The names of recruits in the College Football 25 video game are going viral for all the wrong reasons. Credit: @stillnothawkize on X
By Ben Axelrod on

The College Football 25 video game won’t officially be released until Thursday.

But the highly anticipated return of EA Sports’ college football franchise is already going viral — and for some strange reasons.

With those who purchased the deluxe version of the video game receiving access to it on Monday afternoon, social media has already been flooded with College Football 25-related content. That includes the generic recruits in the game’s popular “dynasty” mode, some of which have been given some rather unique names.

The generated names range from humorous (John Wick) to odd (multiple members of the “Chocolatey” family) and in some cases, downright disturbing (Jeff Epstein, the three-star athlete from Birmingham, Alabama). A quick scan of my own dynasty mode didn’t find any names too egregious, although Ben Batista and Brian Blizzard are now on my radar.

While we haven’t been able to verify the authenticity of these screenshots and there’s always a chance they’ve been photoshopped, there are enough of them — many of which are similar in nature — to believe that this is, in fact, a reality of the new game. To that end, it’s worth mentioning that unlike previous editions of the game, you can no longer edit recruits’ names or create new ones — likely in an attempt to avoid the same troubles that led to the franchise’s 11-year hiatus in the first place.

At this point, it’s unclear how the generic recruit names are generated. But whatever AI system EA Sports has enlisted for the feature clearly has a sense of humor, albeit a seemingly deranged one.

[@stillnothawkize]

About Ben Axelrod

Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.

View all posts by Ben Axelrod