How to Understand Gems in College Football 25

When it comes to recruiting and scouting, gems still seem to be confusing some folks, so this guide is for everyone who wonders about green gems, red gems, and then no gems that pop up during the scouting progress.

What Are Gems?

In short, gems simply have to do with the development trait. There are four development traits in the game:

• Normal: These players are most common, and progress at a standard rate. Expect them to steadily grow over their career.
• Impact: The type of player that can really change a team. They’ll progress faster than normal, with higher upside.
• Star: A potential Sunday player. There are very few of these to go around and they’ll establish themselves early as fast learners.
• Elite: The best of the best. These players will make a statement the moment they get on campus and have the potential to be an all-time great.

You will only see this development trait after Signing Day hits, unless you have the Mind Reader ability in the Strategist coaching tree.

These development traits will define how quickly your player earns XP, which in turn earns them coins that they can spend on ratings and abilities. You have no control over what your players spend those coins on, but you can obviously help players earn more XP by playing well on the field or having certain coaching abilities. That said, those sorts of details are better left for a more in-depth article about player progression, so just understand that the gems apply to the likelihood of getting certain development traits, but they don’t apply one-to-one to the ratings caps that players might have.

Do Green Gems Mean You Always Get Star and Elite Development Traits?

The answer is no. A green gem will not usually have a Normal development trait (but it is possible as you can see above), but he could have an Impact development trait and so on. So think of green gems in terms of probabilities. Green gems don’t guarantee anything, but it’s likely the development trait will at least be Impact more times than not.

Do Red Gems Mean You Will Always Get Normal Development Traits?

By that same logic, red gems/gems with the X through them don’t mean you’ll always get Normal development traits (again, as seen above). It’s very unlikely you’ll get the Elite trait, and it’s more likely you do get a Normal dev trait, but there are still a range of outcomes.

If you see a red gem, it does not mean that player is necessarily a bust, it’s just more likely they will have a worse development trait. And a worse development trait will impact both your in-season and offseason progression because you will earn XP at a slower rate, and XP is what drives ratings boosts and ability upgrades (beyond the somewhat random offseason progression).

So What About No Gems?

Anything is possible with these players as you can see above with the best development trait on a normal four-star prospect. You need to understand that Elite development traits are rare regardless of what the gem says, and you can get Elite development traits on even “normal” prospects. Again, Elite is very rare so you shouldn’t put too much focus on finding them. In a way, they’re a bit like five-star recruits, and I think part of the reason is the shock and surprise of unearthing an Elite player once they’ve made it on campus.

So What To Make Of The Gems System Overall?

You need to realize that the gems system is just one part of the progression pie. Green gems are the best and red gems are the worst for the odds on your development traits, but ratings caps, star rating, coaching abilities, and what year a player is in his career are all going to impact in-season and offseason progression for these players — not the gems themselves.

You also need to remember that progression is based not just on attributes but on abilities. Again, players will spend coins on ability upgrades and ratings. So just because your player is not going up in ratings as much as you’d expect with a Star/Elite dev trait, they might be buying ability upgrades instead and thus still getting more dangerous on the field.

Overall, the gems are never going to give you the complete story, but as you become a better team and have more recruitment hours that you can then “waste” on scouting, you can start to consider gems with more importance. At a top-end school, a three-star red gem will not usually be worth your time, but a four or five-star red gem could still end up being salvageable. At a lower-end school, you might not have much time for scouting anyway, so it’s best to just worry about the star rating of the player and hope for the best with the development trait.

As a final reminder, gems have next to nothing to do with your starting overall rating, and you can figure out general ratings by just looking at the scouting numbers anyway. Gems are just there to give you probabilities about development traits, and development traits are there to give you an idea of how fast your player could develop if things break the right way.