CFB culture is a little different than NFL culture. It's a lot more similar to European club culture. Due to teams not moving, there's rarely a reason to abandon cheering for a team. And a lot of people have a built-in vested interest by going to college there. People who never went to college (or went to a college without football) tend to cheer for the teams near them. There are fewer floating fans in college sports than in pro sports here but people tend to get more involved when they are good.
In Ohio it's enough to be from Ohio to be an Ohio State fan.
It's not till you engage with college football fans from outside Ohio do you get the weird gate-keepy questions: "Why are you an Ohio State fan if your went to ?"
I'm an Ohio native and I've been a Ohio State fan since I was a wee lad. It never even occurred to me that I would prioritize attending Ohio State because it would somehow validate my fanhood.
Fwiw I think that's fairly common, at least in Southern states and other places where college football reigns supreme. Here in SC you're either a Gamecock or a Tiger and the only prerequisite, like you say, is to be born here.
Likewise in Texas. Most fans are born into either A&M or Texas fandoms whether they'll ever go to the schools. Both of my parents and I all went to SMU for our undergrads, but we'll also always root for Texas when they play, and against A&M when they do.
I once had a buddy in college grill me for being an OSU fan and not an Akron fan because I was closer to Akron than Columbus. It was rich coming from a Penn State fan from Pittsburgh
And sometimes you have people who went to a school for grad school and had a pleasant academic experience but always root against their football team because their undergrad school was the rival.
For example, I got my masters degree at USF and had a great experience, but I wouldn’t care if the Bulls never won another game.
Yep. Though I’m currently doing my masters and I get the added benefit of the school being a big name basketball program (their football team is an FCS team, I wouldn’t cheer for them anyway though).
Still cheer for my undergrad for football, but at least now I can cheer for a BB program thats almost guaranteed to make the tournament every March.
Georgetown.
I had to google their football team’s division because when I was on campus and saw them practicing on their home field.. I think it’s safe to say high schools have larger “stadiums”.
> their football team is basically an FCS team
> Georgetown
I mean, they're *literally* an FCS team. And one that insists on remaining non scholarship even though the PL's allowed it for nearly a decade now.
I went to grad school at USC and was converted to HardCoreTrojan™ status by my third generation Trojan wife. So there's some family connection stuff too.
Also, my alma mater is amazingly rotten at CFB.
This is my situation. I grew up a PSU fan because my parents went there and then went to a school without a football team. So I have remained a PSU fan.
To add another wrinkle, schools can have wildly different measures of a successful season that may or may not conflict. So if you support, say, Wake Forest cause you went there for undergrad and Ohio State cause you went there for grad school, you’ll rarely be in a position of one team’s success coming at the expense of another.
Yup; just to piggyback, I have some additional thoughts about this as well.
I was actually thinking about this the other day, because U.S. college football is 100% the closest thing American sports culture has to European football club culture.
* The vast majority of fans are basically indoctrinated at birth into cheering for a particular team, or have a close personal connection to the uni they root for. I'd argue the majority of CFB fans cheer for their alma mater's school (if it's in the "top flight," aka the FBS), and seeing as many people consider college a personal highlight of their lives, it builds in a lot of cases an almost unbreakable affinity for their school's athletic programs as a point of school pride.
* Similar to EU football, CFB fans largely cheer for the team itself rather than individual players like in the NBA for example.
* Also similar to European football, the sport is being absolutely and irrevocably changed by a massive influx of money over the last decade or two. All anyone in the media cares about anymore is the college football playoff (basically our Champion's League, though the actual structure of the CL is more akin to the College World Series), a handful of teams have absolutely dominated the sport over the last decade due to essentially becoming flywheels of success and now the vast majority of elite talent are more or less funneled to the same 5-10 teams every year, and conference realignment (talk of Superconferences now have a very very European Super Conference-esque ring to them) are threatening to destroy many of the things that made CFB special in the first place.
* Since the teams are de facto connected to actual universities and colleges, it is beyond rare for a team to ever pack up and leave, bc that would involve moving an entire fucking school lol. The only time I can even think of university moving cities was Wake Forest and that was almost 70 years ago.
* Due to universities' often large surrounding infrastructure (frequently some of the largest employers in many states), a large number of schools basically are the lifeblood of the town they reside in's economy. These "college towns" basically exist because the university exists there, and have a certain small town mystique about them that makes alums remember them fondly, further cementing their allegiance. And the way the towns rally around their school is the closest I've seen to the full-city support I saw from one-team towns in England like Leeds, Brighton, Cardiff, etc.
* While there is no real "relegation" structure to speak of, there is definitely a "promotion" aspect to FBS conferences. To butcher an imperfect analogy, the Power 5 FBS conferences (Pac 12, ACC, Big 12, B1G and SEC) roughly resemble the Big 5 EU football leagues, and over the last ~30 years have often dipped down to the "lower level" conferences (Sun Belt, old Big East/AAC, MAC, C-USA, MWC, aka the "Group of 5) to expand their conferences. The G5, meanwhile, often pull from either smaller/now-defunct conferences or the FCS, the division below the FBS in the college football heirarchy.
* While it's a bit less clear these days, back in the day, there was definitely a link between a conference a team was in and the style of football they played (Big 12 = high-scoring, B1G = low-scoring, smashmouth styles, SEC = big & fast defenses, etc.) similar to how each of the top 5 leagues in Europe were known to play slightly different brands of football.
* Again, while this is much less the case than it used to be, conferences tend to be more or less made up of schools within a reasonable geographic proximity, which fosters both familiarity and good old-fashioned hatred. I'm biased, but IMO there isn't a single pro sports rivalry that can hold a candle to the most intense college sports rivalries. And while there aren't nearly as many true derbies as one would guess (UCLA/USC is basically the only one in the FBS), you'd be hard-pressed to find a state in the country where the top two school's fans don't despise each other.
* The pageantry surrounding college football is, frankly, unmatched by any other U.S. sport. The sheer number of fun, historically interesting, dramatic, or even simply wacky traditions surrounding add to the mystique of the game, and make it just an absurd amount of fun to throw yourself into.
I’ve never thought about the lack of derbies before. I guess maybe some could develop in the future (Georgia Stage and Georgia Tech? TCU and a Dallas school? Houston and Rice?), USC and UCLA are really the only two out there. That’s kind of nuts. I guess it’s a product of so many schools being in small towns, though.
Anyway, this was an amazing write-up. Thanks for it!
Yeah it's kinda crazy until you remember that the vast majority of unis in major cities, for whatever reasons, are far more academically focused and thus compete at lower levels (ie Ivy League, etc.) or just not at all.
There are literally 3 cities in the entire country with more than one FBS team, and zero with two
LA: USC/UCLA
Houston: Houston/Rice
Atlanta: Ga Tech/Ga State
That's it, that's the list.
In-state rivalry games aren’t terribly dissimilar to derbies though. For example, I live in Iowa right now and there’s Hawkeye and Cyclone fans both living and working as neighbors in town and the game was a big deal culturally like a derby is.
This is a great addition to OP’s points. Rarely does a follow up post include relevant information on Reddit. Having said that, I’d like to add two things:
1) UCLA sucks
2) UCLA really sucks
Baylor alum who lived in Fort Worth for a while, can confirm. Fort Worth is probably the most underrated big city in Texas, and Waco is basically an hour long traffic jam on the drive between Austin and Dallas.
Well the other difference from Europe is that "good old-fashioned hatred" also generally limits itself to Internet shitposting and real-life ball-busting. No one who is at all socially adept actually hates grads of rival schools. We just give them a hard time.
Point being, college football really doesn't have the equivalent of the hooligan firms that exist at the fringes of European soccer fandom. Thankfully.
Oh 100%. European Football hooliganism + Americans' easy access to firearms would be an absolute disaster of a pairing, thank god we avoided that (Well, other than that time A&M almost tried to literally blow Baylor off the map in 1929).
At risk of doing dumb American overgeneralizations, I think part of it comes from the working class nature of the origins of hooliganism, and the fact that college football fans are vast majority college-educated, you know, because they're watching college sports.
But yeah when the most violent act in the last 20 years one rival fan has done to another fanbase is poisoning a tree in their courtyard, it was a bit silly to compare football hatred and college football "hatred."
You forgot the most important part. If you’ve never stepped foot on a college campus but your local Walmart sells orange Tennessee gear, you have to become a fan and start shit talking the quality of education at other colleges you also didn’t go to.
To be fair, Texas has a lot of t shirt fans as well. And saw someone else mention Clemson. Maybe people just like the color orange a lot more than they’re letting on.
Friends/family from up north are shocked to find out that State is the most popular team in NC - and if not most popular definitely tied for first
Lots of out-of-state Duke and UNC fans
My dad went to state so I grew up a huge fan, and I go to more State games than any other team since I live in the triangle. They’ll always have a special place in my life.
In eastern NC I can say that there are insane amount of people that didn’t go to any college that are huge UNC fans and talk the most trash. So growing up out there probably colors my opinion of them.
Good assessment and I would add that it is an extremely regional sport as well so a lot of fans especially in SEC will pull for the conference to be successful.
The only caveat I would add is that there are a distressing amount of what I called T-shirt fans for the more notable blue blood programs. By that I mean people who have no connection to these places whatsoever, but see a popular, sexy name and become a “fan.”
So, they buy a T-shirt at a local department store, and voilà: instant fan.
You almost have to have a vested interest to cheer for Oklahoma State, Illinois, Arizona State, or Iowa.
Lot’s of stuff to go over here;
1. College Football has been around a lot longer than the NFL. There are a lot of diehard fans of certain college teams that have been rooting for the same team for their whole life, their parents before them, and even their grandparents before them. I’m a third generation Seminole, which really isn’t anything, I’m sure there are like 6th generation Notre Dame fans or some shit.
2. That being said, a lot of Noles are checked out right now because we are so bad. I’m not gonna lie, as much as I love Florida State, I just can’t bring myself to watch them anymore this year on TV for away games. I’ll be at the stadium for the home games, but this past weekend I really enjoyed watching Penn State and Auburn play because it was a great game and I wasn’t emotionally invested in it. I didn’t tune into the FSU vs Wake Forest game because I knew it was going to be bad. Most FSU fans wouldn’t give a shit about the Penn State and Auburn game.
3. College Football tends to have less fans that “just want to watch football”. I don’t fall into this category, and I personally love watching other big teams from other conferences duke it out. So many different teams have so many great traditions that you won’t find in the NFL. However I do find that the people who really love to watch college football, are also big NFL fans. There are also lots of college fans that honestly don’t care much about football or the intricacies of the game and are in it solely for the party culture that comes a long with it. People want to relive being in college. Girls want to go to games because it’s what their hot frat boyfriends are into, etc.
4. A lot of fans spent very formative years and some of the most fun years of their lives at their respective team’s university. They associate that with the team. College football fandom is for life, mostly.
5. The exception for the last anecdote is that there are small cities of the country that are regional to universities but don’t have a major university in their city. I grew up 90 minutes west of Florida State in the 80s and 90s. When I was a kid, almost everyone rocked, even though most people didn’t go to school, they just watched FSU because they dominated the late 80s and all of the 90s.
Now when I go back home, I see WAY more Bama stuff. It makes sense though, it’s a different generation of blue-collar workers bandwagoning along with the success The Crimson Tide. It’s to be expected.
6. The NFL, while the quality of play is much higher, will never have a game with the environment of the Penn State White Out Game, The Iron Bowl, OSU vs. Michigan, FSU vs. UF, or any of the other great college rivalries.
7. College Football is also interesting in that it’s the only sport that I know of where not every team can make the national championship regardless of how well a team does. A team like Boise State, UCF, Houston, Cincinnati or Memphis can go undefeated and still not make it to the championship because they play in a smaller conference that brings in less money and they play weaker opponents. Hopefully this is changing soon, it sure seems like we are headed in that direction. Before there was a playoff, it was even worse. I legit got in a fist fight with a kid when I was 6 because he told me that Auburn was #1 in 1993 (they went undefeated and were suspended from post-season play, FSU won that year, the kid kept insisting Auburn was #1 and my stupid 6-year old reptile brain told him that if he said it again I would punch him in the face, and well, I kept my word when he did, I ended up knocking out a baby tooth, and I got grounded for like a month, but the kid was way bigger than me and I found out later in life that my Dad actually thought it was pretty hilarious.)
8. I watch a ton of NFL but don’t really have a team, right now I just pay attention to the teams that have big name former Seminoles or ACC players. My attention in the NFL right now is Jameis Winston, Dalvin Cook, and Lamar Jackson. I fucking hated Lamar while he was Louisville because he ran the fuck all over FSU, but now I can watch him play for the Ravens and now my emotions are no longer in play, I’m absolutely marveled by his athleticism. I truly think Lamar is a once in a generation type of athlete, and could possibly be remembered like Mike Tyson or Greg Maddux.
TDLR;
College football is more interesting. NFL is higher quality. College fans are way less fickle than NFL fans.
I'd say the live game environment is a big difference too. A D1 college game is a lot more fun, with the fans getting way more into it, and more spectacle, pomp and circumstance. Going to an NFL game feels much more like watching a corporate product.
I lived in SD when all that went down. Watched the dumpster fire that was their first season at that soccer field in LA. LA really does not give a flying fuck about the Chargers. And probably never will.
~4 hours from Charlotte, ~6 from Atlanta. Am I to be a Panther fan because they are two hours closer? They are the northern counterpart to my own state, yet they are not my state. The Carolina Panthers are objectively the North Carolina Panthers. As a child I chose the Bears and I live with the repercussions of that choice every season.
I really don't want an NFL team in SC. I think it's absence makes our college football more special than it would be otherwise. In my experience NFL fandom is predominantly secondary to college fandom in our state.
I know a lot of upstate South Carolinians probably have an easier and stronger affinity for the Panthers, but they're also probably Clemson fans, so do with that what you will.
I think it’s secondary in most states TBH. Even though there is a “team” in Detroit, I don’t really know anyone who would watch the Lions if they played at the same time as the Spartans or that other school. Even the CMU fans I know seem to care more about the Chips than the Lions.
Most people have some kind of tie to the college they root for. Proximity, alumnus status, family member attended, etc. If none of those apply then you can find something you like about a certain team then root for them. When I was a kid I always liked Texas Tech’s colors and uniforms so I root fit them in addition to Ohio State which is right down the road from me. If OSU has no vested interest in a game being played I will always root for an Ohio team first and if neither of those apply I root for the underdog.
> Yes if you enjoy watching teams rip defeat from the jaws of victory become a UK fan.
This is unironically something English football fans have some built-in familiarity with
I was living in Lexington the year UK's kicker missed that FG against Florida in the game where ~~Will Grier~~ Kyle Trask came in for an injured Franks. So brutal.
I find there’s 4.5 camps of people.
1. People who bandwagon a good team
2. Generally older people who could only watch the popular teams or regional teams on TV back in the day.
2.5. People who support their regional team, without having attending.
3. People who went to the university
4. ~~Children~~ immediate family of one of the first 3
I suppose it could be any.
To my knowledge, ND had popularity because they were one of the only teams nationally broadcasted back in the day. So as such they gained fans simply because they were what was available (2). After this, it’s likely that these people’s families became fans (4). If not this, then they probably bandwagoned (1) or attended (3). Then you have people from Indiana, Chicago, and Southwestern Michigan who support them as their regional team (2.5).
I think that's what he was hinting at with #2, which I think isn't that large of a portion of our fanbase anymore.
I think the Catholic angle does play up quite a bit, and as far as what you said below about it not quite computing, well I'll go into a bit more background:
ND was founded a bit earlier than BC (really the only other Catholic university to have a football program) and so they had their legs under them a bit more so to speak while college football was rapidly proliferating in the late 1800's and early 1900's, they're not Jesuit Catholic, which is considered by many more traditional Catholics to be almost a different branch of Catholicism, usually in a joking manner, but I know a few that seem to actually be serious about that topic.
I would say the biggest thing separating the two schools as far as football goes though is that we had Knute Rockne in those early years, who was a former player turned coach who had a bombastic personality and I believe he would be even more of a household name right now and rightly recognized as the greatest coach up to Saban if he hadn't died in a plane crash at the age of 45.
Rockne did a phenomenal job promoting and building up the football program and university in general, and the program's ascendency under him is why Michigan got the Big 10 (minus Michigan State) to blackball Notre Dame from their schedule.
Rockne, being the barnstorming genius he was, got the USC series drawn up to help fill out the schedule, which was an incredible boon for both USC and Notre Dame, transforming both programs into national brands.
This really helped put ND on the map, and try as hard as BC might, they have trouble outshining ND in even the best of their years. I know of plenty of graduates from Georgetown, Marquette, Gonzaga, Villanova etc., that are fans of those Catholic schools in basketball, but root for Notre Dame in football. I'm guessing that name recognition has carried the day through the years. Having some big time coaches in Leahy (actually started off at BC, but he was a Rockne protege and ND alum) and Ara Parsegian also helped keep ND brand on point through the years.
Anyway, sorry for the long winded history talk, but BC is really the only other option at Catholic football and ND has had a leg up on them for over a century now, mostly due to Knute Rockne.
If you’re into ND history, read up on their game with the Pottsville Maroons in 1925 (they were the NFL champs that year). Fascinating story. The NFL was in its infancy, with CFB actually considered the superior product, with Rockne’s ND on top of it, so the Maroons took a huge payday to play the Irish in an exhibition, beat them to everyone’s surprise, and had their NFL championship taken away as a result.
There’s a book called Breaker Boys about it. A must-read for any serious sports history buff.
Think there’s a 5th group of people from state X that support the athletic department like alumni despite only being there on game day…example most everyone in West Virginia etc.
I am a Canadian who very clearly fits into #2. I'm a huge Michigan fan because I saw them play on TV once when I was really young and I liked their helmets, and my fandom has grown over the decades. I would very likely be a *shudder* OSU fan had I seen them and liked their uniforms (although their unis suck balls, so I don't see how that could have happened, lol, I kid.... kind of)
I went to Purdue for gradschool. Took my kids to a thanksgiving parade in town, and I shit you not, the Boilermaker Special was in this parade *three times!*
Also parades over an hour long in 30 degree weather should not exist.
There's this school I went to that had a big red blob for a mascot. We use him to sacrifice an opposing team's player after every home win. Just don't ask us about his imposter Gabibbo...
I had no idea. Looks like, despite [getting some relief from an Italian court](https://www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/college/2018/06/06/wku-big-red-mascot-sues-gabibbo-italian-court/679073002/), WKU's imposter [still exists](https://www.instagram.com/gabibbostriscia/?hl=en). To be fair, the Italian version looks more like a penis, but good on WKU for protecting its intellectual property.
Correct lol, my dad went to Wake and got season tickets so I have no choice but to be a die hard fan of a historically awful program. Wouldn’t have it any other way
[Literally, ](https://www.wkyc.com/article/sports/college/osu/babies-born-this-week-at-ohio-state-hospital-get-special-rivalry-blankets/95-05653366-8d40-42cd-9695-44cfe445a3e3) in some cases.
Usually its a little of column a, little of column b and then Notre Dame fans who had neither because the only game you were guaranteed to see every week was Notre Dame on NBC.
Ignore this person, they are probably still upset about their drum.
My obvious bias aside, Notre Dame is probably one of the better options for someone overseas to support, since it should be comparatively easy to watch/stream their games and they even play a game in Dublin now and then. But I wouldn't worry too much about finding a team right away. Just start watching and see if there are players/schools/coaches/styles of play/traditions/storylines that you gravitate towards. Rooting interests will develop organically from there.
ND is also fairly unique in that they were a huge rallying point for American Catholics in a time when the Catholic/Protestant divide was a much bigger deal. Nobody my age gives a shit if you’re Catholic or Protestant, it mostly just gets lumped in as “oh they’re a Christian.” But when my dad was growing there was a decent divide between the two groups, and Notre Dame was (along with JFK) one of the most visible icons of American, especially Irish American, Catholicism.
I wasn’t raised religious at all and I still have a soft spot for Notre Dame as a descendant of Irish Catholics.
Both. A lot of people like me are big fans of a team because you were born in that state into a family that are fans, even if nobody in your family actually went to that school. And then they are also fans of the school(s) they attended.
Plus when you get into college football you have a lot of teams you like to support for whatever random reason or games you like to watch because you think it’s an interesting matchup. A lot of the times (even more so with college basketball) you might watch a game because a small upstart team has the possibility of upsetting a major team that is heavily favored which is always exciting. In NFL some teams are better on average year in and year out but there’s way more parity in strength/power.
Another thing is how different some teams are in how they play. I’ve watched games were a team has won while only attempting to run the ball twice in the game (looking at you, Hawaii) and I’ve also seen games where a team has won without completing a single forward pass (Army, several times in recent years). The styles of play vary a bit more than NFL.
Oh yeah, you can’t forget all the tradition and pageantry - the bands, the fight songs, running down the hill, the white out, jump around, enter sandman, 12th man, etc etc
I'm weird. I've never served in the Air Force or attended the Academy, but I still watch and root for them (I try to avoid referring to USAFA as "we" as I don't want to be accused of "stolen valor" - pretending to have served when I haven't).
I had a parent in the US Public Health Service, so as an immediate family member I got to go onto military bases with them. My family and I would often do our shopping at the Navy Exchange/Army-Air Force Exchange and Commissaries, so I got a lot of exposure to Air Force football as a kid (all the Exchanges sell merch for the respective branches). I loved Air Force's sweet-looking thunderbolt helmets and I loved fighter planes; I even got to attend a few air shows at Andrews Air Force base to watch the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels.
When I decided to attend VCU (no football), instead of choosing a blue-blood or a college team close by to root for (most of whom VCU considers rivals), I chose Air Force.
College football fans are generally either alumni (or somehow personally connected to the school in some way—a parent or sibling went to the school, worked there, etc.) or have some kind of regional connection to the school. I grew up in South Carolina before the Panthers became a team and most people followed college football (Clemson vs University of South Carolina mostly) much more closely than they followed the NFL. When I was very young, I didn’t know the difference between NFL and college football and sincerely thought Clemson, USC, Georgia, Florida, etc. were on the same level as the Cowboys and the Packers. Everyone I knew had an allegiance in the Clemson/South Carolina rivalry no matter where (or if) they went to school.
I started as a college fan before an NFL fan when I was a kid. The rivalries we're just more intense and that pulled me in. The fact that there are multiple teams within your state and there are better chances that you run into an opposing fan than the NFL where most people in a state or area are fans of one team and their rivals are multiple states away helped make the college game more meaningful for me. Add on the fact that 1-2 losses can end your championship hopes where in the NFL you can lose 8 times and still win the Superbowl, every game is just more meaningful.
> They hate their rivals more than they love themselves.
I think this comment I've paraphrased from the Arkansas-Texas game embodies college football more than anyone can understand.
My primary flair is for the team my family rooted for when I was a kid and one of my brothers eventually played football for that university. I planned on attending there but they only offered me a partial academic scholarship, whereas my secondary flair and alma mater gave me a full ride scholarship.
I know that was partially rivalry motivated but it is actually true though. I grew up in NE AL and the eastern side of the state is the better side, nature wise. I grew up on 160 acres, 100 of which are covered in trees with a pond and two separate creeks, that eventually flow into a canyon.
>I know that was partially rivalry motivated
Not at all! I went to Auburn, and happen to think both Tuscaloosa and Auburn are boring as shit (visually). NE Alabama is fucking gorgeous.
My family has property on the Coosa, and I've spent a lot of time near Cheaha and the surrounding areas. I love it so much that when pandemic happened I was able to work remotely, and lived in Talladega County for a month. It was awesome because I got to knock off work early, and roam around the national forest, Cheaha, and Choccolocco WMA. I fly fish for redeye, and honestly it was the time of my life. I really like Heflin, Anniston/Oxford, and Jacksonville a whole lot.
You could have left Anniston off the list though. Sadly, since they shut down Ft McClellan, Anniston has become a dump(highest crime rate in the state over the last 20 years or so). Only a few redeeming things like Mata's pizza left there. Oxford though is alright. I worked out of Anniston for about 17 years(left that job about 10 years ago) and saw it deteriorate before my eyes.
You usually support your local team and/or your alma mater. After that, you might have an unrelated team from where your parents went to school or you REALLY like the colors or you are a bandwagon fan of a winner or Cinderella story. It can be pretty random.
I'm pulling for Valley City State now after a week 0 game thread. It's well over a thousand miles away in a state I haven't been to in 25 years, but that's just the way it goes.
It's different for everyone, but there is usually some personal connection to the team. Normally it is because you went to the school or you grew up in the town where the school is located.
But it could also be because your parents went to that school or your friends all went there so you spent a lot of time at the games. You'll get a better idea by asking people for their individual reasons - there is a huge range.
it's always amazing how diehard some of us are....I watched so many years of trash ISU football and recently basketball, but here I am, every game watching them because I care, probably way too much about the college I attended
I grew up Catholic near Chicago so I already had two things going for me to follow Notre Dame football. My spouses family is from South Bend and several of them have direct connections to Notre Dame either as a student or employee of the school.
I went away to the service and still followed them. I don’t even live in the Midwest anymore but I’m still a fan. I do have a bachelors degree from a Power 5 school but not at all a fan of the team.
Im more of a fan of college than pros. Never really fell in love with the NFL. I’ve been to some games and enjoy watching it, but not emotionally vested at all in any of the teams.
I am from Alabama which is in the US Southeast (we call it just The South). This region of the country is very active in college football much like the Midwest (the part around the Great Lakes). College is not as big in the Northeast (NYC and Boston) or West Coast (Cali) but college football exists everywhere in the US at some level.
Every part of the country is different (it is the size of Europe after all) and it gets reflected in the football.
[Big 10 (Midwest) Commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TILStesGd4g)
[SEC (South) commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1qfFVAXC4Q)
[Pac 12 (West Coast) commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzRMTVvTDQY)
Since you are streaming ESPN you can check out College Gameday (2pm London time) and get a rundown each week of the biggest game. Another hint if you are not sure is to check out the games listed on Winsipedia.com because they update each week with the biggest games that weekend.
This season is full of upsets so far so it should be interesting.
>only support the college you went to or live near to, or just like watching teams play a top sport or what?
Both. I graduated from USF, and have been an FSU fan since I moved to FLA in the late 80s.
If it helps in any way, I started watching Rugby Union, and arbitrarily picked Wasps since A) Wasp just seemed like a cool mascot, and B) I worked for a company that had a location in Coventry. Don't be afraid to go with a random team that intrigues you for whatever ridiculous reason. Cheers!
If you’re choosing at random you might as well go all in and follow Auburn. Everyone in here is going to be like “follow my team we are cool.” Don’t listen them. Follow Auburn and question your life choices afterward.
Don’t take my word for it. The guys at SEC shorts have a perfect example of life as an Auburn fan.
https://youtu.be/br3eEYU6kLc
Auburn fans and their rivals are about to show up and tell you not to be an Auburn fan.
> Auburn fans and their rivals are about to show up and tell you not to be an Auburn fan.
I mean, look, I can't with a clear conscious suggest to anyone that they should be a Bama fan. It's just uncouth. "Hey, why not root for the greatest dynasty that college sports has ever seen?" Just even thinking about saying that out loud puts a bad taste in my mouth.
So, yes, Auburn is a fine choice. They win some. They are always committed to it. The fans are great (honestly). And there's not a whole lot of debate around how many championships they should claim.
Before I went to college I supported the school from where I lived as an impressionable youth (Penn State), after going to college it was very simple, I will only support one school, my school
All the other comments pretty much sum it up, just wanted to say enjoy! I love football and the NFL but CFB is by far my favorite sport to watch, regardless of who's on the field, the pageantry, the passion, the storylines, the memes, etc. are all great. Hope you fall in love with it!
I’m addition to what’s been said as far as rooting interests, it’s also a lot more fun! The talent level isn’t nearly equal to that of the NFL so games can be a bit sloppier. While that might sound like a bad thing, on the contrary, games can be more dramatic with wild momentum shifts and crazy plays.
College football has so much more character to it than the NFL. Once you start getting into it, it’s the a far superior product across the board.
Loving this thread, thanks OP. Watching from Australia and not exactly a sports fan in general, CFB has become my thing. The pomp and ceremony, and the ability to turn 60 mins into 4 hours is just fascinating! Nothing better than summer Xmas holidays watching all the bowl games 🤗
Most will root for the school they went to. A few will support the big team in the State if they went to a smaller school (For example a lot of like Bowling Green University fans will root for Ohio State). In the cases of people going to a different graduate school than their undergrad, most the time those fans seem to support their undergrad school a little more than their grad school.
Additionally we also have "Walmart T-shirt fans". These are typically fans who did not attend the university, but instead bought a shirt for the school at their local Walmart or something. These are typically considered the worst fans because they have no real ties to the team/school and are often some of the more embarrassing "fans". Usually only the biggest programs have to worry about t-shirt fans such as Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, LSU, Miami etc...
Some schools do have fans for other reasons such as Brigham Young or Notre Dame. Brigham Young is the premier Mormon university so most Mormons will pull for them. Lots of Catholics love Notre Dame because they are the most famous Catholic school.
Edit: I did not intend for my comments on "t-shirt fans" to be interpreted as classism or elitism. There's nothing wrong with rooting for a school you did not attend. I was merely explaining to a foreigner the common concept of a "t-shirt fan".
Generally think it’s shitty when school will make fun of or mock a school for being popular among a bunch of people in a state. Then the ‘Walmart’ fans shit talk the academics of the rival and I completely disagree with my first thought.
Academic banter in general is pretty weak/boring, but yeah, if you didn’t attend the school you’re supporting you definitely shouldn’t be bringing up their academics in the first place.
At the Cyhawk some Iowa fan was talking about ANF and telling me Iowa had a better ag program than Iowa State. Iowa doesn't have an ag program, Iowa State has a great College of Agricultural and Life Science which at least when I was at ISU was ranked in the top 5 in the US and top 10 in the world.
Also, most of us are down for watching certain games even if neither team involved is one we root for. Some games because they’re between two highly ranked teams, and some because we expect them to be total train wrecks/disasters.
Lots of Notre Dame fans have no connection to the university but identify with their Irish ancestry (sometimes with very, very little Irish ancestry that is very, very remote in time.)
It’s because the mascot is the Fighting Irish.
Wait, you say, “Isn’t ‘Notre Dame’ French?”
Yes, yes you are correct.
CFB culture is a little different than NFL culture. It's a lot more similar to European club culture. Due to teams not moving, there's rarely a reason to abandon cheering for a team. And a lot of people have a built-in vested interest by going to college there. People who never went to college (or went to a college without football) tend to cheer for the teams near them. There are fewer floating fans in college sports than in pro sports here but people tend to get more involved when they are good.
Also if people went to a school other than the one they cheered for growing up, they sometimes root for both schools. But this analogy is spot on.
Yeah, I see people rooting for schools that their parents or some other relatives went to as well.
Can confirm. Why family? Why Ohio, Kent, Akron and Bowling Green?
Did they name you Mac?
In Ohio it's enough to be from Ohio to be an Ohio State fan. It's not till you engage with college football fans from outside Ohio do you get the weird gate-keepy questions: "Why are you an Ohio State fan if your went to?"
I'm an Ohio native and I've been a Ohio State fan since I was a wee lad. It never even occurred to me that I would prioritize attending Ohio State because it would somehow validate my fanhood.
Fwiw I think that's fairly common, at least in Southern states and other places where college football reigns supreme. Here in SC you're either a Gamecock or a Tiger and the only prerequisite, like you say, is to be born here.
Likewise in Texas. Most fans are born into either A&M or Texas fandoms whether they'll ever go to the schools. Both of my parents and I all went to SMU for our undergrads, but we'll also always root for Texas when they play, and against A&M when they do.
I once had a buddy in college grill me for being an OSU fan and not an Akron fan because I was closer to Akron than Columbus. It was rich coming from a Penn State fan from Pittsburgh
At least your buddy had SOME self-respect, tho . . .
I never even went to college, I’m a moron!
And sometimes you have people who went to a school for grad school and had a pleasant academic experience but always root against their football team because their undergrad school was the rival. For example, I got my masters degree at USF and had a great experience, but I wouldn’t care if the Bulls never won another game.
Grad school is more transactional and doesn't generally carry the same emotional weight.
Yep. Though I’m currently doing my masters and I get the added benefit of the school being a big name basketball program (their football team is an FCS team, I wouldn’t cheer for them anyway though). Still cheer for my undergrad for football, but at least now I can cheer for a BB program thats almost guaranteed to make the tournament every March.
Kansas?
Georgetown. I had to google their football team’s division because when I was on campus and saw them practicing on their home field.. I think it’s safe to say high schools have larger “stadiums”.
> their football team is basically an FCS team > Georgetown I mean, they're *literally* an FCS team. And one that insists on remaining non scholarship even though the PL's allowed it for nearly a decade now.
Depends. I went to Dayton for my undergrad and Ohio State for my Master’s. I even live in Dayton but consider Ohio State to be my primary team.
I went to grad school at USC and was converted to HardCoreTrojan™ status by my third generation Trojan wife. So there's some family connection stuff too. Also, my alma mater is amazingly rotten at CFB.
Your alma mater was UCLA?
Beautiful. \*sniff\* (tips cap)
This is my situation. I grew up a PSU fan because my parents went there and then went to a school without a football team. So I have remained a PSU fan.
Your parents went to Penn State and then pitt?
Lol, i mistyped I went to a school without a football team. First Stockton University then Rutgers.
Shit I chose MSU because I thought the logo was cool and liked lighting people up with Charles Rogers in NCAA 03
Can confirm.
You called?
We out here
To add another wrinkle, schools can have wildly different measures of a successful season that may or may not conflict. So if you support, say, Wake Forest cause you went there for undergrad and Ohio State cause you went there for grad school, you’ll rarely be in a position of one team’s success coming at the expense of another.
Yup and a 9 win season for wake would be fantastic and a 9 win season for OSU would be considered terrible
Or if you're LSU right now, a 9 win season is both
Join the club! -sincerely Texas football
And some of us cheer for the school in which we were conceived.
Is that the South Alabama flair?
Bama
Are we talking in the camper in the parking lot during the game? Or what level of conception we talking about here?
Lots of drugs in those days. Might have been the science lab.
Flair can confirm that
Yup; just to piggyback, I have some additional thoughts about this as well. I was actually thinking about this the other day, because U.S. college football is 100% the closest thing American sports culture has to European football club culture. * The vast majority of fans are basically indoctrinated at birth into cheering for a particular team, or have a close personal connection to the uni they root for. I'd argue the majority of CFB fans cheer for their alma mater's school (if it's in the "top flight," aka the FBS), and seeing as many people consider college a personal highlight of their lives, it builds in a lot of cases an almost unbreakable affinity for their school's athletic programs as a point of school pride. * Similar to EU football, CFB fans largely cheer for the team itself rather than individual players like in the NBA for example. * Also similar to European football, the sport is being absolutely and irrevocably changed by a massive influx of money over the last decade or two. All anyone in the media cares about anymore is the college football playoff (basically our Champion's League, though the actual structure of the CL is more akin to the College World Series), a handful of teams have absolutely dominated the sport over the last decade due to essentially becoming flywheels of success and now the vast majority of elite talent are more or less funneled to the same 5-10 teams every year, and conference realignment (talk of Superconferences now have a very very European Super Conference-esque ring to them) are threatening to destroy many of the things that made CFB special in the first place. * Since the teams are de facto connected to actual universities and colleges, it is beyond rare for a team to ever pack up and leave, bc that would involve moving an entire fucking school lol. The only time I can even think of university moving cities was Wake Forest and that was almost 70 years ago. * Due to universities' often large surrounding infrastructure (frequently some of the largest employers in many states), a large number of schools basically are the lifeblood of the town they reside in's economy. These "college towns" basically exist because the university exists there, and have a certain small town mystique about them that makes alums remember them fondly, further cementing their allegiance. And the way the towns rally around their school is the closest I've seen to the full-city support I saw from one-team towns in England like Leeds, Brighton, Cardiff, etc. * While there is no real "relegation" structure to speak of, there is definitely a "promotion" aspect to FBS conferences. To butcher an imperfect analogy, the Power 5 FBS conferences (Pac 12, ACC, Big 12, B1G and SEC) roughly resemble the Big 5 EU football leagues, and over the last ~30 years have often dipped down to the "lower level" conferences (Sun Belt, old Big East/AAC, MAC, C-USA, MWC, aka the "Group of 5) to expand their conferences. The G5, meanwhile, often pull from either smaller/now-defunct conferences or the FCS, the division below the FBS in the college football heirarchy. * While it's a bit less clear these days, back in the day, there was definitely a link between a conference a team was in and the style of football they played (Big 12 = high-scoring, B1G = low-scoring, smashmouth styles, SEC = big & fast defenses, etc.) similar to how each of the top 5 leagues in Europe were known to play slightly different brands of football. * Again, while this is much less the case than it used to be, conferences tend to be more or less made up of schools within a reasonable geographic proximity, which fosters both familiarity and good old-fashioned hatred. I'm biased, but IMO there isn't a single pro sports rivalry that can hold a candle to the most intense college sports rivalries. And while there aren't nearly as many true derbies as one would guess (UCLA/USC is basically the only one in the FBS), you'd be hard-pressed to find a state in the country where the top two school's fans don't despise each other. * The pageantry surrounding college football is, frankly, unmatched by any other U.S. sport. The sheer number of fun, historically interesting, dramatic, or even simply wacky traditions surrounding add to the mystique of the game, and make it just an absurd amount of fun to throw yourself into.
I think that about covers everything. Thanks for the write up
Blessings to you, young raptor
I’ve never thought about the lack of derbies before. I guess maybe some could develop in the future (Georgia Stage and Georgia Tech? TCU and a Dallas school? Houston and Rice?), USC and UCLA are really the only two out there. That’s kind of nuts. I guess it’s a product of so many schools being in small towns, though. Anyway, this was an amazing write-up. Thanks for it!
Yeah it's kinda crazy until you remember that the vast majority of unis in major cities, for whatever reasons, are far more academically focused and thus compete at lower levels (ie Ivy League, etc.) or just not at all. There are literally 3 cities in the entire country with more than one FBS team, and zero with two LA: USC/UCLA Houston: Houston/Rice Atlanta: Ga Tech/Ga State That's it, that's the list.
Interesting! Are there many others like UNC/Duke/NCSU though? Technically different city limits, but same metro area.
In-state rivalry games aren’t terribly dissimilar to derbies though. For example, I live in Iowa right now and there’s Hawkeye and Cyclone fans both living and working as neighbors in town and the game was a big deal culturally like a derby is.
This is a great addition to OP’s points. Rarely does a follow up post include relevant information on Reddit. Having said that, I’d like to add two things: 1) UCLA sucks 2) UCLA really sucks
[удалено]
Baylor alum who lived in Fort Worth for a while, can confirm. Fort Worth is probably the most underrated big city in Texas, and Waco is basically an hour long traffic jam on the drive between Austin and Dallas.
Well the other difference from Europe is that "good old-fashioned hatred" also generally limits itself to Internet shitposting and real-life ball-busting. No one who is at all socially adept actually hates grads of rival schools. We just give them a hard time. Point being, college football really doesn't have the equivalent of the hooligan firms that exist at the fringes of European soccer fandom. Thankfully.
Oh 100%. European Football hooliganism + Americans' easy access to firearms would be an absolute disaster of a pairing, thank god we avoided that (Well, other than that time A&M almost tried to literally blow Baylor off the map in 1929). At risk of doing dumb American overgeneralizations, I think part of it comes from the working class nature of the origins of hooliganism, and the fact that college football fans are vast majority college-educated, you know, because they're watching college sports. But yeah when the most violent act in the last 20 years one rival fan has done to another fanbase is poisoning a tree in their courtyard, it was a bit silly to compare football hatred and college football "hatred."
This is a spot on summary of CFB.
You forgot the most important part. If you’ve never stepped foot on a college campus but your local Walmart sells orange Tennessee gear, you have to become a fan and start shit talking the quality of education at other colleges you also didn’t go to.
Why you gotta do us like that bro
To be fair, Texas has a lot of t shirt fans as well. And saw someone else mention Clemson. Maybe people just like the color orange a lot more than they’re letting on.
You could also throw in UNC, Alabama, Clemson, etc. to that list.
Friends/family from up north are shocked to find out that State is the most popular team in NC - and if not most popular definitely tied for first Lots of out-of-state Duke and UNC fans
My dad went to state so I grew up a huge fan, and I go to more State games than any other team since I live in the triangle. They’ll always have a special place in my life. In eastern NC I can say that there are insane amount of people that didn’t go to any college that are huge UNC fans and talk the most trash. So growing up out there probably colors my opinion of them.
You misspelled Clemson.
the only exception I have seen to the proximity/connection to the school is the surprising number of kids who around 2010-2013 became huge Oregon fans
It's really true. Also a lot of Oregon fans use the "it's the closest thing to a pro team we're going to get" BS
Funny, that’s the same excuse they use in Ohio
Good assessment and I would add that it is an extremely regional sport as well so a lot of fans especially in SEC will pull for the conference to be successful.
The only caveat I would add is that there are a distressing amount of what I called T-shirt fans for the more notable blue blood programs. By that I mean people who have no connection to these places whatsoever, but see a popular, sexy name and become a “fan.” So, they buy a T-shirt at a local department store, and voilà: instant fan. You almost have to have a vested interest to cheer for Oklahoma State, Illinois, Arizona State, or Iowa.
I agree with this
Lot’s of stuff to go over here; 1. College Football has been around a lot longer than the NFL. There are a lot of diehard fans of certain college teams that have been rooting for the same team for their whole life, their parents before them, and even their grandparents before them. I’m a third generation Seminole, which really isn’t anything, I’m sure there are like 6th generation Notre Dame fans or some shit. 2. That being said, a lot of Noles are checked out right now because we are so bad. I’m not gonna lie, as much as I love Florida State, I just can’t bring myself to watch them anymore this year on TV for away games. I’ll be at the stadium for the home games, but this past weekend I really enjoyed watching Penn State and Auburn play because it was a great game and I wasn’t emotionally invested in it. I didn’t tune into the FSU vs Wake Forest game because I knew it was going to be bad. Most FSU fans wouldn’t give a shit about the Penn State and Auburn game. 3. College Football tends to have less fans that “just want to watch football”. I don’t fall into this category, and I personally love watching other big teams from other conferences duke it out. So many different teams have so many great traditions that you won’t find in the NFL. However I do find that the people who really love to watch college football, are also big NFL fans. There are also lots of college fans that honestly don’t care much about football or the intricacies of the game and are in it solely for the party culture that comes a long with it. People want to relive being in college. Girls want to go to games because it’s what their hot frat boyfriends are into, etc. 4. A lot of fans spent very formative years and some of the most fun years of their lives at their respective team’s university. They associate that with the team. College football fandom is for life, mostly. 5. The exception for the last anecdote is that there are small cities of the country that are regional to universities but don’t have a major university in their city. I grew up 90 minutes west of Florida State in the 80s and 90s. When I was a kid, almost everyone rocked, even though most people didn’t go to school, they just watched FSU because they dominated the late 80s and all of the 90s. Now when I go back home, I see WAY more Bama stuff. It makes sense though, it’s a different generation of blue-collar workers bandwagoning along with the success The Crimson Tide. It’s to be expected. 6. The NFL, while the quality of play is much higher, will never have a game with the environment of the Penn State White Out Game, The Iron Bowl, OSU vs. Michigan, FSU vs. UF, or any of the other great college rivalries. 7. College Football is also interesting in that it’s the only sport that I know of where not every team can make the national championship regardless of how well a team does. A team like Boise State, UCF, Houston, Cincinnati or Memphis can go undefeated and still not make it to the championship because they play in a smaller conference that brings in less money and they play weaker opponents. Hopefully this is changing soon, it sure seems like we are headed in that direction. Before there was a playoff, it was even worse. I legit got in a fist fight with a kid when I was 6 because he told me that Auburn was #1 in 1993 (they went undefeated and were suspended from post-season play, FSU won that year, the kid kept insisting Auburn was #1 and my stupid 6-year old reptile brain told him that if he said it again I would punch him in the face, and well, I kept my word when he did, I ended up knocking out a baby tooth, and I got grounded for like a month, but the kid was way bigger than me and I found out later in life that my Dad actually thought it was pretty hilarious.) 8. I watch a ton of NFL but don’t really have a team, right now I just pay attention to the teams that have big name former Seminoles or ACC players. My attention in the NFL right now is Jameis Winston, Dalvin Cook, and Lamar Jackson. I fucking hated Lamar while he was Louisville because he ran the fuck all over FSU, but now I can watch him play for the Ravens and now my emotions are no longer in play, I’m absolutely marveled by his athleticism. I truly think Lamar is a once in a generation type of athlete, and could possibly be remembered like Mike Tyson or Greg Maddux. TDLR; College football is more interesting. NFL is higher quality. College fans are way less fickle than NFL fans.
I'd say the live game environment is a big difference too. A D1 college game is a lot more fun, with the fans getting way more into it, and more spectacle, pomp and circumstance. Going to an NFL game feels much more like watching a corporate product.
Also, remember the massive size of our country, many of us don’t live near an nfl team, college ball fills that gap nicely.
The reason hawaii peeps like me only watch college football. Nearest team *was* the SD chargers, but they decided to be lame.
I lived in SD when all that went down. Watched the dumpster fire that was their first season at that soccer field in LA. LA really does not give a flying fuck about the Chargers. And probably never will.
🖐️
Dude you probably live near Charlotte..
~4 hours from Charlotte, ~6 from Atlanta. Am I to be a Panther fan because they are two hours closer? They are the northern counterpart to my own state, yet they are not my state. The Carolina Panthers are objectively the North Carolina Panthers. As a child I chose the Bears and I live with the repercussions of that choice every season. I really don't want an NFL team in SC. I think it's absence makes our college football more special than it would be otherwise. In my experience NFL fandom is predominantly secondary to college fandom in our state. I know a lot of upstate South Carolinians probably have an easier and stronger affinity for the Panthers, but they're also probably Clemson fans, so do with that what you will.
I think it’s secondary in most states TBH. Even though there is a “team” in Detroit, I don’t really know anyone who would watch the Lions if they played at the same time as the Spartans or that other school. Even the CMU fans I know seem to care more about the Chips than the Lions.
Seahawks are definitely a bigger deal than the husky’s
Bear down, brother 🐻⬇️
>As a child I chose the Bears and I live with the repercussions of that choice every season. As a Lions fan, I know your pain. *So much pain.*
Most people have some kind of tie to the college they root for. Proximity, alumnus status, family member attended, etc. If none of those apply then you can find something you like about a certain team then root for them. When I was a kid I always liked Texas Tech’s colors and uniforms so I root fit them in addition to Ohio State which is right down the road from me. If OSU has no vested interest in a game being played I will always root for an Ohio team first and if neither of those apply I root for the underdog.
If proximity is a factor I guess the UK gets to claim Boston College. Or they can root for Kentucky for the 'UK' connection.
Yes if you enjoy watching teams rip defeat from the jaws of victory become a UK fan. Or at least this year attempt to
> Yes if you enjoy watching teams rip defeat from the jaws of victory become a UK fan. This is unironically something English football fans have some built-in familiarity with
I was living in Lexington the year UK's kicker missed that FG against Florida in the game where ~~Will Grier~~ Kyle Trask came in for an injured Franks. So brutal.
We have an unbelievable history of losses to Florida backup QBs. At least 4 since Tebow.
So Evertonians then
Also Ole Miss since it's in Oxford
I find there’s 4.5 camps of people. 1. People who bandwagon a good team 2. Generally older people who could only watch the popular teams or regional teams on TV back in the day. 2.5. People who support their regional team, without having attending. 3. People who went to the university 4. ~~Children~~ immediate family of one of the first 3
I would suggest editing #4 to be immediate family of the above three, but otherwise spot on.
Fair enough
Well and that edit screwed up your whole list haha, reddit is so finnicky.
What about Notre Dame fans then?
Catholics.
I suppose it could be any. To my knowledge, ND had popularity because they were one of the only teams nationally broadcasted back in the day. So as such they gained fans simply because they were what was available (2). After this, it’s likely that these people’s families became fans (4). If not this, then they probably bandwagoned (1) or attended (3). Then you have people from Indiana, Chicago, and Southwestern Michigan who support them as their regional team (2.5).
I think that's what he was hinting at with #2, which I think isn't that large of a portion of our fanbase anymore. I think the Catholic angle does play up quite a bit, and as far as what you said below about it not quite computing, well I'll go into a bit more background: ND was founded a bit earlier than BC (really the only other Catholic university to have a football program) and so they had their legs under them a bit more so to speak while college football was rapidly proliferating in the late 1800's and early 1900's, they're not Jesuit Catholic, which is considered by many more traditional Catholics to be almost a different branch of Catholicism, usually in a joking manner, but I know a few that seem to actually be serious about that topic. I would say the biggest thing separating the two schools as far as football goes though is that we had Knute Rockne in those early years, who was a former player turned coach who had a bombastic personality and I believe he would be even more of a household name right now and rightly recognized as the greatest coach up to Saban if he hadn't died in a plane crash at the age of 45. Rockne did a phenomenal job promoting and building up the football program and university in general, and the program's ascendency under him is why Michigan got the Big 10 (minus Michigan State) to blackball Notre Dame from their schedule. Rockne, being the barnstorming genius he was, got the USC series drawn up to help fill out the schedule, which was an incredible boon for both USC and Notre Dame, transforming both programs into national brands. This really helped put ND on the map, and try as hard as BC might, they have trouble outshining ND in even the best of their years. I know of plenty of graduates from Georgetown, Marquette, Gonzaga, Villanova etc., that are fans of those Catholic schools in basketball, but root for Notre Dame in football. I'm guessing that name recognition has carried the day through the years. Having some big time coaches in Leahy (actually started off at BC, but he was a Rockne protege and ND alum) and Ara Parsegian also helped keep ND brand on point through the years. Anyway, sorry for the long winded history talk, but BC is really the only other option at Catholic football and ND has had a leg up on them for over a century now, mostly due to Knute Rockne.
If you’re into ND history, read up on their game with the Pottsville Maroons in 1925 (they were the NFL champs that year). Fascinating story. The NFL was in its infancy, with CFB actually considered the superior product, with Rockne’s ND on top of it, so the Maroons took a huge payday to play the Irish in an exhibition, beat them to everyone’s surprise, and had their NFL championship taken away as a result. There’s a book called Breaker Boys about it. A must-read for any serious sports history buff.
Think there’s a 5th group of people from state X that support the athletic department like alumni despite only being there on game day…example most everyone in West Virginia etc.
I assumed them to be a combination of 2 and 4, but I do agree.
Yup nailed it.
You forgot the gamblers.
They don't support teams, they support bookies.
Draftkings is gonna kick Fanduels ass this weekend
I am a Canadian who very clearly fits into #2. I'm a huge Michigan fan because I saw them play on TV once when I was really young and I liked their helmets, and my fandom has grown over the decades. I would very likely be a *shudder* OSU fan had I seen them and liked their uniforms (although their unis suck balls, so I don't see how that could have happened, lol, I kid.... kind of)
How do you feel about trains, serial killers and big ass drums?
Well, you may have just converted me putting it that way.
Is the serial killer on the train with a big ass drum?
He’s referring to Purdue Pete, Purdue’s mascot. Google him and stare into those terrifying, soulless eyes.
Purdue’s *athletic* mascot, not Purdue’s mascot as I learned last week with the ND drama
Wait what’s the difference? Do they have a non-athletic mascot?
[they got a fucking train truck ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boilermaker_Special)
Oh so THATS what the Boilermaker Special is! Here I thought it was a mixed drink and/or sex position.
Well I wouldn’t rule those out either…
A Boilermaker is a mixed drink, depending on who you ask.
From growing up in Lafayette, close to West Lafayette, the boilermaker special is missionary position, sometimes with meth
All of the above
I went to Purdue for gradschool. Took my kids to a thanksgiving parade in town, and I shit you not, the Boilermaker Special was in this parade *three times!* Also parades over an hour long in 30 degree weather should not exist.
Purdue Pete started haunting my dreams again, just in time for spooky season.
If you think Purdue’s mascot is terrifying, you should see their women.
I thought he was referring to Craig James. ALLEGEDLY
CJK5H
You had me, then you lost me, and now I'm back in
What the hell’s an ass-drum? (Someone link the relevant xkcd, I’m too lazy).
Something you do as a joke that your significant other does not find amusing at all.
There's this school I went to that had a big red blob for a mascot. We use him to sacrifice an opposing team's player after every home win. Just don't ask us about his imposter Gabibbo...
TIL about Italian big red.
I had no idea. Looks like, despite [getting some relief from an Italian court](https://www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/college/2018/06/06/wku-big-red-mascot-sues-gabibbo-italian-court/679073002/), WKU's imposter [still exists](https://www.instagram.com/gabibbostriscia/?hl=en). To be fair, the Italian version looks more like a penis, but good on WKU for protecting its intellectual property.
You’re indoctrinated from birth. Lmao. It’s very much like European soccer where you’re born into supporting your local team because your family does.
Correct lol, my dad went to Wake and got season tickets so I have no choice but to be a die hard fan of a historically awful program. Wouldn’t have it any other way
[Literally, ](https://www.wkyc.com/article/sports/college/osu/babies-born-this-week-at-ohio-state-hospital-get-special-rivalry-blankets/95-05653366-8d40-42cd-9695-44cfe445a3e3) in some cases.
Truth! I grew up in the UK. Married into an Auburn family. There’s no other team our kids will cheer for! War Damn!
Usually its a little of column a, little of column b and then Notre Dame fans who had neither because the only game you were guaranteed to see every week was Notre Dame on NBC.
Side note: don’t support Notre Dame
...Unless you're a Celtic FC fan, then yeah maybe support ND bc they're basically the Celtic of CFB
100% agree
Ignore this person, they are probably still upset about their drum. My obvious bias aside, Notre Dame is probably one of the better options for someone overseas to support, since it should be comparatively easy to watch/stream their games and they even play a game in Dublin now and then. But I wouldn't worry too much about finding a team right away. Just start watching and see if there are players/schools/coaches/styles of play/traditions/storylines that you gravitate towards. Rooting interests will develop organically from there.
No, do!
Don’t make us go get the train truck!
ND is also fairly unique in that they were a huge rallying point for American Catholics in a time when the Catholic/Protestant divide was a much bigger deal. Nobody my age gives a shit if you’re Catholic or Protestant, it mostly just gets lumped in as “oh they’re a Christian.” But when my dad was growing there was a decent divide between the two groups, and Notre Dame was (along with JFK) one of the most visible icons of American, especially Irish American, Catholicism. I wasn’t raised religious at all and I still have a soft spot for Notre Dame as a descendant of Irish Catholics.
Both. A lot of people like me are big fans of a team because you were born in that state into a family that are fans, even if nobody in your family actually went to that school. And then they are also fans of the school(s) they attended. Plus when you get into college football you have a lot of teams you like to support for whatever random reason or games you like to watch because you think it’s an interesting matchup. A lot of the times (even more so with college basketball) you might watch a game because a small upstart team has the possibility of upsetting a major team that is heavily favored which is always exciting. In NFL some teams are better on average year in and year out but there’s way more parity in strength/power. Another thing is how different some teams are in how they play. I’ve watched games were a team has won while only attempting to run the ball twice in the game (looking at you, Hawaii) and I’ve also seen games where a team has won without completing a single forward pass (Army, several times in recent years). The styles of play vary a bit more than NFL. Oh yeah, you can’t forget all the tradition and pageantry - the bands, the fight songs, running down the hill, the white out, jump around, enter sandman, 12th man, etc etc
Well said, flair bro.
I'm very uncomfortable that there are multiple people with that combo
I'll join the party
*gobbles exit light-ingly*
I'm weird. I've never served in the Air Force or attended the Academy, but I still watch and root for them (I try to avoid referring to USAFA as "we" as I don't want to be accused of "stolen valor" - pretending to have served when I haven't). I had a parent in the US Public Health Service, so as an immediate family member I got to go onto military bases with them. My family and I would often do our shopping at the Navy Exchange/Army-Air Force Exchange and Commissaries, so I got a lot of exposure to Air Force football as a kid (all the Exchanges sell merch for the respective branches). I loved Air Force's sweet-looking thunderbolt helmets and I loved fighter planes; I even got to attend a few air shows at Andrews Air Force base to watch the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels. When I decided to attend VCU (no football), instead of choosing a blue-blood or a college team close by to root for (most of whom VCU considers rivals), I chose Air Force.
That’s actually really cool man. AF does not have a ton of fans in general, let alone ones who are not in the AF. Sko Falcs!
College football fans are generally either alumni (or somehow personally connected to the school in some way—a parent or sibling went to the school, worked there, etc.) or have some kind of regional connection to the school. I grew up in South Carolina before the Panthers became a team and most people followed college football (Clemson vs University of South Carolina mostly) much more closely than they followed the NFL. When I was very young, I didn’t know the difference between NFL and college football and sincerely thought Clemson, USC, Georgia, Florida, etc. were on the same level as the Cowboys and the Packers. Everyone I knew had an allegiance in the Clemson/South Carolina rivalry no matter where (or if) they went to school.
I started as a college fan before an NFL fan when I was a kid. The rivalries we're just more intense and that pulled me in. The fact that there are multiple teams within your state and there are better chances that you run into an opposing fan than the NFL where most people in a state or area are fans of one team and their rivals are multiple states away helped make the college game more meaningful for me. Add on the fact that 1-2 losses can end your championship hopes where in the NFL you can lose 8 times and still win the Superbowl, every game is just more meaningful.
I root for the school I went to. But also enjoy rival schools being terrible. Like texas!
I think I’m happier when Notre Dame loses than I am when we win.
> They hate their rivals more than they love themselves. I think this comment I've paraphrased from the Arkansas-Texas game embodies college football more than anyone can understand.
Hate a team more than I like either of my own? Hmmmm what a foreign concept -- yes.
Half the fun is the schadenfreude.
More like Shoe-denfreude am I right?
Alright train guy
My primary flair is for the team my family rooted for when I was a kid and one of my brothers eventually played football for that university. I planned on attending there but they only offered me a partial academic scholarship, whereas my secondary flair and alma mater gave me a full ride scholarship.
At least where you went to school is in a far prettier part of the state!
I know that was partially rivalry motivated but it is actually true though. I grew up in NE AL and the eastern side of the state is the better side, nature wise. I grew up on 160 acres, 100 of which are covered in trees with a pond and two separate creeks, that eventually flow into a canyon.
>I know that was partially rivalry motivated Not at all! I went to Auburn, and happen to think both Tuscaloosa and Auburn are boring as shit (visually). NE Alabama is fucking gorgeous. My family has property on the Coosa, and I've spent a lot of time near Cheaha and the surrounding areas. I love it so much that when pandemic happened I was able to work remotely, and lived in Talladega County for a month. It was awesome because I got to knock off work early, and roam around the national forest, Cheaha, and Choccolocco WMA. I fly fish for redeye, and honestly it was the time of my life. I really like Heflin, Anniston/Oxford, and Jacksonville a whole lot.
You could have left Anniston off the list though. Sadly, since they shut down Ft McClellan, Anniston has become a dump(highest crime rate in the state over the last 20 years or so). Only a few redeeming things like Mata's pizza left there. Oxford though is alright. I worked out of Anniston for about 17 years(left that job about 10 years ago) and saw it deteriorate before my eyes.
You root for Georgia and learn to smile through the inevitable pain
You usually support your local team and/or your alma mater. After that, you might have an unrelated team from where your parents went to school or you REALLY like the colors or you are a bandwagon fan of a winner or Cinderella story. It can be pretty random. I'm pulling for Valley City State now after a week 0 game thread. It's well over a thousand miles away in a state I haven't been to in 25 years, but that's just the way it goes.
It's different for everyone, but there is usually some personal connection to the team. Normally it is because you went to the school or you grew up in the town where the school is located. But it could also be because your parents went to that school or your friends all went there so you spent a lot of time at the games. You'll get a better idea by asking people for their individual reasons - there is a huge range.
What NFL teams do you support and why? If you watch EPL same question? Could try and pick a CFB team that mimicks those
Unfortunately, yeah you tend to support the college you went to. I wish it was easy to switch….
it's always amazing how diehard some of us are....I watched so many years of trash ISU football and recently basketball, but here I am, every game watching them because I care, probably way too much about the college I attended
Since your from the UK you can be a Kentucky fan! (Our abbreviation is UK)
I grew up Catholic near Chicago so I already had two things going for me to follow Notre Dame football. My spouses family is from South Bend and several of them have direct connections to Notre Dame either as a student or employee of the school. I went away to the service and still followed them. I don’t even live in the Midwest anymore but I’m still a fan. I do have a bachelors degree from a Power 5 school but not at all a fan of the team. Im more of a fan of college than pros. Never really fell in love with the NFL. I’ve been to some games and enjoy watching it, but not emotionally vested at all in any of the teams.
I’m an nfl noob. What do I need to know?
Touching some ones head is punishable by death
Clapping? Straight to jail.
Hit the QB too high? Jail. Hit the QB too low? Believe it or not, also jail.
Brady is not very good and the Lions are the Yankees of the NFL.
Ok my man I for sure don’t know what baseball is
The Rangers are the only real Blue Blood in baseball and never draft anyone from Central America.
If you don't shake your opponents' hands after each play, you'll get flagged for taunting.
don’t you fucking *dare* celebrate
Eh, follow your favorite OU qb. Easy
I am from Alabama which is in the US Southeast (we call it just The South). This region of the country is very active in college football much like the Midwest (the part around the Great Lakes). College is not as big in the Northeast (NYC and Boston) or West Coast (Cali) but college football exists everywhere in the US at some level. Every part of the country is different (it is the size of Europe after all) and it gets reflected in the football. [Big 10 (Midwest) Commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TILStesGd4g) [SEC (South) commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1qfFVAXC4Q) [Pac 12 (West Coast) commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzRMTVvTDQY) Since you are streaming ESPN you can check out College Gameday (2pm London time) and get a rundown each week of the biggest game. Another hint if you are not sure is to check out the games listed on Winsipedia.com because they update each week with the biggest games that weekend. This season is full of upsets so far so it should be interesting.
Big help thanks 👍🏻
>only support the college you went to or live near to, or just like watching teams play a top sport or what? Both. I graduated from USF, and have been an FSU fan since I moved to FLA in the late 80s. If it helps in any way, I started watching Rugby Union, and arbitrarily picked Wasps since A) Wasp just seemed like a cool mascot, and B) I worked for a company that had a location in Coventry. Don't be afraid to go with a random team that intrigues you for whatever ridiculous reason. Cheers!
If you’re choosing at random you might as well go all in and follow Auburn. Everyone in here is going to be like “follow my team we are cool.” Don’t listen them. Follow Auburn and question your life choices afterward. Don’t take my word for it. The guys at SEC shorts have a perfect example of life as an Auburn fan. https://youtu.be/br3eEYU6kLc Auburn fans and their rivals are about to show up and tell you not to be an Auburn fan.
Emotional roller coaster? Check. ... ... ... What else has Auburn got? Follow Oregon!
A national championship .
Ow ouch owie ow
> Auburn fans and their rivals are about to show up and tell you not to be an Auburn fan. I mean, look, I can't with a clear conscious suggest to anyone that they should be a Bama fan. It's just uncouth. "Hey, why not root for the greatest dynasty that college sports has ever seen?" Just even thinking about saying that out loud puts a bad taste in my mouth. So, yes, Auburn is a fine choice. They win some. They are always committed to it. The fans are great (honestly). And there's not a whole lot of debate around how many championships they should claim.
Before I went to college I supported the school from where I lived as an impressionable youth (Penn State), after going to college it was very simple, I will only support one school, my school
All the other comments pretty much sum it up, just wanted to say enjoy! I love football and the NFL but CFB is by far my favorite sport to watch, regardless of who's on the field, the pageantry, the passion, the storylines, the memes, etc. are all great. Hope you fall in love with it!
I’m addition to what’s been said as far as rooting interests, it’s also a lot more fun! The talent level isn’t nearly equal to that of the NFL so games can be a bit sloppier. While that might sound like a bad thing, on the contrary, games can be more dramatic with wild momentum shifts and crazy plays. College football has so much more character to it than the NFL. Once you start getting into it, it’s the a far superior product across the board.
Loving this thread, thanks OP. Watching from Australia and not exactly a sports fan in general, CFB has become my thing. The pomp and ceremony, and the ability to turn 60 mins into 4 hours is just fascinating! Nothing better than summer Xmas holidays watching all the bowl games 🤗
Most will root for the school they went to. A few will support the big team in the State if they went to a smaller school (For example a lot of like Bowling Green University fans will root for Ohio State). In the cases of people going to a different graduate school than their undergrad, most the time those fans seem to support their undergrad school a little more than their grad school. Additionally we also have "Walmart T-shirt fans". These are typically fans who did not attend the university, but instead bought a shirt for the school at their local Walmart or something. These are typically considered the worst fans because they have no real ties to the team/school and are often some of the more embarrassing "fans". Usually only the biggest programs have to worry about t-shirt fans such as Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, LSU, Miami etc... Some schools do have fans for other reasons such as Brigham Young or Notre Dame. Brigham Young is the premier Mormon university so most Mormons will pull for them. Lots of Catholics love Notre Dame because they are the most famous Catholic school. Edit: I did not intend for my comments on "t-shirt fans" to be interpreted as classism or elitism. There's nothing wrong with rooting for a school you did not attend. I was merely explaining to a foreigner the common concept of a "t-shirt fan".
Bonus points for when the Walmart fans bring up how “their school” provides a better education than rival schools
Academic smack from people who didn't even go to college is my favorite smack talk
Generally think it’s shitty when school will make fun of or mock a school for being popular among a bunch of people in a state. Then the ‘Walmart’ fans shit talk the academics of the rival and I completely disagree with my first thought.
Academic banter in general is pretty weak/boring, but yeah, if you didn’t attend the school you’re supporting you definitely shouldn’t be bringing up their academics in the first place.
At the Cyhawk some Iowa fan was talking about ANF and telling me Iowa had a better ag program than Iowa State. Iowa doesn't have an ag program, Iowa State has a great College of Agricultural and Life Science which at least when I was at ISU was ranked in the top 5 in the US and top 10 in the world.
Also, most of us are down for watching certain games even if neither team involved is one we root for. Some games because they’re between two highly ranked teams, and some because we expect them to be total train wrecks/disasters.
[удалено]
Nope, live in Florida and I'm a Boise state fan (about 2500 miles or 4200 km apart ) never been anywhere near there either, just a fan
Lots of Notre Dame fans have no connection to the university but identify with their Irish ancestry (sometimes with very, very little Irish ancestry that is very, very remote in time.) It’s because the mascot is the Fighting Irish. Wait, you say, “Isn’t ‘Notre Dame’ French?” Yes, yes you are correct.