The Immortal American Beauty of College Football
"Far beyond a simple game being played on a gridiron, NCAA football is about loyalty to something you love. About a time and place that’s never stops being a part of you. It is uniquely American."
Last night I saw a picture that was not only worth a thousand words, but also reflected 155 years, 772 colleges, hundreds of millions of fans of every age — and an enduring American tradition that is totally unique among the world’s 195 countries.
The image was a cutaway TV shot of six people out of the 102,819 on hand to watch the Ohio Buckeyes host the Tennessee Volunteers in Saturday’s primetime playoff football game. It made me smile so wide I rewound the video to take a screenshot.
The Buckeyes had just scored to go up 13-0. Ohio Stadium was rocking louder than the Stones playing Wembley. And somehow one cameraman had the perfect shot to cut to: A smiling Tennessee fan in his blinding orange Volunteer sweatshirt and ski cap throwing his hands up in frustration — surrounded by five OSU fans in their own full gear — mocking their guest in the most friendly way possible.
It was the most American kind of camaraderie, but one we don’t see enough of anymore. There is something deeply special about college football.
The Bucks ended up crushing the Vols 42-17. Ohio State is really good this year (most years). I don’t love saying that, as they were the lone team this fall to beat Indiana University (my alma mater) in our Cinderella season. Yet there was still nothing I’d rather be doing on a Saturday night than watching a huge college football matchup.
I must confess, I watch at least some part of a college football game about five nights a week between September and January. But I’m far from the only one obsessed. NCAA football is the #1 collegiate sport in America, and second among all sports leagues, trailing only the NFL.
I got hooked for the first time, and for good, when my Dad took me to the 1984 Orange Bowl. In that famous national championship game, with no time left on the clock, Nebraska was down one point after scoring a 25-yard touchdown. In a surprise decision, they went for the win by attempting a two-point conversion. The pass was blocked at the goal line, securing an upset victory and the first-ever title for the University of Miami. It was 40 years ago, but the sound and thrill of that stadium in that moment are ingrained in the minds of millions of Americans.
The first college football game ever played was in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers. It was more like disorganized soccer; no passing or running, and a circular ball. By the turn of the century, players were not only carrying the oval, they were tackling each other without mercy. In 1905, the Chicago Tribune reported 19 players had been killed that season. President Theodore Roosevelt, whose son’s nose had been broken playing for Harvard, convened the college presidents at the White House and pushed them to change the rules. Among them, the forward pass. The game entered a new era, and never looked back.
But for most NCAA football fans, passion for the sport is far more about which team you’re rooting for and why. Sure, it’s a game on a gridiron. But it’s also about loyalty to something you love. About a time and place that’s never stops being a part of you. ESPN’s Joe Tessitore boiled it down in the network’s 2019 documentary on college football:
“It’s your identity. It’s your religion. It’s how you view yourself. It connects to our core. That visceral reaction. That need to be part of something. A tribe. You can’t help but want to be a part of it.”
Where you went to school and where you grew up are powerful things. So, too, are memories and nostalgia of who you first started cheering for. Diane Roberts is a professor of English at Florida State University. A huge college football fan, she says in her family, FSU was almost a blood type:
“I seriously knew that I was a Seminole before I knew that I was female, or that we were white. The Seminole thing came first.”
And once you know who your team is, all of the tradition and pageantry sucks you in even deeper: Fight songs. Tailgating. Rankings. Rivalries (many or them more than a century old). Annual intra-state battles. Betting… And don’t forget the bands. In plenty of fans’ eyes, they’re even bigger than the ballgame.
Last Friday, all of these worlds collided for me on the very same night. The most storied college football program in history, Notre Dame University (not a fan), hosted my Indiana Hoosiers in the first round of the 12-team playoff. I could not wait. Even though I was in Bloomington in 1987 when IU won the NCAA Basketball Championship, I always loved the football team a lot more. And on the two days when got to do play-by-play from Memorial Stadium on college radio, I was in heaven.
Indiana was a 7.5-point underdog against the Fighting Irish on Friday. It would be a tough lift for them to win. But I bet on them anyway. My father, who knows my love for IU, didn’t tell me he bet Notre Dame until the following day. I would have survived, but he didn’t want to ruin my optimism on Friday. That’s college football.
Two of my friends from IU sent me photos of them and the Hoosier crowd from different seat locations in “the house that Rockne built,” Notre Dame Stadium. It literally warmed my heart. That’s college football.
The guys I played golf with on Saturday made a few jokes about the Hoosiers. One of them is a Minnesota alum, another Michigan, another Arizona State (a team I also love, just from teaching there). The ribbing was fun — because we all love the game. That’s college football. The camaraderie of college football.
Indiana didn’t play its best, and lost to Notre Dame 27-17. But in the hours and days that preceded it, I was like a kid waiting for Hanukkah. As I mentioned, I watch a lot of college football. But it’s just plain different when it’s your school. And no matter which team is favored by how much, there’s always that hope that your squad will pull off the upset. Anything is possible before that ball gets kicked off. And for at least a few minutes after…
Finally, back to that Ohio State game on Saturday night. Of those 100,000+ fans in Ohio Stadium, approximately 30,000 were Tennessee fans. ABC’s Kirk Herbstreit, who played for OSU when I was at IU and has been broadcasting NCAA football for 30 years, said he’s never seen anything close to that many visiting fans.
While I’m neither a Buckeye nor a Volunteer fan, hearing about that passionate show of support and seeing that cutaway shot of the disappointed yet spirited Tennessee fan made my nerdy night. And I would say that even if I hadn’t bet on Ohio State.
That’s college football. It is one of the purest of American pastimes.
MICHAEL GOLDEN’s new book, STAYING ALIVE: TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS OF A MANIC MIND, will be released in early January, 2025.
