Sports
How an Emmy-winning composer and 85 musicians created College Football 25's theme song
They gathered in a 100-year-old Gothic church-turned-recording studio, a couple of blocks from Vanderbilt’s campus in Nashville. Eighty-five musicians, with their brass, wind and percussion instruments, cycled through the sanctuary to contribute to a unique task: Recording a song that fit the grandeur of the return of a college football video game.
The thunder of a spring storm boomed outside and a brood of cicadas chirped relentlessly. Inside, the orchestra created “Campus Clash,” the theme song for EA Sports College Football 25, arguably the most highly-anticipated sports video game of the past decade.
Steve Schnur, the worldwide executive and president of music for Electronic Arts, felt the game’s revival deserved a track that was unique yet true to the traditional sound of the sport. He recruited Emmy-winning composer Kris Bowers to craft an arrangement and gathered the orchestra to produce an original song that stands out among the game’s extensive library of fight songs and rousers.
A video game soundtrack can quickly become an earworm as players sink into the game for hours. It must be not only tolerable but enjoyable on repeat. That might especially be the case for College Football 25, which was released this week after an 11-year hiatus since the last NCAA Football game.
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“Campus Clash” features a strong brass melody and a funky drumline beat with a swagger. It wouldn’t be out of place as a hype-building theme opening a broadcast of a prime-time game, but Schnur is adamant that nostalgia isn’t the only ingredient.
“This is not going to sound like the band you heard on a marching band field in 1985 or in 2005,” he said.
More than 2,000 miles away from Nashville, Bowers listened in to the recording while working from his studio in Los Angeles. Best known for composing the scores of films like “Green Book” and “The Color Purple” as well as Netflix’s hit show “Bridgerton,” Bowers is also a video game veteran. He composed for two previous iterations of Madden and also wrote the main themes for the upcoming Madden 25 and NHL 25 games.
A double graduate of Juilliard with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in jazz performance, Bowers didn’t get a lot of exposure to the sounds of college sports as a student because the prestigious performing arts school doesn’t have any athletic teams. To write something that would fit into a gameday atmosphere, he studied the sound of college marching bands. Schnur sent him the fight songs in the game to “get a sense of little drumline phrases that might be interesting to borrow” for the original composition, Bowers said.
“It’s definitely an amalgamation of sounds, but the biggest thing for us was for it to have this balance between a classic football theme that we’ve heard before but at the same time have it have a modern feel to it that feels a little bit different from things you’ve heard on TV for decades,” Bowers said.
To achieve that, Bowers pulled from contemporary tracks with marching bands, focusing on hip-hop songs that use brass melodies. Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella performance, which was an homage to HBCUs, and Mystikal’s “Bouncin’ Back (Bumpin’ Me Against The Wall)” were two big sources of inspiration.
Bowers begins his composition process by pinpointing the emotion of the scene (or, in this case, game). He wants the piece to make him feel the same way. Composing for video games can be challenging because there are no narrative beats to act as guides for a shifting sound or a punctuating note as there are in shows and movies. For this release, it was all about creating something that made gamers feel fired up.
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The goal is to have the theme transcend the game and become ingrained in college football culture.
“Hopefully in the future we can record other bands doing their version of it,” Bowers said. “Now that we have this version of it, even though we want the melody and the main melodic aspect of the theme to be something that sticks around, we want it to have its own life in terms of how its played and performed from here on out. Ideally if people really embrace that then we’d be able to celebrate other schools doing their version.”
Required reading
(Photo of Kris Bowers: Unique Nicole / Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Sports
LIV Golf stars commit to staying put after Brooks Koepka’s departure, return to PGA Tour
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Brooks Koepka may have returned to the PGA Tour following a stint at LIV Golf, but do not expect the Saudi-backed league’s other biggest stars to join in.
Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith all committed to staying put when speaking to reporters on Tuesday at a preseason press conference.
“I had no idea, no idea that that would happen.” DeChambeau said. “No idea what the penalties would even be. Right now, I’ve got a contract. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do at LIV Golf this year.”
Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm walk to the eighth green during the first round of the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club on June 2, 2022. (Adam Cairns/The Columbus Dispatch)
“I made a decision to come out here and spend more time at home, and I’m not giving that away. I’ll be on LIV for years to come,” added Smith, who won the 2022 Open Championship shortly before officially committing to LIV.
DeChambeau and Smith each left in 2022, but Rahm was perhaps the biggest surprise. Once very outspoken against LIV, he joined the league in December 2023.
In August 2024, he shut down rumors of buyer’s remorse to Fox News Digital, and that still appears to be the case.
“I’m not planning on going anywhere. Very similar answer to what Bryson gave. I wish Brooks the best. As far as I’m concerned, I’m focused on the league and my team this year, and hopefully we can repeat as champions again,” Rahm said.
Koepka’s decision came weeks after he revealed he would be leaving the rival series.
“I want to thank my family and my team for their continued support throughout every step of my professional career,” he wrote on social media. “When I was a child, I always dreamed about competing on the @PGATOUR, and I am just as excited today to announce that I am returning to the PGA TOUR. Being closer to home and spending more time with my family makes this opportunity especially meaningful to me.
Brooks Koepka, of the United States, acknowledges the crowd on the 5th green during the first round of the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland, July 17, 2025. (Peter Morrison, File/AP Photo)
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“I believe in where the PGA TOUR is headed with new leadership, new investors, and an equity program that gives players a meaningful ownership stake,” he continued. “I also understand there are financial penalties associated with this decision, and I accept those.”
Koepka said he planned to be at the Farmers Insurance Open and the Waste Management Phoenix Open in the coming weeks.
PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said Koepka’s return sparked the Returning Member Program for those who left the company and may decide to follow in Koepka’s footsteps.
Rolapp said Koepka agreed to a few conditions upon his return to the PGA Tour. It included a “five-year forfeiture of potential equity in the PGA Tour’s Player Equity Program, representing one of the largest financial repercussions in professional sports history, with estimations that he could miss out on approximately $50–85 million in potential earnings, depending on his competitive performance and the growth of the Tour,” according to Rolapp. Koepka will also make a $5 million charitable donation to an organization yet to be determined.
Brooks Koepka during the second round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Quail Hollow. (Aaron Doster/Imagn Images)
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Koepka became the first person to return to the PGA Tour after defecting for LIV.
Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
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Sports
Luka Doncic plays and scores 27 points as the Lakers rout the Hawks
Luka Doncic and LeBron James were listed as questionable for the Lakers’ back-to-back game Tuesday night against the Atlanta Hawks. Doncic because of left groin soreness, James because of left foot joint arthritis and right sciatica.
Also, checking the stat sheet before the game, the Lakers were listed as one of the worst three-point shooting teams and one of the worst defensive shooting percentage teams in the league.
Well, Luka played and LeBron played and the Lakers shot lights-out from three-point range and were solid across the board on defense while i rolling over the Hawks 141-116 at Crypto.com Arena.
Doncic felt soreness in his groin when the Lakers played at Sacramento on Monday night and was unsure about playing Tuesday. But he played and delivered 27 points, 12 assists and five rebounds.
James didn’t play in the second game of a back-to-back game last week at New Orleans and San Antonio and said he will be listed as TBD, to be determined, in such scenarios. But James played against the Hawks and nearly produced a triple-double with 31 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds.
Coming into the game, opponents were shooting 48.8% from the field and 37.4% from three against the Lakers, ranking them 28th and 26th, respectively, in the NBA.
The Hawks began the game ranked fourth in three-point shooting, making 37.4%, and they were ranked eighth in field-goal percentage, making 43.6%.
All of the above made for a bad recipe for the Lakers entering the game.
But when the game started, none of that mattered to the Lakers, who held the Hawks to 45% shooting and 28.3% from three-point range.
The Lakers shot 55.9% (19 for 34) from three-point range.
The Lakers’ big lead was sliced to 11 points in the fourth.
But back-to-back three-pointers by James and Marcus Smart, both off passes from Doncic, and a Doncic basket gave them a 19-point lead, and they never looked back.
The Lakers scored 81 points in the first half, a season-high for points in a half, a half in which they opened a 23-point lead and had the Hawks reeling from the beginning.
Doncic missed just one of his six three-pointers in the first half. Gabe Vincent came off the bench and missed just one of his four three-pointers in the first half.
Rui Hachimura had missed the previous seven games with a right calf strain but was back in action against the Hawks. He had seven points and two rebounds in 18 minutes.
ETC: The Lakers signed guard Kobe Bufkin to a 10-day contract Tuesday. The 6-foot-5 Bufkin played in seven games for the South Bay Lakers, the Lakers’ G League team, where he averaged 28.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and 5.0 assists over seven games. He has appeared in 27 career NBA games over two seasons with the Hawks. “You know, during the stretch, we’ll have opportunities during this 10-day,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said…. Backup center Jaxson Hayes didn’t play against the Hawks because of left hamstring soreness. Redick said Hayes got some “imaging” Tuesday on his injury and that the Lakers will have “more information” going forward.
Sports
Mike Tomlin stepping down as Steelers head coach: reports
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Mike Tomlin is stepping down as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, according to multiple reports.
Tomlin’s decision on Tuesday came after a blowout loss against the Houston Texans in the AFC Wild Card Round of the playoffs. It marked the Steelers’ seventh straight postseason defeat.
This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.
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