The Team Builder feature has returned in College Football 26, allowing you to hand-craft your own school and team to dominate the country. The feature arrived with CFB 25 last summer but had myriad problems that EA has attempted to fix with a new version. Just like last year, Team Builder is access via a website you use to go through the entire customization process of designing a new team, or you can import a team made by the developers or the community.

Either way you decide to go, you’ll need to ensure that you understand the mechanics of Team Builder and how to use it to craft your dream school in College Football 26. The guide explains everything you need to know about the website and its features.

Best way to access the Team Builder website

First and foremost, while EA has stated that the Team Builder website has been optimized with the new version, you’ll likely still have a difficult time accessing it. This especially goes for Google Chrome users, as the website simply doesn’t load half the time when using this particular browser. The same issue has plagued CFB 25 players over the past year.

If you intend to try to use Chrome, EA recommends you turn “Graphics Acceleration” on in your browser. This can be done using the following steps:

• Click the three dots in the upper-right corner of your browser window
• Head to Settings
• Click System
• Enable “Use graphics acceleration when available“

However, if you want less trouble accessing and using Team Builder, you’ll want to try out other browsers, such as Firefox, Opera GX, or Microsoft Edge. While you might still have some issues, you won’t have nearly as many if you were to stick with Chrome.

How to use the Team Builder website in College Football 26

Now that you’re taking the right steps to ensure a smooth(ish) experience, let’s talk about how to start using Team Builder.

For starters, you want to head to the Team Builder site and sign in to your EA account. You want to ensure that this EA account is the one linked to your console’s profile so it can import your team properly.

Once you’re signed into your EA account, you’ll be directed to the Team Builder home page. Here, you can see some already-made teams you can import to your game, including ones directly from fans in the community. At the top of the screen, you’ll be able to click a “Create” button to get started crafting your own team. If you want full control over your team’s colors, logo, name, etc., then you’ll want to press “Create.” However, this can be a time-consuming process, so if you want something quick and already done for you, then just pick one of the existing teams in Team Builder.

As a note, choosing to create your own team will make the Team Builder website struggle more than if you just import an existing team, so keep that in mind as well, especially if you’re on Chrome.

If you decide to create a team, press the “Create” button, and you’ll be brought to the first page of Team Builder. This page has you selecting your team name, nickname, city, state, logos, colors, apparel brand, and fonts. Simply go down the menu on the left side of the screen and customize everything to your liking.

When you’re done with the first section, “School Info,” open up the next section, which is “Logos.” Keep doing this until you get to the final section, “Fonts.” After everything on the first page has been customized, look at the top of the screen. Here, you’ll see several tabs, with the first being “Brand.” Choose the next tab, “Uniforms,” to visit a new page and start customizing your team’s jerseys, home/away/alternate uniforms, and more.

For the uniforms, you can choose a variety of options and add several alternate uniforms as well. If you want some inspiration for your uniforms, make sure to check out our list of the top 10 overall uniforms in College Football 26.

Continue to go through the tabs at the top of the page, which are “Stadium & Field,” “Program,” and “Roster,” until you’re done with everything. The Program and Roster sections will likely take you the longest amount of time. Program involves selecting your playbooks, type of offense and defense you’ll run, rivalries with other schools, and recruiting strategies.

Meanwhile, the Roster section can be a slow or quick process. This section allows you to hand-pick every player on the roster, which means going through nearly 100 players, making sure you have depth at every position, assigning each player attributes, and even customizing how each one looks. However, you can also use the default options the Team Builder site offers for your roster, which is by far the fastest way to go. If you want full control over the roster, though, you can meticulously customize each player on the team.

After all of that, make sure everything you want customized is in order. If it is, then go to the “Submit” button in the top-right corner of the page. This will save your team and allow you to import it directly to your College Football 26 account.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com