Greg McElroy lists college football players that would have made great video game cover athletes

The anticipation for the release of EA Sports’ College Football 2025 is growing by the day, with aficionados everywhere eagerly awaiting the June 19 drop date.

We’ve gotten a good deal of coverage now on what the game will be like, as well as what it will look like. Marking the game’s return will be Colorado‘s Travis Hunter, Michigan‘s Donovan Edwards and Texas‘ Quinn Ewers as the cover art.

But it begs the question… who would have featured on the cover in the years the game was out of production?

There’s a solid decade’s worth of college football in between, with plenty of excellent options to grace the much-coveted cover for EA Sports. Former Alabama quarterback and current ESPN analyst Greg McElroy broke it down.

“There’s a lot of great options, obviously,” McElroy said. “There have been so many great players in the last decade. But I think when I think video games, I think about the player that I would have most liked to have had in the video game. And there’s really two that come to mind for me.

“No. 1 by a fairly decent-sized margin would be Lamar Jackson. I always think about, man, if I had Lamar Jackson and being able to play with him in the NCAA video game, being able to run around, extend plays, find players open downfield, take off and run when I needed to — he’d probably have 98 speed — it would be absurd what he could do to opposing defenses. So I would say Lamar Jackson would be one, I would put him on the cover.”

Jackson was elite at the college football level at Louisville from 2015-17. He amassed 9,043 passing yards with 69 touchdowns and 27 interceptions, while also rushing for 4,132 yards and 50 scores.

Not a whole lot of explanation needed for that one. How about McElroy’s No. 2?

“Another guy that I would consider would be Johnny Manziel,” McElroy said. “With Johnny Manziel I just think about the crazy and chaotic plays that he made that oftentimes when you were watching Johnny Manziel, it felt like you were watching a video game, didn’t it? Didn’t it just feel wild to watch him just go out there and completely dominate? So he’d be in the mix.”

Like Manziel, Jackson was an elite dual-threat prospect in college, the kind that would be absolutely mesmerizing to play with on an EA Sports video game.

Manziel threw for 7,820 yards in just two years, notching 63 touchdown passes against 22 interceptions. He also ran for 2,169 yards and 30 scores.

That said, there are plenty of quality options to grace the cover from the last decade in college football, including some non-quarterbacks. McElroy ran down a few other options he would have liked to see.

“Deshaun Watson would be in the mix from Clemson,” McElroy said. “He obviously had a great run of success from 2015-16, culminating in a national championship there. Then I tried to think here in the last couple years. You’ve got to give some love to the defense, right? Defenders need love too. I thought Nick Bosa would make some sense. Of course played really well there at the end of the 2015 year, ’16 year, in that vicinity, ’17. So there were a lot of really great moments with him under center.

“Justin Fields at Ohio State would have been a lot of fun to play with in the NCAA video game. I know there’s probably a million that I’m forgetting. Bryce Young would have been great to play with there at Alabama. He was tremendous in his college career. So there’s a ton of great players that would have been awesome to have the opportunity to play with.”

In any case, soon the hype will turn into reality as EA Sports College Football 2025 drops.