Mental Abilities
We’ll get to physical abilities later on in this guide, but the big thing to know about CFB 25 Coins Mental Abilities is that they do not progress, and you do not obtain them. They are static and unchanging. If your recruit has zero Mentals when you scout them or get them on campus, they will always have zero.

Nature vs. Nurture is clear on this one in CFB 25.

So How Do You Earn XP?
XP is earned “under the hood” during the offseason, based on stats you accrue during the season, and based on certain coaching abilities (that do stack among your coaches). I don’t think winning awards has much to do with how much XP your players earn — if only because it’s not listed anywhere — but it’s possible it could be a thing because there are tons of coaching goals relating to certain events (plus there seems to be “under the hood” XP being earned elsewhere in dynasty mode).

The coaching abilities that impact XP include:

Motivator tree: Gain extra XP for specific position if another player from that position is drafted in top 3 rounds.
Motivator tree: Get more XP in general for a specific position.
Talent Developer tree: Starters at a position gain XP faster.
Talent Developer tree: Lower-rated players at a position progress faster (this may have to do with offseason training rather than XP since the wording is unclear).
Architect tree: A specific position earns additional XP for in-game goals.
Architect tree: A specific position earns extra XP for every 3-game win streak.

And your players do get in-season improvements. Those green arrows you see within the View Roster screen are legit and do show how your player has improved or is at least boosted right now. To actually see this progress, you won’t really know when you “level up” a player, but you can see the XP progress bar within the Player Card.

Physical Abilities Vs. Ratings
This brings us to spending that XP and also Physicals vs. ratings. Now, it’s a not a new thing for abilities to be a big deal in sports games or EA games, but it’s worth reiterating that the best abilities are better than the best ratings (at least I think so). I’ve seen players with high-90s coverage ratings still crap the bed far too often, but with cheap CFB 25 Coins specific badges those issues drop quite a bit.