Football Americana

“There’s a spirit, there’s an energy, there’s a passion in college football that you can’t replicate anywhere else. It’s about pride, tradition, and a love for the game.”

- Pat Dye

I spent the weekend visiting friends in western North Carolina, reminiscing and taking stock of the damage caused by Hurricane Helene. I had forgotten it was Super Bowl weekend and didn’t know who was playing. This isn’t new for me—I didn’t reject the NFL because of BLM or COVID. I never liked the NFL, never cared about the Super Bowl, and never will.

My dislike of professional football is not a hot take. I have never understood the appeal of an obviously commercialized and inorganic product like the NFL. What does it really mean to be a Cowboys or Raiders fan? What truly ties a professional sports franchise to a community? What roots, what genuine connection, can be found in a league where teams relocate at the whim of an owner chasing a better financial deal? The NFL, at its core, is nothing more than a mass-produced, corporate imitation of the greatest sport in America: college football.

Before the corrosive influence of NIL deals, the playoffs, and the transfer portal, college football embodied everything that made sports great. Its play style was regional, its players were local, and its history was deeply rooted in, and inseparable from, the fan base that supported it. College football was not just a game—it was an identity, a way of life that reflected the character of the communities it represented.

If the NFL is the epitome of the inorganic commodification of sports, then college football was its antithesis. It was a purely organic sport, rich with the unique flavor of the college towns that each team called home. When I was growing up, we dreamed of bowl season where we could witness the clash of vastly different styles—pass-happy West Coast teams facing off against the bruising, power-I juggernauts of the Deep South, or the corn-fed, heavy offensive lines of Nebraska taking on the suffocating defenses of the SEC. College football was a battleground of cultures, a national spectacle where Alabama vs. Penn State felt like a rematch of the Civil War and Notre Dame vs. Miami was Catholics vs. Convicts. These rivalries were not manufactured drama for TV ratings; they were built on decades—sometimes over a century—of real history and real stakes.

These regional differences weren’t just arbitrary. They were the product of more than a hundred years of tradition. The oldest rivalry in college football, Yale vs. Princeton, has been played since 1873. Auburn and Georgia have clashed nearly every year since 1892. Minnesota and Wisconsin have played 134 times since 1890. Army and Navy have battled 125 times since 1890, and their rivalry remains one of the most meaningful spectacles in American sports.

It wasn’t just the longevity of these rivalries that made them special, but their infrequency. Other sports boast heated rivalries with long and storied histories, but the nature of those competitions dilutes their significance. The Red Sox may lose to the Yankees, but they have another chance just a few weeks later. In college football, you get one game. One shot. One opportunity to claim bragging rights for an entire year. When Auburn plays Alabama or Ohio State plays Michigan, everything is on the line. A 5-6 season could be redeemed by winning the big one because that one game meant everything. And in an era before players were merely auditioning for the NFL, these teams—composed of local and regional players, many of whom were playing their last game—left everything on the field. This made college football rivalries some of the most electrifying games ever played.

The fan base was as organic as the rivalries themselves. They were made up of alumni, the relatives of alumni, and those with a direct connection to the university. From these roots sprang traditions passed down for generations. Rolling Toomer’s Corner at Auburn, Ralphie’s run at Colorado, dotting the “i” at Ohio State, and touching Howard’s Rock at Clemson—each school took pride in ceremonies so deeply embedded in tradition that their origins are sometimes lost to history. The connection between fans and their teams was not based on arbitrary loyalty to a brand or a logo; it was a birthright, a sacred bond between university, team, and town.

College football was everything that made sports great. It was organic. It was traditional. It was deeply rooted in the community. It was about pride—not in some corporate entity, but in something real, something personal.

Unfortunately, the ever-greedy eye of Sauron couldn’t let college football’s monetary potential remain untapped. In the last couple of years, everything that made college football special has been systematically dismantled. Coaches no longer stay for decades to build programs and legacies—now, they hop from school to school every few years in pursuit of a national championship and a fatter contract. Gone are the days of Bobby Bowden and Bear Bryant, icons who spent their entire careers (or close to it) shaping a single program.

The bowl system, ubiquitous with college football, that unique post-season tradition that celebrated regional champions, has been replaced by a playoff system designed to squeeze more money out of the sport. More games mean more TV revenue. The NIL deals have turned players into mercenaries, less concerned with school pride and more focused on preserving their bodies for the NFL Draft. And the transfer portal ensures that rosters are in constant flux, as players jump from school to school in search of the most lucrative opportunity or easiest path to playing time.

The loss of the historical bowl system in favor of the playoffs has stripped college football of one of its most cherished traditions. The bowl games were once the crown jewel of the season, honoring conference champions and offering unique, tradition-laden matchups that were often the only time certain programs would ever meet. Each bowl had its own identity, from the Rose Bowl’s historic Big Ten vs. Pac-12 clash to the Sugar Bowl’s deep Southern roots.

These games were not just postseason exhibitions; they were milestones, marking yearly endpoints in the sport’s history. Now, the focus has shifted entirely to the playoff, which prioritizes television ratings and corporate sponsorships over the pageantry and tradition that made college football special. The once-glorious bowl season has been relegated to a series of meaningless games, serving merely as consolation prizes for teams that failed to make it to the next round.

The old college football is dead. The regional identities that once defined the sport are disappearing. The rivalries are becoming less meaningful as conferences realign with no regard for tradition. Players no longer spend their careers at one school, making it harder for fans to form lasting connections with the athletes who wear their colors and coaches no longer define programs. The game has lost its soul, its heart, its very essence.

College football was once the last great bastion of pure, unfiltered sports passion. But as it succumbs to the forces of global commodification it becomes yet another corporate product, another soulless imitation of what was, it will be NFL lite, a safe corporatized surrogate activity and I won’t be there to watch.

-TJS

“College football isn’t just a game; it’s a part of the fabric of American culture, and the passion that surrounds it is what makes it special.”

-Nick Saban