From the Couch Sports

College Football is awesome, if it wasn’t fans wouldn’t tune in Saturday after Saturday, year after year, decade after decade. To this day if you were to ask my parents they wouldn’t be able to tell you if I took my first steps first or if I watched my first college football game. It’s that level of dedication that diehard college football fans possess that make this sport so special. I’m sure I’m not the only one with a similar story.

I was born in the mid 90’s, an era where shoulder pads were huge, quarterbacks were either incredibly fast (Tommy Frazier, Charlie Ward, Michael Vick) or incredibly slow (Peyton Manning, Danny Wuerffel, Tim Couch), and “Starter” jackets would begin their legendary run. Conferences looked a lot different then too. The Big East, Pac 10, and WAC thrived and by the end of the 90s only three conferences were playing a conference title game (SEC, Big 12, MAC.) Who could forget the all so dysfunctional AP voting system that determined National Champions and the computer poll that decided the fates of teams aspiring to play in big time bowl games. The berth of the BCS introduced a different level of madness that made losing one game so detrimental to a team that you’d better just go undefeated. It was glorious.

Since then there have been countless changes to the sport. Expanded conferences, the death of other conferences, a college football video game, the end of the college football video game, the rebirth of the college football game, the end of the BCS, the start of the 4 team playoff, the start of the 12 team playoff, NIL, transfer portal, and more importantly smaller shoulder pads.

One constant remains the same in the ever changing college football landscape: The fans. The fans that watch 12 hours of college football on Saturdays, the students who wait outside stadiums for days tailgating and sleeping on concrete before primetime games, and the most loyal enthusiasts who watch mid-week games instead of TV shows with their partners.

It goes without saying, I am one of those aforementioned fans. My entire life I’ve been wrapped around the game. I spent countless Saturdays traveling to Gainesville to see the Gators play in the Swamp. Family plans revolved around any Gator game that was on, to the point that my dad specifically requested Florida football would be on the bar TV at the banquet hall where his 2001 wedding reception was located. It was a sick joke when I joined a flag football league as a young kid and the team I was “drafted” by was the Seminoles. We had no choice but to wear garnet and gold on game-day but made sure to put our Gator gear in the car for the ride home.

For someone growing up in my generation, it was so easy to be indoctrinated into the sport. Big games were on national TV, college football highlights were always shown on SportsCenter, and college football video games were everywhere. The companies that developed those games put so much effort into stadium environments, fight songs, uniforms, mascots, and cool plays like doubles passes and option runs. I mean who could forget game modes like Mascot Mash Up, Dynasty, and Race for the Heisman?

Time and time again, I looked forward to Saturdays like Christmas. I’d wake up and watch College GameDay, go play in my game, then come home and watch football until I fell asleep. I can remember watching the 2001 Heisman winner Eric Crouch on TV running all over Big 12 defenses and I’d go into my sock drawer, grab my long red socks and run around in the backyard juking ant piles and fallen branches. I’d run myself tired, go inside for dinner and watch the primetime game until my bed time. On Sunday’s our regional television sports network, Sun Sports, would feature a condensed game of the previous Saturday’s Gator game. Even though I had just watched the game less than 24 hours before, I’d tune in to that as if I didn’t know the result. My mom thought I was stupid, maybe I was, maybe I still am. There’s a limited amount (12-14 at that time) college football games for my team each season, I had to make the most of it.

I am not alone, there are thousands and thousands of crazy fans like me who eat, breathe, and sleep college football. We hum fight songs, name our pets after coaches, athletes, or mascots, and have more memorabilia than we know what to do with.

Not only is this letter for college football, it’s for those crazy fans like me who just can’t get enough of those glorious, chaotic Saturdays in the Fall.