feature the Road to Glory mode, this time with a big change to distinguish it from last year's iteration. College Football 25 marked a strong return for the series, bringing the dormant IP back for the first time since NCAA Football 14. Keeping up that momentum will require continued innovation, though, and College Football 26's Road to Glory mode appears to be keeping that in mind.

While College Football shares some elements with EA's Madden series, the focus on student athletes is the biggest distinguishing factor, which is where Road to Glory comes in. This campaign experience follows a player character through the student athlete experience, from actually playing football on the field to social activities and downtime. College Football 26 is reintroducing a high school element to Road to Glory, making for a potentially more involving and lengthy rise to the top of the student athlete playing field.

How EA Sports College Football Road To Glory Works

Living The Student Athlete Life

While EA hasn't yet revealed every detail of College Football 26's Road to Glory mode, there are a few key pieces of information to go off of, and the core experience will likely look similar to what College Football 25 had to offer. Managing time from week to week is a central focus of Road to Glory, so you'll be balancing practice and other activities to try to maximize physical prowess, academic potential, and social branding.

If customization options work similarly to last year, you'll be able to play quarterback, halfback, wide receiver, middle linebacker, or cornerback and select appropriate archetypes for each. Road to Glory also features mental abilities, which can be developed accordingly through the management of free time to create a standout player. Going all-in on one strength might not lead to success, as college players need to worry about a lot more than just ing the ball.

After completing a college career, Road to Glory allows players to be transferred to Madden.

CBS Sports recounted a hands-on preview experience with Road to Glory, which contains a number of interesting details. Road to Glory still starts by allowing you to select a star level, but maintaining that star level throughout the new stage of high school play can apparently be a challenge in College Football 26.

College Football 26 Adds High School Play

Getting To The Right College

The big change this year is the addition of the high school component, an older feature that was disappointingly excluded from College Football 25's take on Road to Glory. EA's official breakdown of the game refers to starting as "an aspiring high school recruit" and working your way to "winning the Heisman Award," a process that should be clarified in a future deep dive on the mode.

For now, the CBS Sports preview provides most of the available details about high school play. Rather than featuring a complete high school season, you select and play four key moments from each game across five weeks of a season, attempting to hit major or minor goals to earn points that drive scholarship offers. You eventually narrow down your list of top schools from 10 to three before committing to your number one choice, assuming you've managed to sufficiently impress them.

While the overall success of College Football 26's Road to Glory will depend on what the complete experience looks like, this seems like a step in the right direction compared to last year's somewhat boilerplate implementation of the mode. If the mode successfully manages to feel like more than a minor evolution, Road to Glory could be one of the clearest signs of College Football's ability to stay ahead of Madden's underwhelming rate of progress.

Sources: CBS Sports, EA