College Football ’26 is set to drop this week and a former HBCU coach will get some screen-time on the game. Willie Simmons is set to make his debut as a coach in the series as he starts his career at Florida International University (FIU).
This year’s game is the second since the EA Sports series restarted in 2024, re-branding as College Football instead of using the previous NCAA Football moniker. Last year’s game didn’t use the names, images or likenesses of real coaches, but this year’s game will do that.
The former Florida A&M University football coach was hired as FIU head coach in December after spending one season at Duke University as a running backs coach and recruiting coordinator. Before he left FAMU he took the program back to the top of the HBCU football world, winning the SWAC title and Celebration Bowl in 2023.
Simmons has previously appeared in a college football video game, however. During his playing days as a quarterback at Clemson from 2000-2002 he was on the game. But he was simply quarterback no. 7, as no player names were used during that iteration of the video game.
Of course, no HBCUs will be natively featured in this game as FCS schools haven’t been a part of the product for over 15 years. But another former HBCU coach will be in the game — but it won’t be Deion Sanders. Jerry Mack, a championship-winning head coach at North Carolina Central during the 2010s, will be in the game as well. Mack was hired as the head coach at Kennessaw State just ahead of Willie Simmons at FIU.
The global release date for College Football ’26 is July 10, but it is available earlier if you want to spend a little more.
