EA Sports College Football 27 (CFB 27) is the rockiest launch since the franchise returned in 2024. While most critics, including our own, praised the vast improvements in gameplay and game-changing defensive focus, other elements weighed down the hype. Now, the CFB 27 Week 1 Patch aims to address much of the ire from the fanbase and critics alike.
Of course, MTX in CFB 27 (microtransactions) took the largest spotlight as EA Sports pushed Ultimate Team into Dynasty and Road to Glory (RTG) game modes, but the other issue was more game-breaking for Online Dynasty players.
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In Dynasty, the rollout of new NIL mechanics led small schools to refuse to recruit 3- and 4-star players, causing bad schools to get worse. More importantly, though, this also allowed eagle-eyed users to scoop up 4-star players for NIL deals that cost next to nothing, thereby impacting the teams being built—which is a major issue for Online Dynasty players looking to compete for the long haul. While the issue of small-school recruitment was present in CFB 26, the latest iteration of the game and the NIL component quickly caused issues within the CFB community.
Outside of that, many in the content creator community had major complaints not just about the MTX in CFB 27, but also about the removal of the “fast” and “faster” XP progression sliders in RTG and Dynasty. While this complaint ignored the increased allotment of coaching points awarded per season with the addition of coach salaries, it still seems to have gotten EA Sports’ attention.
While the CFB 27 Week 1 Patch was always going to be a big one, bringing in current rosters that reflect how each of the 138 colleges’ teams will look September 5th, the larger changes that we’re seeing in the CFB 27 Week 1 Patch are immediate reactions and pivots to feedback. It’s one of the strongest adjustments that EA Sports has made in recent memory. For the complete Campus Huddle patch notes, you can head to the EA Sports page here. Or, keep scrolling for the highlights.
Read our interview with Christian McLeod to learn more about CFB 27’s Dynasty focus.
CRB 27 Week 1 Patch Updates
Dynasty Coaching Week 1 Updates
Highlight: A more balanced coaching progression, rather than a sprint, is the feature, not a bug—the “fastest” option will not return, but new Coach XP Speed Settings will.
One of the largest differences between CFB 26 and CFB 27 was the introduction of the Dynasty Blueprint, a new system that allows players to spend dynasty Points (often reflecting the school’s success and prestige). To quell some of the ire, EA Sports released an explanation of the changes to coaching experience gains in the Campus Huddle notes for the CFB 27 Week 1 Patch.
Coaching XP gain is supposed to be more balanced and was done to balance and scale program building to the new Dynasty Blueprint system, prioritizing long Dynasty careers which have proven to be the backbone of CFB’s community:
In College Football 25, the max coach level was 50. Many players reached that cap early in their career arc, which left them with no additional levels to work towards and no additional Coach Points to earn. In College Football 26, we expanded the cap to 100 based on that feedback. Level 75 became roughly equivalent to a maxed College Football 25 coach in terms of abilities owned, with 25 additional levels added as endgame progression.
That structure continues in College Football 27. The goal is not for every coach to quickly reach level 100. The goal is to give players more years of meaningful Coach Point decisions across a 20–30 year career.
Highlight: Next Title Update updates the Coach XP Speed Settings, replacing the current sliders with 3 new settings that allow users to play how they would like in Dynasty, with each Coach XP Speed Setting applying to user and CPU teams alike.
- Career: Authentic long-term coach progression at 1.0x XP. This is equivalent to the previous College Football 27 default setting and is best for players who want the full Dynasty Blueprint experience, where every Coach Point and coaching decision carries more weight across the life of a Dynasty. It will also have a Coach XP Speed setting and the intended Dynasty Blueprint experience.
- Simulation: Balanced coach progression at 1.25x XP. This is best for players who want a realistic pace while still progressing their coach more quickly.
- Casual: Fastest coach progression at 1.5x XP. This is equivalent to the Faster setting from College Football 26 and is best for players who want to unlock abilities quickly and accelerate coach growth.
Dynasty Recruiting Updates
Highlight: EA Sports has heard the issues with CPU teams not recruiting well and is trying to fix them. The CFB 27 Week 1 Patch will see adjusted recruiting tuning to improve how CPU-controlled teams compete for highly rated recruits. Additionally, how CPU teams prioritize and retain recruits after extending offers has been improved.
- Adjusted recruiting balance to better reflect expected recruiting distributions.
Adjusted offseason player progression to increase across the board, which will lead to more 90 OVR or higher as you get deeper into your Dynasties.
Other Dynasty Recruiting Fixes:
- Fixed an issue where recruits being pursued by Hawaii could incorrectly receive an F grade for Proximity to Home.
- Fixed an issue where a player’s Risk of Transfer bar could display incorrectly after making a valid NIL offer when the player’s current NIL valuation was more than double their expectation.
Road to Glory Week 1 Updates
Road to Glory Progression and XP Sliders
Highlight: Similar to Dynasty, the “faster” XP gain conversation is still heavy on this mode. To that effect, EA Sports confirmed that Standalone XP sliders will not return to RTG. The development team noted that “progression in College Football 27 is now built around the full structure of the mode: difficulty, weekly decisions, Fitness, NIL deals, Wear and Tear, Legacy Score, scholarship bonuses, and on-field performance.”
- Road to Glory players can start with a lower OVR than in College Football 26, and that’s intentional on the dev team’s part to set the pace for an entire career’s progression.
- CFB 27 27 also added annual scholarship bonuses to create more offseason progression, and now, playing through high school also matters.
- EA Sports also confirmed that RTG’s OVR ceilings are tied to Legacy Score.
Road to Glory Fixes
Highlight: EDGE Position Battle Progression has been addressed by ensuring that position battles required to advance on the depth chart are now actively triggered. However, hot fixes in the coming weeks will be needed to ensure the fix is completed.
MTX in CFB 27 are Changing
Prior to the CFB 27 Week 1 Patch, EA Sports announced a massive response to player feedback by sharing that they are changing the way that MTX in CFB 27 are handled. While it isn’t the entire ask from the community, with MTX in CFB still being left in solo play, it is a step in the right direction.
You can read the full statement from EA Sports below:
Thank you for your continued passion and for the incredible response to College Football 27.
We love this game and this sport. College Football is and always will be about the sights, sounds, pageantry, traditions and atmospheres of Saturday. In College Football 27, we aspired to deliver the deepest experience to date with all-new Dynasty Blueprint, new positions in Road to Glory, and the best College Football gameplay yet. However, your feedback on Road To Glory and Dynasty is that we’ve missed the mark with the introduction of paid progression options. This was added independent of deeper mode progression with the aim to give players more choice, but what you’ve said is that they’re not adding the value we intended.
Tomorrow morning, we will remove all paid progression options from Road to Glory and Online Dynasty. An unfortunate side effect of removing paid progression is that players that have College Point balances in their wallets will not be able to apply the balances in Road to Glory or Dynasty – so jump in between now and then and apply your points!
Our goal for live service plans in CFB28 and beyond will be to deliver valuable features and content with greater transparency and communication.
We’re moving fast to respond to your feedback in-game so stay tuned for follow-up communications next week where we’ll take you through more design details and share our goals for College Football 27.
We love this game. We love this community. We love college football. CFB27 is our third and best CFB ever and we can’t wait to see you on the field.
EA Sports College Football 27 is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
