AUMB playing the theme song for College Football ‘26 created by EA sports, making them the first marching band to do so. The game releases officially on July 10, 2025 at 11 a.m. central time. Upon loading the game, Auburn fans and gamers alike will hear AUMB playing their composition of the theme.
College Football ‘25 was the first college football game in 11 years from EA, the predecessor being College Football ‘14, released in 2013. Released on July 19, 2024, College Football ‘25 became one of the highest grossing games in history.
Having 2.8 million players total, with 2.2 million of those players being early access. Players excited for the game paid $100 for early access and also had the option to pay $150 to bundle the deluxe versions of College Football ‘25 and Madden NFL 25. Similar to what players can do for College Football ‘26.
College Football is known as a franchise to have music traditionally recorded by EA themselves, while they also request music and chants from colleges and universities in the game to implement when playing in certain stadiums. When playing in Jordan-Hare stadium, players should expect to hear “Swag Surfin’” in College Football ‘26.
As for getting AUMB to record the theme for College Football ‘26, EA feature producer, Torsten Staley expressed the excitement that went into the collaboration.
“From day one, they’ve been awesome with us and as soon as we started the recording process, [the same], they were on top of it,” Staley said.
Staley also gave insight into developing the musical catalog for the full game. Explaining that there are over 90 new musical pieces, and the insight into collecting the tracks for the game. Staley explained that he and his team will request track and chant lists from schools within the game to use when playing in their stadium.
However, when it came to developing the theme for the game, Staley and his team were met with a tough decision.
“We have been keeping tabs on different ideas […] One of the things that came on our radar pretty quickly was the Metallica Marching Band competition. Obviously, it’s a very well known band, so we were like ‘this could be interesting,’” Staley said. “We watched the Metallica show Auburn had done, and we realized we’d like to promote the winner of the competition [which was Auburn].”
In 2023, AUMB won the Metallica Marching band competition, with their show, “For whom the bell tolls.” This win garnered them many accolades, and they still revel in it today.
Development for the theme started in late November 2024, with recording sessions taking place in the first week of December 2024, the last few weeks of classes for students. Drum major Ross Tolbert gave a student perspective to recording with EA.
“[…] It was kind of odd when we started recording it and working on it. It was the end of our season, which is usually when we’re doing nothing, it was odd but fun to start something new when the semester was ending,” Tolbert said.
Tolbert explained that the timing was challenging for many students in the band, as it was finals week and AUMB has a diverse set of students with majors of different rigor. Though, they recorded on the last day of class, it was still hard since students were “burned out.” Tolbert also explained that during this point in the semester, most bands and teams in the SEC and other conferences would typically be granted a break until playoffs started.
Tolbert expressed gratitude for AUMB directors Corey Spurlin and Nikki Gross for presenting the band with the opportunity to be the first marching band to record the theme for EA’s College Football.
“I think it speaks a lot to many things in our organization. First and foremost the leadership that we have with our two directors, Dr. Spurlin and Dr. Gross. Without them, we would not be anywhere near the succusses that we’ve had in the past few years,” Tolbert said. “It speaks a lot that EA specifically chose us to do this out of all of the other marching bands in the world. That’s purely because we have so many wonderfully talented musicians in our 380 person ensemble every year.”
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Brychelle Brooks, senior majoring in public and professional writing with a minor in information systems, has been with The Auburn Plainsman since August 2023. She previously served as the Campus Reporter, Opinion Editor and Newsletter Editor. She is currently serving as the Editor-in-Chief.
