Scott Van Pelt admits ‘College Football 25’ is too hard for him

Everyone is getting the new EA Sports College Football 25 game, but despite the nostalgia, it might not be for everyone.

That latter part includes ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt.

“The video game’s too hard for me,” Van Pelt admitted on his SVPod. “It brings me no joy to tell you this, but I’ll just say that my first bite of the apple, boy, I don’t know. I gotta my find my plays. My playbook is a disaster. I don’t remember where to find — there’s runs I can’t find. I don’t throw the ball well. Defense, I can’t figure out.

“Alright, I’ll just say it, I suck at the game. So, I’m gonna hide from boys, who last week I was advertising the bottom of the boot. Look, they’re not going to be able to figure it out either, because there’s layers and levels to this. They’re not ready for the levels of play picking, I don’t think, but they can’t be any worse than I am.”

I empathize with Van Pelt here. I literally bought a new console (PS5), and it arrived on Tuesday, July 23. I’m a previous PlayStation user, but I had been putting off getting the NextGen until I had a reason to do so. And that reason was this game, of course. I’ve already started my Dynasty with my alma mater, Temple (Go Owls!), and the game isn’t like riding a bike, despite all the nostalgia and memories associated with it.

Over a decade has gone by, and while I’m not a video game savant, I can get by just fine. Let me tell you, Oklahoma humbled me quickly in my first game. Not to make this a “nobody cares about your fantasy football team” segment, but this is a 25-year-old author leveling with Van Pelt.

It’s not easy!

“I’ll give myself a little bit of grace here and say, I played like a little bit of a quarter, and then I just said, ‘Well, this isn’t going to work,'” Van Pelt said.

Stanford Steve quipped that he’d be hearing from Van Pelt later in the evening that he’d be texting him that he was indeed back.

“I’ll figure it out, because that’s what winners and champions do…I’ll figure it out,” Van Pelt added. “I’m not a quitter. Everything we want in life is on the other side of hard work, alright? I’ll put in the work. But here’s the problem — you brought it up last week — all the dads that weren’t dads the last time this game was out there, and you just had days and weeks to devote; I don’t have it, man. I got no time for this.

“And I’m asking myself, ‘Where am I going to find the time to become proficient at this game?’ I don’t know that it exists. Because, again, early returns not promising.”

[SVPod]