Colorado WR Quentin Gibson Among Many Who Don’t Resemble CFB '26 likeness

Colorado WR Quentin Gibson Among Many Who Don’t Resemble CFB '26 likeness originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

Early access to the EA Sports video game College Football 2026 has been received rather poorly from fans and some real-life players represented in the game. It would seem EA’s adherence to realism took a back seat to developer deadlines or some other circumstance. Among those who have a significant bone to pick with EA Sports is Colorado WR Quentin Gibson.

One of the biggest fan aspects of the new versions of games is for those players who are represented in the game reacting to themselves in the game. This is primarily satisfaction or displeasure with a player’s rating.

A player might think they should be in the 90s and will be disappointed to discover EA rates them at 80. Or another common one is a slow speed rating or a less-than-ideal toughness rating. It seems EA found a new way to upset players, and it has nothing to do with the applicable football skills in the game.

In the case of Quentin Gibson of Colorado, the real-life Gibson has ‘locks’ for a hairstyle. In the game, Gibson is shown to have almost a ‘news hair’ like combover. At present, Quentin Gibson has not taken to social media to voice his displeasure. In addition to hairstyles, many players have also taken issue with the ‘face scan’. Sean Wilson of Delaware State, Malik Washington of Maryland, Darrick Bledsoe of Cincinnati, Dallas Wilson of Florida, Trey McNutt of Oregon, and CJ Jimcoily of LSU have all made social media videos taking issue with their likeness.

With almost all of them being related to hairstyles (the wrong hair style or bald when they have hair) or the face scans that make their character look nothing like the real-life version. Chris Alday of San Diego State University was noticeably more offended. According to Alday’s video posted on July 10th the message was very clear.

“Who on God’s green earth is this, because it surely isn’t me. Y’all didn’t even get a single feature right. Bro, you had the audacity to give me the James Harden lower half and the Ned Flanders upper half. And don’t even get me started on the skin complexion, man. I’m not gonna lie, after seeing this, I’m considering suing you for defamation of character.”

Video game developers have always had criticisms to deal with, and early access usually reveals issues in the game. The widespread hope is that EA Sports will make corrections to these players’ likenesses as time moves forward. However, based on these player’s complaints, it’s hard to not sympathize with them.

In most cases, it looked like EA Sports had a few stock hairstyles and faces and set that process to shuffle. Perhaps there were rushed deadlines, but one thing is certain. For a game that is celebrated for its realism to the game, this is not a small problem.  

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 13, 2025, where it first appeared.