EA Sports College Football 25 continues to find ways to disrespect Tennessee Football, even if they are putting on a front of giving them love. That’s exactly what the video game did with its recent ranking of Vols edge rusher James Pearce Jr. revealed on Tuesday.
The game’s ranking of top 100 players had Pearce come in at No. 4 with an overall 95 rating. On paper, that shouldn’t be a big deal. Pearce isn’t a quarterback, and he’s only had one impact season so far for the Vols, so putting him at that spot is the ultimate sign of respect, right?
Wrong!
By many accounts, the Tennessee Football defense end is the projected No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. He’s a generational edge rusher who could become a superstar overnight at the next level. As a result, even a top five ranking isn’t good enough.
More egregiously, none of the three players ahead of Pearce are quarterbacks either. The only thing holding him back from being the top pick in 2025 at this point is not being a quarterback, so how in the world could EA Sports say he is not the best non-quarterback?
The clear-cut anti-Tennessee bias in this game is insane. EA Sports didn’t have the Vols in the top 25 in offense, defense, home-field advantage or just in general. Now, they are putting the unanimously considered best non-quarterback in the sport this year behind three other non-quarterbacks.
It’s also worth noting that Rocky Top didn’t have any other players in the top 100. There was no Bru McCoy, no Nico Iamaleava, no Cooper Mays. So in every way possible, they found a way to throw more shade on the Vols while putting one of their players in the top five.
At this point, it has to be next-level clear that there’s an agenda against Tennessee Football when it comes to the EA Sports game. They do likely work with the NCAA to structure everything, and UT did take on the NCAA and win this year. Could that be behind this? We likely won’t know for sure, but it needs to be addressed.
