ODU provides gear for video game
College football fans around the country rejoiced when EA Sports hinted at the return of the beloved NCAA football video game franchise in 2021 on social media.
It’s been nearly three years since that announcement, and right when many fans began to lose hope that the game would ever return, the company released a teaser trailer of the game earlier in February, signaling the end of decade-long pause.
Fans went wild over the trailer, which currently has more than 29 million views on X, and it ushered in another wave of speculation: Who would be in the game? A week later, EA Sports answered that question, announcing that all 134 Football Bowl Subdivision schools would be in the video game slated to launch this summer.
This will be just the second time Old Dominion will make an appearance in a college football video game. The Monarchs were in NCAA 14, which was released after they announced a move from the CAA to Conference USA, although Old Dominion played as an FCS independent in 2013.
Name, image and likeness opportunities have made the game’s return possible. Players who opt into the game will receive $600 and a copy of the game from EA in return for their NIL.
With Old Dominion now confirmed to be in the game, The Virginian-Pilot filed a Freedom of Information Act request with ODU to obtain more details about what you’ll see when you play a game as the Monarchs.
Jerseys
Old Dominion will have three jerseys in EA Sports College Football 25, according to records obtained by The Pilot. In NCAA 14, the Monarchs had white, silver and navy blue jerseys.
According to documents obtained in the FOIA request, ODU submitted its navy “slate” blue, white and “Carol Hudson” blue uniforms to EA Sports.
Old Dominion submitted what appears to be Under Armour order forms, which have diagrams of each jersey from the Monarchs’ apparel sponsor. These diagrams detailed the specs of each jersey, as well as the matching pants that go with it.
Helmets
Similar to the jerseys, Old Dominion submitted three helmets for EA’s use in the new college football video game, public records show.
Old Dominion submitted its navy blue, white and “Carol Hudson” blue helmets with the ODU word mark logo fashioned with a crown on top, which the team has donned for more than a decade. In NCAA 14, ODU had only its white and silver helmets.
Close-up pictures of the helmets were sent to EA Sports, the public records request showed. These were likely to show the placement of the Sun Belt Conference “SBC” sticker and the placement of the American flag sticker.
Those pictures also showed the “Monarchs” and “Old Dominion” stickers that are placed just above the helmet facemasks and on the rear bottom of the lid, respectively.
Noticeably absent from the records that Old Dominion provided The Pilot was a throwback helmet the Monarchs donned last season for its homecoming game against Texas A&M Commerce.
The helmets were Hudson blue and replaced the typical ODU logo with the throwback “racetrack” logo the school used as its predominant logo from 1973 to 1986.
The reference photos for Old Dominion’s uniforms and helmets were sent to EA Sports on Aug. 9-10, 2023, according to The Pilot’s FOIA request. The racetrack logo helmets were unveiled on social media on Aug. 8, 2023.
There are still a few months before the game is released, so the racetrack logo helmet very well could be in the game or even added in after the game’s release. But for now, it appears that it will not be in the game, based on the records Old Dominion provided.
Stadium atmosphere
The Pilot’s public records request didn’t unveil too many details about how Kornblau Field at S.B. Ballard Stadium will look in the video game. According to the records provided, Old Dominion submitted at least one picture that showed most of the stadium in it to EA Sports.
Regardless, Old Dominion’s stadium will look different this time around than it did in NCAA 14, since S.B. Ballard Stadium was torn down and completely rebuilt from 2018-2019.
As for the virtual game-day atmosphere, The Pilot’s public records request also produced an audio file of ODU’s fight song, Victory for Old Dominion. So the fight song will likely be played at various times when a user plays as or at Old Dominion in the game.