, helping you get your coach prestige higher, faster. 

Begin with maxing out the Blocking (OL) ability. It’s where you have the least coverage from your offensive coordinator, and it helps one of the weakest position groups on the team. I would follow that up with points in the Secondary (DB) ability. It benefits the most players if you are running the 3-3-5 Tite (as is default), and as with the OL ability, it has the least overlap points from your coordinator. 

By the time week five or six rolls around, I would unlock the Recruiter tree. That’s when you might start to sign recruits, and you want to capitalize on the extra XP. If you’re still struggling in game, just unlock Recruiter for the XP and go back to investing in Tactician. If you’re feeling confident in you skills, you can go all in on Recruiter. Given how many WRs you need this cycle, begin with the Receiving Game (WR/TE) ability first, followed by Linebackers (LB).

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