The cover curse has become infamous in the sports video game community over the past two decades plus. What started as some unfortunate luck for Madden cover athletes in the late 1990s has transformed into a sports-wide phenomenon that is followed and scrutinized with every new cover each year. Over the years, we’ve seen bona fide superstars across all sports game franchises suddenly have their careers turned upside down shortly after gracing a video game cover.
While the cover curse is still very much prevalent, especially in Madden, it hasn’t been discussed much in the College Football community. With the franchise only a couple of years old after its 2024 revival, there hasn’t been much time for the cover curse to make its mark. However, with College Football 27 just a couple of months away, we decided to look more into the cover curse and whether it’s plagued the sport just yet.
How Have College Football Cover Athletes Fared?
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First, we need to start with the previous cover athletes for College Football 25 and 26. In total, we’ve seen five cover athletes since the franchise was revived, as EA Sports has taken to having multiple athletes on the cover every year. Here’s a list of those cover athletes:
- Quinn Ewers
- Donovan Edwards
- Travis Hunter
- Ryan Coleman-Williams
- Jeremiah Smith
Just by quickly glancing at this list, there are a couple of clear and obvious candidates who qualify for the cover curse. However, let’s start with the athletes who don’t qualify.
First up, we have Travis Hunter, who went on to win the Heisman Trophy the year following his College Football 25 cover appearance. While many thought Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty deserved the award more, Hunter still went second overall in the following NFL Draft and looks like a potential star in the making on either side of the ball.
Next, there’s Jeremiah Smith, who many believe will be one of the first draft picks in the 2027 NFL Draft after dominating at Ohio State in 2025-26. The wide receiver more than showed he belonged on the cover of CFB 26.
Now, what about the remaining three athletes? There’s Donovan Edwards, who was a strange choice for the CFB 25 cover in the first place. While he put up decent numbers for a solid Michigan team that just won a national championship, they were his worst stats since his freshman year. He went undrafted in the following NFL Draft.
Then we have Quinn Ewers, the Texas golden boy who everyone thought would lead the Longhorns back to the promised land. Ewers threw for the most touchdowns in his college career following his cover appearance, but also threw a career-high 12 INTs and tanked his draft stock with some underwhelming performances in big games.
Finally, there’s Ryan Coleman-Williams, perhaps the player most qualified to be a candidate for the College Football cover curse. Coleman-Williams joined fellow receiver Jeremiah Smith on the CFB 26 cover, as both were coming off miraculous freshman campaigns at major schools. Playing for a mid Alabama team, Coleman-Williams dazzled the world with jaw-dropping catches and massive numbers. However, after gracing the cover of CFB 26, the Alabama receiver saw an immediate regression. He started dropping more passes than ever and put up worse stats in almost every category.
Is There A College Football Cover Curse?
Now that we know more about the cover athletes, is the cover curse for College Football real?
Well, considering there are five cover athletes in total, we were bound to see at least a couple succeed. Even given Travis Hunter and Jeremiah Smith’s success, though, the remaining three players took major hits to their careers following their cover appearance. Edwards has yet to see an NFL snap, Ewers looks to be a career backup, and Coleman-Williams went from a top prospect to a second-round reach.
The argument for the cover curse being in effect appears to be stronger than not having made its way to College Football yet.
What Cover Athletes Could Be At Risk In College Football 27?
We’ve talked about the past, so now let’s look ahead to the future. At the time of writing, EA Sports has not officially announced the cover athlete(s) for College Football 27 yet, so we thought it prudent to see what players could be the next potential victims of the curse.
With CFB 26 seeing two wide receivers grace the cover, perhaps EA Sports follows a similar trend this year and puts two quarterbacks on the cover of CFB 27. The most logical choices for the cover in this scenario would be Arch Manning and Dante Moore. Both are projected top picks in the 2027 draft and should be firmly in the race for the Heisman, assuming the curse doesn’t strike.
Between the two, Manning would seemingly have a higher chance of being susceptible to the curse, as his 2025-26 campaign at Texas was quite rocky. At times, he looked like his uncles, but that was often against lesser opponents. When the Longhorns played ranked teams, Manning often made more mistakes and looked lost on the field. On the other hand, Dante Moore has been playing college football for years, and he seemed quite comfortable in the Oregon offense last season, which has retained many of the players from a year ago.
However, if we want to look past those two QBs, Miami’s Malachi Toney is a sleeper candidate for the cover, and Jeremiah Smith could easily make a repeat appearance. If Smith does end up on the cover and has another monster season for the Buckeyes, we might have to call time of death on the College Football cover curse.
We can’t see many other players having enough hype to end up on the cover. Regardless, based on the past two seasons, you likely don’t want to see your favorite player on the cover of CFB 27, as the cover curse appears to be alive and well.
Published: May 29, 2026 09:30 am