You may be asking yourself, "what's so important about college football?" I'm here to answer that. College football brings people together from not just all over the state but all over the country. People come together to root for a common team and have a good time. To me, that's what is important about college football (and scouting for future NFL players but we have to focus on world impact so shhhhh...). So this article is about the culture of college football and it's impacts. On September 17th and October 1st I traveled to State College, Pennsylvania to see the Penn State Nittany Lions play and for the first time I got to experience the real college football culture. The only college football games I've been to were at Holy Cross and UMass but I was too young to really have a good experience. But Penn State is a football school. This school's pride is it's football team. It has such a prestigious football program, I don't know if I'll get into it much in this article but it has such a rich history, especially with Joe Paterno. But when you get to Penn State on a football Saturday, there are tailgaters everywhere. You see people dressed in navy and white sitting by their trucks or RVs grilling, throwing around a football, just talking to other fans, having a great time before a football game. I, for one, am not much of a tailgater. I just never really had experience tailgating before and I did go to a tailgate for like 15 minutes and it was awkward because I didn't really know the people there, but my sister did (did I mention she's on the Penn State dance team/Lionettes?). So if you ever go tailgating, go with people you know because it will be a lot more fun. But the tailgating seems to bring a lot of people together. When Penn State played in-state rival Temple, I saw a lot of Temple fans and Penn State fans tailgating together, which at first I found surprising but then I thought about it and it made sense. Because they're both from the state, families could have different backgrounds but when it comes down to it, it's just a friendly rivalry between them. But yeah, a lot of people come from around the country to root for their alma mater or favorite college football team and just have a great time. Now we're going to talk about the fans in the stadium during the game. They are loud. Like they will scream anything and everything and they don't care. A lot of them are alumni of Penn State and they made that obvious screaming the alma mater and every chant they've heard when they went. I'm not much of a fan of screamers but after the Student Section, that might change. The Penn State Student Section is the best I've ever seen. They're rowdy and they don't care. It's fun to listen and just watch them. They're so into the game. I can't wait to be apart of a student section some day. The only thing bad, to me, is the post game antics. It's tough to leave the stadium after and even leave State College after. I get that it's like that everywhere but this is the first time I've really experienced it. The roads are closed on campus and it's lines of traffic everywhere. It's hard to get places post-game is what I'm trying to say basically. But overall, Penn State is a great college football school culturally speaking. The tailgaters seem welcoming, the fans and student section are loud and proud, and Penn State has won every game I've been to. Culture is very important to college football. If you don't have school spirit, you won't have a fun experience. A lot of school's pride are their sports programs. It's completely different from a high school football game. At college (or a division 1 FBS school at least), the whole school is there and they're very into the game and they have a lot of fun. In about a month I am heading to Syracuse, so I will most likely make a comparison after that and write about it. I will also try to head back down to Holy Cross or another local FBS/FCS school or even a division 2 or 3 school, and make comparisons as well, like compare the culture. Also the Saturday Review will be out later! See ya at the Review!
1. I wrote this article to talk about the experience of a real division one FBS college football game. In this article, I talked about my experience at a Penn State football game such as the atmosphere, the culture, and the game as a whole. I wanted to show readers what goes on around the game regarding the crowd. It helped me pay attention more to the atmosphere rather than just the game as the fans were loud and proud and I just thought that was awesome. I wanted to write about it just to show how fans felt about college football and what goes on before, during and after games.
2. I had a little difficulty writing this mainly because I didn't really know where I was going with the post. I didn't know what I wanted to say to get my point across that the atmosphere at Penn State games is amazing and that college football is not only just a game but a community. I just kind of wrote down what I was thinking and hoping it would just go with the flow, ya know?
3. I wanted to show people through this article that college football is more than just the league before the NFL. I wanted to show them that it is just like the NFL, where a whole community comes together to root for a similar team and have fun together. It was amazing to witness all the tailgating and just the whole Penn State community come together, having fun with each other, watching a team they all love. I just wanted people to experience what I experienced and learn that it is more than just a sport on TV.
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