15. Ole Miss: 88 OVR – OFF 87, DEF 84
Georgia is, by far, the best overall team in EA Sports College Football 25. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Georgia is the consensus favorite heading into the season, and that seemingly minor two-point gap between them and the top of the pack feels like a statement. They’re not the unstoppable world-beaters we saw in some previous NCAA Football games, but they are undeniably a tough team.
So far as surprises go, Ole Miss is ranked notably lower than some experts rank the real-life version of that team. The fact that Ole Miss isn’t even ranked in the top 25 defensive teams seems to have sealed their fate towards the bottom of the top of the overall power rankings. Missouri and Tennessee are probably the biggest top 15 snubs. Missouri’s 78 defense score (yikes) undoubtedly impacted their OVR fate. Tennesse, meanwhile, boasts more than respectable individual scores (OFF 82, DEF 82) but is stuck with an 83 rating: lower than Missouri. Nobody said there was a science to these things
Of course, some of the legacy power schools seem to be getting a slight benefit of the doubt in this game. That’s likely due to the “trust” legacy programs are typically afforded in the real-life version of these rankings as well. You also have to suspect that the developers were inclined to prominently feature some of the NCAA’s biggest names in this version of the game. That may help explain why LSU and Miami received such arguably generous overall ratings.
Just outside the top 15 lies one of the biggest ratings surprises in the game: Colorado at 87 OVR rating. Maybe the developers have a lot of faith in that program’s chances to bounce back from a rather notable collapse towards the back half of last season, though that seems to be another case of a high-profile team being given a slight edge.
Regardless, Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama, and Texas are clearly at the top of the pack.