There are all kinds of indicators of just how down Nebraska football has been over the last decade-plus. Obviously the number of coaches they've gone through since firing Bo Pelini is one of the most used. However, EA Sports might have just rubbed some dirt into the wound that is the Huskers struggles.
It turns out that players aren't the only ones getting payouts for appearing in EA Sports College Football 25. According to Clict Media, the video game company paid a lump sum to all 134 FBS programs.
However, unlike the uniform amount EA Sports gave to all the players who opted into the game, the company came up with a four tier system to lump the programs in. How much a school got paid depended on what tier they landed in. This is where Nebraska football got another rude awakening.
Nebraska football finds itself in bottom tier of EA Sports College Football 25 payouts
EA Sports came up with a system that based the tiers on each team’s finish in the final AP Poll over each of the last 10 seasons (2014-2023). When a school finished the year in the AP's Top 25, it received one point.
Payouts were determined on a four-tiered system.
— cllct (@cllctMedia) May 24, 2024
Tiers are determined by each team's finish in the final
AP Poll over the last 10 seasons, per documents obtained by cllct.
When a team finished the year in the AP's Top 25, it received one point. pic.twitter.com/SLRp7100i1
The Top tier, that saw the biggest payout is occupied by teams that earned 6-10 points. In other words, teams that finished in the final Top 25 of the season at least six times in a decade.
Tier 2 included teams that earned 2-5 points and Tier 3 was teams that earned one point (teams that appeared in a final Top 25 poll once in 10 years. Tier 4 were the schools that earned zero points. This is where Nebraska ended up.
By not making a single final Top 25 poll from 2014 to 2023, the Huskers earned just $9,987.52. Tier 1 earned $99,875.16 per school, Tier 2 got $59,925.09, and Tier 3 earned $39,950.06.
The end result of all of this was that Nebraska football managed to rob itself of at least $30,000 in EA Sports College Football 25 payouts by being as bad as it was over the last decade.
So who else made Tier 4? It's not exactly a group Huskers fans should be excited to be lump in with.
Boston College, Duke, Cal, Virginia, Texas Tech, Maryland, Purdue, Rutgers, Illinois and Vanderbilt were the only other Power Conference teams to land in Tier 4. Notable terrible teams who got the same payout as Nebraska are Eastern Michigan, Akron, Hawaii and UTEP.
On the bright side, if this payout formula continues to be a thing, Nebraska football should be able to jump up a tier next year.