When EA Sports releases its college football game this summer, it will mark the first time that players are included in the game by name and compensated for their name, image, and likeness. But while real players will be in the game, real coaches will not.
EA Sports vice president of business development Sean O’Brien told ESPN that the game will not include specific head coaches like Kirby Smart or Ryan Day in this iteration of the game.
“Coaches are a really good example as the figureheads of their schools,” O’Brien told ESPN. “Because we believe there’s a real impact to gameplay or to product differentiation that you could be a coach, have a different type of schedule, have a different type of recruiting philosophy, have a different type of gameplay and play style.
“So there’s an interesting way of doing that in a similar way to the athletes. No real way of doing that very easily.”
While coaches will not be in this year’s game, O’Brien said that EA Sports is considering ways to “offer coaches the opportunity to opt in beyond Year 1.”
It’s a pretty surprising exclusion from a game that otherwise seems committed to including as many real-life aspects of college football as possible.
