EA Sports ‘College Football 27’ Trailer Proves Curt Cignetti Is His Sport’s Man of the Hour

The ever-changing college football world is the Indiana coach’s oyster.

Curt Cignetti has made the most of his offseason as college football’s defending champion. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

The first voice you hear in EA Sports’s College Football 27 trailer is not Indiana coach Curt Cignetti’s. It’s veteran ESPN announcer Chris Fowler’s, proclaiming the shocking outcome of the Hoosiers’ Jan. 19 national championship win over Miami to the world.

That, we know with the benefit of hindsight, was the moment that launched the Cult of Cignetti. Since January, the Indiana coach’s methods of putting together college football’s greatest turnaround have been subject to anatomical dissection. One thing seems clear, though: the coach appears to be enjoying the party.

Need proof? Cignetti, in addition to being on the cover of the game, has his fingerprints all over the trailer. The conceit? He’s writing you, ostensibly, an offer letter. That’s right—the dream of young people who play College Football 27 is to play football for the Indiana Hoosiers. How quickly times change.

Cignetti (the coach) is refreshingly direct, and so too is Cignetti (the character)

“Some players who walk through that tunnel, onto that field, grew up dreaming about putting on this uniform. They’ve rooted for this team their whole life and want to be a part of something bigger than themselves,” Cignetti writes you in the trailer. “Some have another dream: the money, the deals, the cars, those shiny teeth. That’s college football now—I get it. Everybody’s gotta make a name for themselves. Truth is, I don’t care why you show up. I care what happens after you do.”

First of all, bravo to whoever wrote that monologue. If it was in fact Cignetti, his talents are clearly wasted on football. Second, it’s refreshing to see the video game take a subdued, non-hysterical, it-is-what-it-is view of changes to the sport in recent years. Some have been good, some have been bad, the game survives. Any wonder that the coach who seems to have recognized that is now regarded as the best in the business?

Anyway, after giving you goosebumps, Cignetti looks out over Indiana’s Memorial Stadium, the chorus of Zach Bryan’s “Revival” kicks in, and a lot of awesome stuff proceeds to happen. Florida State and Notre Dame playing in the snow. USC running back Waymond Jordan giving the six-seven. Missouri players holding aloft the semi-obscure Battle Line trophy. Absolute cinema.

Do it for U. The official College Football 27 reveal trailer is HERE!

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The more college football diverges, the more precious the video game feels

We are now three years into the revival (pun intended) of The Franchise Formerly Known As NCAA Football, and the game’s existence still feels like a miracle—let alone the fact that both 24 and 25 garnered solid reviews and flew off the shelves.

If fans can read anything into the game’s trailer, it’s an obvious love for all levels of college football—a love that is becoming scarce. The Big Ten-SEC cohort, the ACC-Big 12 cohort, and the Group of 6 seem father apart than ever on all manner of issues, and quite far apart on the field, too.

In College Football, they don’t have to be. As in FIFA and its cousins—another franchise that requires its developers to sell a sprawling vision of a colorful, stratified sport—the dream of the little guy remains alive even as commercialism has threatened its extinction. Here, Akron and UTEP can rise and win the national championship. Maybe even Indiana can, too.

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