Matt Seybert connects with Michigan State football community via College Football 25
Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, you’ve probably heard that EA Sports released an updated version of the old College Football video games.
The game was extremely popular back in the late 2000s and early 2010s because you could play as your favorite school in a franchise setting. Acting as the head coach in recruiting, playing games, and leading your school to championships. The game was discontinued in 2014, however, after a legal dispute arose that EA and the NCAA were using athletes Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) without properly compensating them.
That ever popular dispute eventually helped lead the way for courts to rule that college players could receive money for that, despite their amateur status.
When the NCAA officially adopted NIL policies in 2021, many fans started immediately clamoring for the games to come back out. After three-plus years of hard work and dialing in new technologies along with classic game feel, EA Sports College Football 25 was born. It released this past month on next generation game consoles. Since then, the college football world has been going crazy over it. From posting clips of game play, to creating a player to become a D1 athlete, or becoming the head coach of your favorite school in dynasty mode and leading your team to glory.
Former Spartan tight end Matt Seybert is no exception to that. He played the game religiously growing up. With this new version, Seybert jumped straight to Dynasty Mode and started his virtual coaching career recently trying for a super realistic feel to football. He is playing the game on Heisman level, which is the hardest difficulty. He also started with taking a lower level coaching job, like many would in real life.
That job was starting as the head coach at Buffalo, the school where he began his college football career in real life before transferring to Michigan State in 2016.
After leading the Bulls to a 7-6 recording and winning the Sun Bowl, he then took his coaching talents to Louisville. At Louisville, he spent one season, winning a conference championship and eventually a College Football Playoff semifinal berth for the Cardinals.
Once that happened, his dream job came calling and he immediately traveled back home to the banks of the Red Cedar in hopes of bringing back Spartan football to prominence.
Matt has a specific goal in mind. To pull off the “Nick Saban Challenge” and cement himself virtually as the greatest coach of all time. The Saban Challenge in CFB 25 is seven national championships, 12 conference championships, winning a national championship with two different schools, averaging 10-plus wins per season in his career, 80-plus percent winning rate over his career.
During his dynasty at Louisville, the idea of streaming all this came in from a friend and former teammate of Seybert's. He decided to stream his gameplay on Twitch so fans could watch and interact with him. He’s been doing that since and seemingly having a blast while doing it.
Streaming his games also gives the fans a unique way to interact with the former Spartan. That’s where I took notice. I’ve followed Matt on Twitter before, as I do with a lot of former Spartans. I also happen to be really into CFB 25 so when I saw he was starting to stream some games, I figured I’d check it out. It’s been a lot of fun getting the chance to chill and watch some good game play while getting a chance to interact with a true Spartan Dawg as well.
Seybert still has real life football aspirations and is grinding daily to achieve those goals.
Like any of us and our normal jobs, it’s gotta be nice to come home and relax after a long day and be able to have some fun in other avenues. The same goes for him and streaming. Getting to play a fun video game and interact with some fans is a plus. I was able to spend some time talking with Seybert about the game as part of an interview I did for Spartan Shadows on his football journey and streaming now as well.
Check out the full interview here.
During the interview, Matt mentioned that:
"I just like sharing the experience with other people who like the game. It’s so fun interacting with everyone in chat."
- Matt Seybert
Seybert also credited the initial games of helping him develop a love for football when he was younger.
His first season in game at Michigan State was a successful one. He lead the Spartans to a 10-2 record and won a Big Ten title. Once qualifying for the playoff, he took the Spartans all the way to the national title game. In that game versus Nebraska, an all-time classic was played. Near 100 points were scored and there were several last minute lead changes. At the end of the game, Seybert's Spartans came out on top, becoming national champions once again.
Seybert is still continuing his dynasty grind. Accomplishing that “Saban Challenge” is no easy task. So far in his second year in East Lansing, he has the virtual Spartans in the College Football Playoff after going 10-3 in the regular season. He just fell short of a Big Ten title, losing to Penn State in Indy.
That loss did not deter him, however.
The former tight end was able to lead the Spartans to playoff wins over Nevada, Louisiana, Georgia, and finally NC State to give himself two national championships in two years in East Lansing.
Seybert is not satisfied at that. He will be continuing his dynasty live on Twitch. He also hopes to start streaming a Lions dynasty now that Madden 25 is out as well. His streams have so far built a fun community and gives fans a place to hang out and talk sports with other MSU fans as well as interact with him.
Spartan fans should check him out on twitter at @mattseybert82, on instagram at @mattseybert80, and watch his streams on Twitch at BigUziBurt80. Keep up with the Traverse City native on socials to follow everything dynasty related, along with his football journey in real life. He is continuing to pursue his dream of playing professional football in real life as well. For more information on his football journey, check out my interview with him over on Spartan Shadows.
Special thank you to Seybert for his time chatting on this and allowing me to share his story. I greatly appreciate it.