With the announcement Thursday that the much-anticipated debut of EA Sports College Football 25 has an official release date of Friday, July 19, fans and gamers alike now know which dates to make up an excuse to miss work and spend a long weekend playing the first college football video game that will be released since 2013.
Eleven years is a long time between editions of a video game series, and fans missed the opportunity to play with a lot of college football stars in that time.
Which athletes would have made the cover of NCAA Football (the game’s previous moniker) each year had the series continued uninterruptedly from 2014-2023? ESPN’s David Hale pondered this question and came up with a litany of players he would have chosen as the face of each edition.
Notably, two former Clemson Tigers quarterbacks made the cover of NCAA Football in ESPN’s bit of revisionist history.
It should go without saying that one of them is Trevor Lawrence. As a true freshman in 2018, Lawrence led the Tigers to their second title in three years with a 44-16 rout of Alabama in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
Lawrence’s throttling of Alabama’s defense that January night in 2019 capped an undefeated season for coach Dabo Swinney’s team. Clemson became the first-ever college football team to finish 15-0 en route to a national championship in the four-team playoff.
That was more than enough to make Lawrence the face of an imaginary NCAA Football 20. Lawrence beat out teammate Travis Etienne, Purdue receiver Rondale Moore, Ohio State defensive end Chase Young, LSU defensive back Greedy Williams, and Alabama stars Tua Tagovailoa and receiver Jerry Jeudy.
Per Hale:
“Lawrence and Etienne made for a worthy tandem, both fresh off a national title with two years left at Clemson. Moore was a revelation as a freshman, electric as a receiver and a return man. Young was the second coming of (Joey) Bosa, a force of nature at the line of scrimmage who racked up 9.5 sacks and 14.5 TFL, presaging an even bigger season in 2019. Tagovailoa and Jeudy had just been dismissed by Clemson in the title game, but there was still ample hype surrounding Alabama.”
The other Clemson quarterback that made ESPN’s list is something of a surprise in that it isn’t Deshaun Watson.
Despite Watson leading the Tigers to their first national championship in 25 years in January 2017, he missed the nod for the cover of NCAA Football 17, which Hale awarded to former Stanford star Christian McCaffrey.
Instead, former Clemson signal-caller turned Oregon State quarterback turned current Florida State QB DJ Uiagalelei garnered cover honors as the face of NCAA Football 22.
While it might seem like something of an odd decision, Hale adds context to his choice.
“There’s not a clear front-runner among the contenders, but Uiagalelei was probably the biggest name at the time. He’d started two games in relief of Lawrence in 2020 and looked terrific in both. He was a former five-star recruit. He had a big personality, big arm and already had inked some very big endorsement deals. It’s almost hard to imagine now — knowing how it all turned out — but on the heels of Tajh Boyd, Watson and Lawrence excelling at Clemson, Uiagalelei seemed about as close to a surefire star as possible. But hey, maybe in 2023 at Florida State, he’ll actually become one.”
Hale also envisioned a scenario in which Clemson’s famed 2018 defensive line of Christian Wilkins, Dexter Lawrence, Austin Bryant, and Clelin Ferrell made the cover of NCAA Football 19. He ultimately awarded that honor to Tagovailoa, who led Alabama to back-to-back appearances in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game on his way to becoming a star quarterback for the NFL’s Miami Dolphins.
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