“Not Joking”: EA Sports Dedicates a Month to Capturing Colorado Buffs’ Iconic Pride Ralphie the Buffalo for College Football 25

Colorado Buffaloes fans have more than just Travis Hunter to celebrate in EA Sports College Football 25 – their beloved mascot, Ralphie is also making a grand entrance. While the omission of star quarterback Shedeur Sanders from the cover initially disappointed fans, his recent confirmation of being included in the game brought some relief. But now it’s Ralphie who’s truly stealing the spotlight from Shedeur. 

The Buffaloes’ mascot has been a symbol of pride for the team since the 1960s. This isn’t just like any other mascot — Ralphie is a live bison, and the current one, Ember, is the sixth one in the lineage. Thus to truly capture Ember’s spirit, the EA Sports design team has gone above and beyond generating a lot of buzz. 

A month-long virtual makeover for Ralphie Ⅵ 

On the DNVR Sports podcast, Jake Schwanitz and Harrison Wind were discussing EA Sports’ inclusion of traditional elements like mascots in College Football 25. Schwanitz excitedly revealed, “Ralphie is in the game.” He also shared a surprising detail that “They [EA Sports] said they spent about a month on her model too. Isn’t that crazy?” Both Jake and Harrison Wind laughed in disbelief. However, an astonished Wind added, “A month on that?” Jake then humorously responded, “She’s got a lot of hair, bro.”

Schwanitz went on to explain, “I’m not joking, there’s a whole article on Ralphie and the design of it. How they want to get the authentic, like you know, the running style of a buffalo.” This prompted Wind to playfully joke, “Slower than most buffalo,” causing both hosts to burst into laughter. Schwanitz then added, “Ralphie Ⅵ [Ember], she’s a different one. It’s gonna be a big year for her.” While the hosts joked about the time dedicated to a virtual bison, the development team had a good reason for it. 

Bevo paved the way for the Buffaloes’ mascot

Creating realistic mascots proved to be a major challenge for the EA Sports team. While not every mascot made it into the game, some four-legged ones like Colorado’s Ralphie and Texas’ Bevo the longhorn steer are set to make their virtual debut. This required developing unique animation rigs, as these quadrupeds move differently than bipedal players and gamers. The team’s production director, Christian McLeod, explained they created four different rigs for cows and dogs and also a special one for Ralphie. 

McLeod also revealed that the team first created Bevo, the Texas longhorn steer, to see if they could also make Ralphie. Even though they had experience making Bevo, Ralphie still took the longest to create, about a month in total. It’s said that the animation took so long “to make sure that Ralphie runs fluidly.” Thus from making justice to live mascots to giving authentic crowd cheer in the stadium, it looks like the team “didn’t take no for an answer.”