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Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium is seen as one of the most difficult places to play

Joe Cookby: Joe Cook06/29/25josephcook89
Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium
Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium (Joe Cook/Inside Texas)

The return of the EA Sports college football video game and the upcoming release of the 2025 edition has provided yet another way to create objective ratings and rankings on the most subjective topics in the sport. The game features “toughest places to play” among the top homefields in college football, and Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium is viewed as one of the more difficult locations for visiting teams to enter and exit with a win.

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The game ranked DKR as the No. 13 toughest place to play in college football.

What makes a place difficult to play in? The rankings indicate that the top 25 was crafted with two things in mind. The first is sheer volume created by those in attendance. The second is the presence of a good team in that stadium.

For the most part, the top 25 from EA Sports College Football 26 features top teams that play in massive stadiums with small exceptions here and there. The efforts to create an objective ranking from one of the most subjective aspects of college football shouldn’t be received as the final world and gospel on difficult environments. After all, there’s a non-zero chance that some of the teams in the top 15 suffer debilitating losses in their home stadiums this year.

For Texas, the No. 13 ranking is a signal that points toward Steve Sarkisian’s success over the past few seasons. The Longhorns have lost just three games in Austin over the past three years, and those losses were to teams that finished ranked in the top six of their respective seasons. The good team that plays on Campbell-Williams Field motivates the 100,000 in attendance to support them, creating a feedback loops that emboldens Longhorns fans in Austin.

The Longhorns will play in four of the top 25 toughest places to play in the upcoming season, including No. 3 Ohio Stadium, No. 4 Sanford Stadium, No. 7 Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, and No. 25 Davis Wade Stadium. Though the Oklahoma Sooners are on the schedule every year, Texas plays OU in the Cotton Bowl and not Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman. Texas’ ability to maintain road warrior status will be put to the test in some difficult locales in 2025.

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Renovations to DKR and the reinvigoration of the football program under Sarkisian has put Texas in the thick of these types of lists. As Django Walker says, Darrell K Royal is 100,000 strong and that six-figure crowd has been recognized as one of the more hostile for opposing teams in college football.

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