After over 115 hours of narration, Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit are excited for people to see what they've been working on for the past two years.
ESPN's top college football broadcast team brings its partnership to the digital world as the top commentary team for EA Sports College Football 25. Released this summer, the game will be the first college football video game released in over a decade.
When EA Sports first announced the return of the series in 2021, Darryl Holt, the company's senior vice president and general manager of Tiburon Studios, said EA Sports received a number of requests from people interested in joining the game. He said he had received a phone call. However, the development team wanted Fowler and Herbstreit to be the top members. EA Sports wants to make the game as authentic as possible, and there's nothing better than having the people who call the sport's biggest games, including the College Football Playoff national championship game.
Audiovisualization of video games is nothing new to Herbstreit. He served as an analyst with Brad Nessler on the latest edition of the game known as NCAA football. But for Fowler, becoming the play-by-play voice for college football games has long been a goal.
With only a few months left until the game's release and all commentary work now complete, that means fans are inching closer to getting their hands on the game. EA Sports has become influential within college football itself, and with the addition of Fowler and Herbstreit, that potential influence becomes even more explosive.
“Games are a big part of sports culture,” Fowler told USA TODAY Sports. “(People) are going to be blown away.”
A different approach to narration
Since it was Fowler's first time appearing in a video game, he didn't know exactly what the job would be like. He quickly realized how much effort was required.
“(EA Sports) is equally focused on quality and consistency on this project. There's nothing that comes close to that,” Fowler said. “At first, we had no idea how thorough the quality control would be.”
Herbstreit has done this before, but the process was very different. The NCAA football franchise will fly him to EA Sports' Tiburon studio in Orlando, Florida, where he will spend a week doing voice work for the game, he said. This time, the duo built their own studio and recorded at home, with representatives from EA Sports on-site via video call to hear all the work being done.
By allowing broadcasters to do it from home, they had more time to work with and got more audio than before. Herbstreit said he is often given a scenario that will happen in-game, and then just takes a call from it and analyzes it, just like he would in a real-life commentary booth.
“You're just trying to imagine and talk about whatever the situation is and be in the moment,” Herbstreit said.
“A lot of it was just improvisation,” Herbstreit added, which added to the chemistry between the two. Mr. Fowler and Mr. Herbstreit have worked together since 1996 and have been a commentary team for the past 10 years.
“There's just trust there,” Herbstreit said. “There's a sequence, there's a rhythm, there's a timing, there's a rhythm, and a lot of that stuff is there without you even thinking about it. That's the beauty of spending so much time together and having so many experiences.
“It's very natural.”
Covering all possibilities
Fowler has shared glimpses of the recording sessions on social media, and it's clear why the process took so long. Not only are they getting audio for every play you would normally see in a game, but they're also taking extreme demands.
Second down on a punt? That's covered. Would you like to try a 70 yard field goal? There's that too. Fowler said what he did recently was he kicked an extra point or a field goal at the end of the game and lost.
“A lot more happens in video games than in real games because players do weird things,” Fowler said. “It would be strange for that to happen. But all contingencies are covered, especially for the situational ones.”
Fowler added that the commentators put in a lot of effort to prepare for overtime, especially since the rules are different from the previous video game. Since there is even more pressure in extra innings, we wanted the intensity to rival that of a real game.
The reason Holt has so many scenarios in the game, even ones that seem impossible, may sound strange, but he wanted the game to have an authentic feel. He said it goes back.
“Just about anything can happen at any time in college football because there are so many different aspects to the game and the players themselves,” he said. “If that can happen, we want to reflect that.”
It took us two years to complete the recording because the possibilities are endless. Last Tuesday was the final day of the duo's narration, with over 10,000 real-life college football players choosing to appear in the video game, ending all names appearing in the game. Being in the NIL era, players would be compensated if their likeness was used in-game, a major change in the main reason NCAA football ended.
Fowler estimated that more than 700 names would need to be recorded for the game.
New details for EA Sports College Football 25
If you're hoping that Herbstreit or Fowler might know every detail of the game other than commentary, you're out of luck. However, Herbstreit has already revealed that different broadcasters will broadcast the games depending on the size of the game.
Even with all the audio work done, there will definitely be some repetitive phrases and terminology used, but Fowler said players will “hear more variety.” said. He also expects players to have all sorts of creative options within the game, and praises the extensive work EA Sports has done from what he's seen so far.
“It's incredibly detailed and dense. It's the fact that it's your home stadium and you can enjoy it whenever you want, in any weather,” he said. “The flexibility to create, that comes through and I think it excites people, because it has a lot of the elements that I love about this sport, outside of the actual soccer itself.”
Herbstreit, who has been a fan of the series since the early 1990s when it was known as Bill Walsh College Football, is impressed by how the game's modern technology makes the game visually stunning while still having solid gameplay. I pointed out how to make it a thing.
“I think the actual gameplay itself is going to be really great considering how far they've come,” Herbstreit said. “I think everything you see in the college game is spot on from a strategic standpoint.”
EA Sports College Football 25 wins Ben Herbstreit
He doesn't know everything about the game, but there's one thing Herbstreit wants. That means his dog, Ben, now a college football icon, will be at the game.
“When I'm doing voice work, he's always sitting with me in the studio in my office, so he's so into himself,” said Herbstreit. “I will continue to push for EA to involve him in some way. I think it would be interesting if they could find a way to involve him. I think it would be interesting to find a way to involve him. Get the right people who understand the greatness he brought to this sport. I had to find it.”
All kidding aside, Herbstreit is like every college football fanatic looking forward to getting his hands on the game. He and his sons hope EA Sports will be generous enough to send them an early copy of the game. It's great to be the voice again, but he just wants to play the game quickly.
How close is EA Sports College Football 25 to completion?
Holt added that the production team is currently “pushing towards the finish line” and finalizing the details. A full reveal for the game, including a trailer with gameplay and presentation details, is expected to be released in the “coming weeks.”
Anticipation is high for the game that people across the country have been waiting for since the College Football Playoff began. EA Sports seems to understand the magnitude of this moment and knows they can't afford to disappoint their hungry fan base. Holt said early impressions of the game give it a “unique feel.”
“We want to make sure we represent the game and what that means to the fans,” Holt said.
But if you need any more hype than this, the people behind the game's voices are excited to see what gamers have spent so much time working on and perfecting.
“This presentation is going to blow people's minds,” Herbstreit said.
