The best feature of ‘College Football 25’ is an unexpected one

It just felt so good to be back.

After completing my workload for the Tuesday morning it was time to do something over a decade in the making: Fire up College Football 25 for the first time. As I outlined here earlier in the week the plan was clear, as it has been so many times before, which is to start a new dynasty with Navy.

From the moment I began — after choking back the emotions from the pre-game trailer — it was all almost overwhelming. From signing a contract as a new head coach to setting up a recruiting board, there was a lot to process and even more to figure out. Truth be told, I am not quite sure I know exactly what I am doing when it comes to recruiting, but I’ll deal with the fallout from recruiting nothing but offensive tackles and running backs later in the season.

Because it was time to play an actual game.

Unfortunately, Navy’s schedule began with a bye week in Week 1, which meant another week of the recruiting cycle. One tip: The “hours” you have each week for recruiting duties, 500, reset each week. So do not worry about saving those hours for later in the recruiting cycle. But keep in mind “recurring” activities cost you recruiting hours from week-to-week, so keep that in mind.

Finally, we arrived at Week 2, and Navy hosting the FCS East Astronauts at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. It was a dreary day in Annapolis, with the stands at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium only half filled, allowing me to see the “Go Navy” in the upper deck on each wide shot of the field. The Astronauts elected to defer, meaning I would start on offense.

After we were stuffed on a rocket toss on first down, it was time for one of my old go-to designs from years ago: Play-action dig out of the flexbone.

It went for 80 yards and a touchdown.

We are fully back, friends.

There are hours and hours ahead of me, hours spent figuring this game out, coming to grips with the recruiting trail, learning how to deal with the transfer portal, and more. At some point I’ll try and become a flexbone quarterback in “Road to Glory,” and maybe even create a burner account to deal with the social media trolls when I have my first — and likely not last — multi-interception game. There will be mistakes, losses, and more.

There will also be time spent learning all the new features, figuring out the additions to the game and the upgrades that have been added since the last version of this game was released, over a decade ago.

But on this Tuesday, none of that matters, because this game we have waited for for so many years is back.

However, something else is ahead of me, something even better.

My son and daughter get home from camp later today.

And they’ll get to experience this entire series for the very first time, and I’ll get to watch them become fans of this game too.

That might be the best feature of all.