Getting Started
I am writing this post the weekend before the National Championship game. It might seem like a strange time to start a blog, at the end of a season, but it has taken me all season to finally get going!
I decided a a few weeks into this season that I wanted to start writing. Whilst I have watched the sport for a while, for some reason in 2024 I really started diving deeper into the stories around the sport and found myself online reading up more on the history.
What has always attracted me to the sport has been the passion that surrounds it. The stakes just seem a little higher as for a number of players it might be “now or never”. They only get 4 or so years normally at college level before moving on to other things and for those that are in the shop window for the draft, every game counts.
It is similar for the teams too as at the top the margins for getting into to the top 12 rankings and achieving the spot in the playoffs are so fine. It fascinates me that you can’t just rely on your record, especially when strength of schedule and quality of wins will be factored into selection committee mindsets. It is a sport that lends itself to discussion, debate and stories.
I always sense an extra buzz when watching a game in the crowds too, whether that is college kids and alumni really getting behind their teams or the atmosphere created by ESPN’s College Gameday (a Saturday staple for me) on campus. I love it when gameday comes to a new college and I get to go down a rabbit hole of learning about that college’s rituals and rivalries.
College football is not as widely discussed in the UK as the NFL is and the idea of this blog is to provide some additional written coverage. There is already a great deal of content out there which I consume and I will reference. In the first instance, I want to provide somewhere for a new fan who may stumble across the coverage on Sky Sports to go.
It love the NFL and it is amazing what has been achieved over the last 10-15 years with its growth in the UK. I have enjoyed attending at least one of the regular season games at Wembley stadium every year since 2008. It may not be the case that College Football shares the same growth as the NFL does but I do think there is room to share in some of its glow. 1
With that in mind I will continue to bang the drum in the UK for College Football!
