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College Football

100 things I love about college football

Kevin Duffey

By Kevin Duffey

Published:

We all know college football is more than just how your team plays on the field on Saturdays.

When the season kicks off, college football changes how you feel about everything. It alters how you plan your week. It changes what kind of food you want to eat. It brings clarity to a life full of clutter and uncertainty. College football ignites your emotions, making you nostalgic about the past while simultaneously anxious about next week’s game.

From the media personalities to tailgating cuisine, from internet memes to Steve Spurrier quotes, college football is many things. There are countless things to love about college football. Let’s start with 100:

  1. The excitement of the first gameday of the year
  2. The early season win streak that leads to optimism 
  3. The first big loss of the year that punches you in the gut and sticks with you for days 
  4. The Bear’s little desk that they cram into the corner of the College GameDay set
  5. Behind the scenes footage of Rece Davis doing his GameDay opening monologues
  6. Thinking about what I might grill and eat on Saturday … on Monday
  7. The “SEC on CBS” music
  8. Putting on my favorite gameday polo at 8 a.m. on Saturday and not taking it off until well after midnight
  9. Sending texts to my Clemson friend about Clemson’s weak schedule
  10. The subjectivity of college football rankings
  11. The pointlessness of college football rankings
  12. The beauty of college football rankings
  13. The fact that the SEC Championship is so much bigger and better than every other conference championship game
  14. Every time Coach O says “Go Tigers”
  15. All of the lame, cheesy interviews Dabo Swinney gives
  16. When Nick Saban loses control on the sideline and shouts obscenities into the ground, sky and headset
  17. Steve Spurrier
  18. When old-timers tell me about awesome games before my time
  19. When my kids flip out at a last second, game-winning touchdown
  20. When my kids put on a Florida Gator shirt because its gameday
  21. When it’s after midnight on Saturday night and I’m alone in a dark house standing up in front of the TV as a close game reaches its conclusion
  22. The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party
  23. Memories of sleeping in my car due to lack of lodging at the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party
  24. Moments like the Kick-6 that result in a permanent memory of where you were and who you were with when it happened
  25. The irrational fans calling for head coach firings a few weeks into the job
  26. Small program teams that have fun moments of national relevance like Boise State and UCF
  27. When the world comes together to root against Notre Dame despite the fact that Notre Dame hasn’t really been any good for decades
  28. Athens, Georgia
  29. Old school college town bars
  30. The Grove
  31. Pointless bowl games in December
  32. When the Heisman Trophy winner cries during his acceptance speech
  33. When Kirk Herbstreit bails out Lee Corso during a segment
  34. The fact that you could probably power a stadium with David Pollack’s enthusiasm
  35. Paul Finebaum’s voice
  36. GameDay signs
  37. When a worthy team gets left out of the Playoff
  38. When half the top 10 loses and chaos ensues 
  39. Taking a double-digit underdog not just to cover, but to win outright
  40. Fat-guy touchdowns
  41. The feeling of being in good hands when Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit are calling your game
  42. Steve Spurrier
  43. College football hype videos on Twitter
  44. Lane Kiffin on Twitter
  45. Mike Leach on anything
  46. The fact that all of a sudden Lane Kiffin and Mike Leach are both coaching in the state of Mississippi
  47. Kirby Smart’s hair cut
  48. Dan Mullen’s smile
  49. Watching SEC fans try to remember the name of Missouri’s head coach
  50. Trying to understand Jimbo Fisher when he’s talking too fast
  51. How hilariously boring Gus Malzahn’s interviews are
  52. The old video of when Will Muschamp punched the whiteboard in the locker room
  53. Tom Petty after the 3rd quarter at Florida games
  54. School administrations battling students over songs like Neck and Dixieland Delight
  55. The annual debate over whether Ohio State should get into the Playoff
  56. The annual debate over whether a 2nd SEC team should get into the Playoff
  57. The annual event of the Pac-12 getting left out of the Playoff
  58. Jim Harbaugh not living up to expectations once again
  59. Statues outside stadiums
  60. That huge new gamecock statue going up outside Williams-Brice Stadium
  61. The fact that donors gave approximately $1 million so that South Carolina could put a huge gamecock statue outside Williams-Brice Stadium
  62. The fact that Alabama’s number of national championships won is unclear
  63. When someone you’ve never met utters something like “War eagle” or “Roll tide” or ‘Woo pig” and you immediately understand each other
  64. Tom Rinaldi making me cry at 9:30 in the morning
  65. When coaches get pissed because the other team ran up the score on them
  66. When they get revenge the next year and run up the score on them
  67. When Nick Saban flipped out a few times during the Tua/Jalen “QB controversy”
  68. 80,000 fans at a spring football game
  69. Team recruiting rankings
  70. Jadeveon Clowney high school football highlights
  71. The messy, thrilling couple of years of Johnny Manziel in college football
  72. The execution of a perfectly timed Tua throw to an Alabama wide receiver
  73. The unstoppable Joe Burrow passing game during the 2019 season
  74. When Jim McElwain got emotional because people online said a naked guy lying on a shark looked like Jim McElwain
  75. When Kevin Sumlin fired a pool guy over Twitter
  76. The Lane Kiffin FAU promo video
  77. Butch Jones one-liners and props when he coached Tennessee
  78. When Tennessee played at Bristol Motor Speedway
  79. “Texas is back”
  80. “Miami is back”
  81. Fans that fill the lobby of a Birmingham hotel on a Tuesday morning in July during SEC Media Days
  82. The fact that SEC Media Days is, until recently, always held at a mall in Birmingham
  83. Steve Spurrier
  84. Surrender cobra
  85. Alabama kicking woes
  86. Ohio State fans wearing jerseys
  87. Old-school traditional uniforms
  88. When Danny Kanell admits the SEC is great
  89. The reality that the SEC is playing college football this week while the Pac-12 isn’t
  90. An annual road trip to a new college town with friends
  91. Arguments over conference supremacy
  92. How “my team wasn’t motivated” after a bowl game loss
  93. But “my conference is way better than your conference” after a bowl game win
  94. Memes. All the memes.
  95. SEC
  96. Football
  97. Is
  98. One
  99. Day
  100. Away
Kevin Duffey

A graduate of the University of Florida and founder of Saturday Down South, Kevin is a college football enthusiast.

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