We got a lot of good feedback on last year’s Guide to Playing Army in NCAA College Football 25. That article covered the basics of the game, and to the extent that one must understand real college football in order to play through this simulation of college football, last year’s article served as quite a useful primer to the basics of Army’s offense for both gamers and non-gamers alike.
This year, things look a little different. NCAA 26 serves as merely an update to NCAA 25, and with that, this year’s article also serves as a supplement. We covered the basics last year, so if that’s what you’re looking for, you might want to start there.
This year, we’re talking about what’s new.
Visuals
EA Sports made most of their offseason adjustments to the game’s visual aesthetics. In many ways, these were vastly improved. Alas, some of the actual gameplay adjustments haven’t been received quite as well by the fanbase.
Most of this year’s improvements have come from customizations for various stadium experiences, particularly for night games at stadiums known for their unique nighttime entrances. Notably, Virginia Tech and Enter Sandman. EA has also added drone shows over various stadiums at night, which makes the whole game more immersive overall.
We’ve also seen numerous traditions added to the game. For example, if you play as Army you now get to see the flyover and the march-on before the game starts. Cadets are in uniform, and if you play the Army-Navy Game, the Cadets show up in Dress Gray with Long Overcoats. That’s a nice embellishment. EA also added a lot more chants and team-specific cheers, and depending on which team you like, you’ll either hear them a lot or just occasionally.
Finally, I’m not sure that I noticed it last year, but on the CFB26 start, you get the traditional EA Sports, “It’s in the game!” when the game boots up for the first time and also after an update that forces a restart. Yay corporate branding!
Gameplay
As noted, many of last year’s features have returned, and since this is a franchise game, the routine mechanics of playing remain fundamentally the same. However, we still recommend using either Practice Mode or the Ultimate Team until EA gets all the initial bugs identified and updated. Based on both our own early gameplay and initial feedback online, it seems like EA maybe still has some serious work to do.
One thing that’s changed is the game’s visual presentation on the field. We’ve seen significant improvements that enhance the game’s overall appearance, making it look better than the previous version. As noted, this seems to have been the developer’s primary focus this year. Along that line, EA added distractions on the Big Screens during field goals and extra points tries. These may or may not affect your personal gameplay, but like a lot of this year’s improvements, they look cool.
8⃣fresh uniform combos 🔥😮💨
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) July 10, 2025
Comment below ⬇️ with what combo you are suiting up with?!@EASPORTSCollege | #CFB26 pic.twitter.com/8dK1qktA1a
Recruiting
Arguably the most significant update to gameplay comes via recruiting. When looking at prospects, the recruiting board shows what your team needs for the next season.
The recruiting is improved because once you reach out to a potential player, you get their sentiment for the categories that they want, which will give you the best possible influence. From there, you make your pitch to see if they are willing to come to your team and play.
Offense
Running the Ball
As of this writing, rushing remains extremely frustrating in the game. Offensive line play is inconsistent at best, making it challenging to just Run the Damn Ball. Plays that worked well last year for Army — like the Rocket Toss — have become lackluster now without adjustments. The Option has also become wonky. Holding the X to pull the ball remains the same, but the pitches have become concerning because the logic from CFB25 hasn’t come over to the new version. The pitchman won’t stay in position to receive the pitch on option runs. Run-Pass Options (RPOs) and Triple-Options remain in play in multiple offenses, but EA needs to launch an update to balance this aspect of the game. If you like to run the ball, you might get frustrated at the All-American and Heisman levels.
It’s a strange lack in an ostensibly realistic game because fan expectations notwithstanding, college teams typically run the ball much more often than pro teams do. College quarterbacks just aren’t accurate enough on average to execute something like the West Coast Offense. This forces college coaching staffs to embrace the run, using it to set up explosive downfield passing. Hence all the Read-Option playbooks in college football. Having a quarterback who can run makes a huge difference in college football.
The pro game is different because of the improved throwing accuracy. Professional offenses can afford to run drop-back pocket passing schemes that rely on a short, possession-passes. Pro quarterbacks will make those passes often enough to drive down all the way down the field with them. Most college quarterbacks can’t make that work. This is why Army’s bend-but-don’t-break defensive scheme usually works when the Black Knights can stop the run, but similar schemes have become rare in the pros.
Bottom line, college football teams need to run the rock to be successful. The fact that this part of the game has regressed is therefore pretty bad. Let’s hope they can get it fixed.
Passing
Not surprisingly, the game has multiple methods of passing the ball. There are three settings that you can select as well in the hood section. However, passing accuracy and throwing power significantly impact this statistic at the higher levels of the game. So do the speed of your receiver and the overall match-up on the passing tree. With that, the defense can close on poorly thrown balls fairly easily until you find your preferred passing style and throwing mechanic.
Taking the field at Michie 🫡@EASPORTSCollege | #CFB26 pic.twitter.com/IEfixaEJfr
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) July 9, 2025
Defense
Defense remains a sore subject for those of us on the other side of the ball. The game has so many layers to defend now. We could conduct a film study to incorporate all of the available embellishments. From the Front Seven to the Secondary, we now have alignment adjustments, audibles, and player actions that you can control all the way from the individual to the entire defense. Do you want to show Cover Three and then switch to Man? You can do that. You can also show Blitz and then Spy the QB. We’ve got lots of options pre-play in the game.
With that said, the defense has stayed relatively underdeveloped compared to the offense. This is notable given that we are about a month in, and many of the changes needed to make defenses more effective have not yet been implemented.
Under the Hood
The use of the game’s many sliders and settings will provide you with the most customized gameplay experience. Alas, I am not an expert on all the settings. Thankfully, YouTube has tons of people in the EA Creator space who have played the game a lot and have more to say about the various setting details.
With this in mind, the first aspect to get into with your sliders affects how you plan on running your dynasty. If you are playing online, you will have to go with the commissioner of the league. If you are playing offline, you can set the game to let you play the way that you want, have the best experience, and still give yourself a challenge during the gameplay. Also, if you are going to play online, there is a button to upload custom sliders from a particular league onto your dynasty, so you can hone your skills offline if you choose. The game also has sneaky little setting called Even Teams in that you may want to adjust. Toggling this makes the disparity between the teams more apparent. This makes the game more of a simulation and less of an arcade game.
Quick Settings of Note
Playbook. You can choose one or tailor your own, both offensively and defensively. Many people recommend 4-2-5 or some variation of that defense because it tends to be the most balanced. Offensively, you can go with a team specific playbook or use a generic Option playbook if you want to play with Army and have other formations outside of the flexbone and its variants.
Clock Management. You can pick the length of your quarters, but keep in mind that the longer the games, the more impactful wear and tear is on your players.
Coin Toss. There are no coin flips in this game, just like in NCAA25. If you want tails never fails, make sure you set your choices before getting into game play.
Kicking. Tap and Hold or Tap and Tap. Figure out which one you like and stick with it.
Wear and Tear. If you want an arcade experience, shut this off. However, if you’re going to make the game realistic, adjust the sliders to increase or decrease this setting to your preference. If your defense hits hard, you can increase the impact of the hit stick. If you want to take out knees in the tackle box, then up the cut stick efficacy.
Playing with Army as your team
Unsurprisingly, having Saint Jeffery Monken in the front office is always a good thing. The issue you might encounter is that his coaching style may not align with how you want to develop your team. The Archetype system is back in the game, and if you are a Master Recruiter, versus a Master Motivator (i.e. Coach Monken), you may want to start your own dynasty or become the Offensive Coordinator rather than the Head Coach. This is an option.
I humbly suggest running Heavy Offense or the actual Army playbook. Alas, playing All-American and/or Heisman mode will lead to a lot of interceptions until you can recruit a quarterback with a better arm. The Services Academies received little attention in player stats in the game. You’ll have to recruit a strong, accurate arm.
As noted, running the Option is tough with the Army this year. EA seems not to have made any specific updates in the running game. Since running backs do not maintain pitch position down the field, you can easily have an errant pitch once the QB turns it up. You can absolutely have a pitch intercepted by a cornerback if you don’t time it right.
Always be ‘Cruitin’. If you do not want transfer portal players on your recruiting board, you can set the number of transfers to zero. If you want to be realistic, you can take in freshmen players, but you must then redshirt them to get the full four years out of them at the Academy. If you genuinely want to be like Coach Monken, take Tight Ends and Running Backs that you can then repurpose into other skill positions.
Final Thoughts
If you read last year’s article, I would still recommend that you play the Ultimate Team until you get the mechanics of the new changes to the game down. Then start your Dynasty before Week O. We should get a large update with current roster changes just before the start of the 2026 season. Overall, this year’s game remains largely similar to last year’s, but at least we didn’t have to wait 14 years for an update. EA still has some things to fix, though. Here’s hoping they get that right with the next few patches.
Go Army! Beat Tarleton State!!!
