Video games just aren’t what they used to be, and that includes sports video games.
Nowadays, all the creativity and ingenuity has been sucked out in favor of cheap roster updates to increase profits, but it wasn’t always this way.
The college football series by EA Sports in particular used to be so universally beloved that its release day in mid-July was almost a national holiday.
With the college football offseason starting to wind down, I thought it would be fun to relive some of the best players the game ever had to offer.
And I’m not talking “oh yeah, that guy was pretty good,” either.
I’m referring to the players who were banned from your head-to-head matches with your group of friends. The players who caused more broken controllers than your average “Dark Souls” boss.
Obviously, up until a few years ago, the players in the NCAA football games never had names, but you knew exactly who they were.
With all that in mind, let’s dig up some childhood trauma with five completely broken college football video game characters.
Quinshon Judkins (Ohio State) – “College Football 25”
When “College Football 25” was nearing its release date, certain influencers were able to test the game early and came back with a few notes to share with their followers.
Nearly unanimously, every content creator seemed to agree that “Quinshon Judkins was broken.”
What the rest of the general public quickly found out was, these influencers weren’t just mining for clicks.
Quinshon Judkins really was broken, particularly his spin move.
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Video after video was posted on social media showing off Judkins turning into a Beyblade the minute the spin button was pressed, as All-American defenders bounced off the Ohio State running back as if he was a waterbed rolling downhill.
The move was so broken that players across the country started online petitions to try and get the EA developers to nerf Judkins’ spinning.
I’m not playing this up, either. If you Google “Quinshon Judkins” one of the first suggested searches that pops up is “spin move ‘College Football 25.'”
You know you’ve made it as a video game character when you make the general public rage-quit so badly they have to resort to petitions to try and stop you.
Kudos to you, Quinshon.
Vince Young (Texas) – “NCAA 06”
Before Tim Tebow, before Cam Newton, and absolutely before Johnny Football, there was Vince Young (or should I say, QB#10).
The Texas Longhorns’ signal caller was a 6’5″, 235 lb cyborg who ran a 4.5-second 40-yard dash and threw a football harder than most high school pitchers threw a fastball.
The man was unstoppable in real-life, but he might have been even more broken in “NCAA 06.”
He was a 95 overall rated workhorse who was faster than anyone in your defensive front seven, and had the arm strength to fit the ball into any window you could think of.
Sports video game fans talk about how ungodly Michael Vick was in “Madden 04,” but VY was essentially the college football answer to Vick in video game format.
Couple all of that with the fact that Young had the “impact player” label attached to him – back when that moniker actually meant something from a gameplay perspective – and even when you thought you had him dead to rights, the Texas gunslinger would turn into Houdini and you’d send your controller through the window.
Almost makes you feel sorry for that USC defensive staff in the Rose Bowl.
The Entire West Virginia Backfield – “NCAA 08”
This one might seem like a bit of a copout, but it’s absolutely the right call.
If you’re familiar with any of my writing, you know all about the 2007 West Virginia football team and how close that team was to immortal glory.
The video game version of that team was just as good, too, and for all the same reasons.
The four-headed monster of quarterback Pat White, running backs Steve Slaton and Noel Devine, and fullback Owen Schmitt were so dynamic that you rarely if ever had to call a pass play to dominate a game.
White, Slaton, and Devine all had 90+ speed ratings, so running a triple option out of shotgun in a two-back set made your offense virtually untouchable.
When you brought the brickhouse that was Schmitt in for short yardage situations or subbed him in at tight end or H-back, all bases were covered and it was truly over from that point on.
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Each player did awesome things on their own, but when combined into a single rushing attack, the sum was always greater than its parts.
In that sense, the West Virginia backfield in “NCAA 08” was basically college football’s version of The Avengers, so have fun trying to stop that.
Jadeveon Clowney (South Carolina) – “NCAA 14”
You didn’t think they were going to be all offensive players, did you?
While it’s true that offense always garnered the bulk of the attention in the college football video games, there were plenty of defensive players that made the game unforgettable, and none more so than South Carolina’s Jadeveon Clowney.
In the dying embers of the old “NCAA” series before its revival in 2023, Clowney was a god amongst mortals, making the Gamecocks’ defense elite almost by himself.
You could make the argument that the video game version of Clowney was even more elite than his real life counterpart, and that’s saying quite a lot because the man was a beast in college.
Rated 99 overall, Clowney had 91 strength, 94 acceleration, and 99 finesse moves, meaning he was able to either toss your offensive tackle aside or swim move around him at lightning speeds.
And his 99 hit power rating almost guaranteed the ball was coming out when he got to your player.
When I say the man was broken, he was truly broken.
Double teams, chipping with the tight end or a running back, it didn’t matter, Clowney was getting to your quarterback.
Prayer was your only chance against South Carolina’s defense in “NCAA 14.”
Reggie Bush (USC) – “NCAA 06”
The man you’ve all been waiting for.
For some of my older readers who played the original “Tecmo Bowl” back in the 1980s, Reggie Bush in “NCAA 06” was basically Bo Jackson on steroids and crack.
Elite, 99 speed rating? Check.
Unstoppable juke move? Check again.
Mind you, this was before “locamotion” and all the fancy physics engines, so a player with 99 speed and insane moves like Bush could literally stop on a dime, spin move a defender five yards into the sideline, then speed away from his pursuers.
I almost made a rule that only one player from a given year could make this list, but I couldn’t leave both Vince Young and Reggie Bush out.
The 2005 Heisman Trophy winner was a literal cheat code in “NCAA 06,” so much so that I remember multiple friends from my school outright banning the use of USC during head-to-head matches.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Bush’s impact player label, too, meaning he went from a mere superhuman to a mythical creature with the ball in his hands.
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Reggie Bush was, hands down, the most broken player in any NCAA Football game and you would be hard-pressed to tell me otherwise.
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