The Texas Longhorns were prominently featured on the cover of EA Sports College Football 25 in the game’s return last year. They decided not to be for this year’s edition, though, with two members of the program opting out of it.
On Monday, Steve Sarkisian shared that he and QB Arch Manning chose not go to the photoshoot for the cover of EA Sports College Football 26 at The Rose Bowl. That comes a year after QB Quinn Ewers made the cover alongside Colorado’s Travis Hunter and Michigan’s Donovan Edwards.
About a month and a half ago, the cover of the deluxe edition of the game leaked online. It featured ten actual players with Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith and DB Caleb Downs, Alabama WR Ryan Williams, Penn State RB Nick Singleton, Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love, Michigan QB Bryce Underwood, Florida QB DJ Lagway, LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier, Arizona State QB Sam Leavitt, and South Carolina DE Dylan Stewart. Several coaches were included as well with Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Penn State’s James Franklin, Oregon’s Dan Lanning, and Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham. In the stands with them are several mascots and legends as well, such as Tim Tebow, Reggie Bush, and Mark Ingram.
Sources speaking to On3’s Pete Nakos at the time suggested there’d be several covers of this year’s game available. That’d include as many as a regular cover, a deluxe cover, a coaches cover, and a legend cover per reports.
With that, Sarkisian and Manning would have been natural choices to be on one of those covers. Texas, coming off a pair of appearances in the College Football Playoff, will enter this season as one of the sport’s best teams again. Sarkisian, with this turnaround on The 40 Acres, has solidified himself as one of the top coaches in the game as well. Then, Manning, who’s marketable enough already off the last name alone, is projecting as one of the best quarterbacks in the country going into next year in his first season as a starter.
However, Sarkisian and Manning remained in Austin rather than taking part in the photoshoot in Pasadena. That should be at least some sort of sign of where their attention is at Texas going into the fall
On Thursday, last week EA Sports revealed that College Football 26 will be released on July 10, 2025. It is the next game in the College Football series, which made a return last year with the extremely successful installment with College Football 25.
College Football 25 was EA Sports’ first college football game since NCAA Football 14, which was released in 2013. The videogame series had an 11-year hiatus after Electronic Arts (EA) was sued by former college football players who argued their name, image, and likeness (NIL) were used without permission or compensation.
However, with the introduction of NIL into the collegiate landscape, EA was able to bring back the beloved series. Players who opted in to being in College Football 25 received $600 and a copy of the game.
The move worked out well for EA. College Football 25 became the best-selling sports video game of all time based on dollar sales. According to Chris Vannini of The Athletic, EA is now more than doubling its payment to players for their inclusion in College Football 26.
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