EA Sports ranks Texas' Darrell K Royal Stadium as No. 19 in Toughest Places to Play rankings

The return of a college football video game is coming up in mid-July and EA Sports is already rolling out plenty of info about the game, including a ranking of the top 25 toughest stadiums to play in.

EA College Football 25‘s ranking of the toughest places to play factors in historical stats such as home winning percentage, home game attendance, active home winning streaks, team prestige, and more. That’s a list certain to garner debate among many of the powerhouse programs, who all surely believe their team’s stadium is the toughest.

When it comes to Texas and Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, EA Sports slots the Longhorn home field as No. 19 overall on its list of the toughest places to play.

With the stadium having been built and first used back in 1924, this coming season marks the centennial of the 100,000+ seat capacity home of Texas football — and what a century it’s been on those grounds.

Building through 100 years of history, Texas has plenty of modern gameday traditions in DKR. Of course, there’s the singing of a pair of songs older than the stadium itself, starting with the school song “The Eyes of Texas,” along with the official school fight song, “Texas Fight.”

Used in those performances is the legendary Big Bertha II, a massive drum debuted in 2022 following up the original Big Bertha, another massive drum that had been wheeled out onto the field to be included in band performances, such as the aforementioned songs, for decades

“Big Bertha II will be the largest bass drum in the world and will play the lowest note ever on a bass drum,” the Texas Athletics webpage noted about the instrument when it was first built. Big Bertha II also took over after 100 years of service from the original Big Bertha.

There’s even more noise created at Texas games, particularly when the team scores, thanks to a replica Civil War artillery cannon named “Smokey.” According to the Texas Athletics page, Smokey gets plenty of usage on gameday:

“Smokey III fires four 10-gauge blank shotgun shells after every Texas Longhorns score, at kick-off, and at the end of every quarter. Most importantly, Smokey is fired off after the world-famous college fight song ‘The Eyes of Texas’ at the conclusion of every Texas football game.”

After a win, the iconic UT Tower on Texas’ campus is lit up orange at the very top to signify a successful gameday.

So, if you go to Texas and see a big win, there’s plenty more than just football to enjoy. When this new video game comes out, hopefully we’ll get to see Smokey firing away and Big Bertha booming out following any Longhorn touchdowns.