The Four Seasons of Southern Football: Recruiting, Spring, Fall Practice & Games

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Passion - any powerful or compelling emotion, as love or hate.

To say people in the South are passionate about college football would be an understatement.  From tailgating, to the game, to after the game, below the Mason Dixon line is where it all goes down.  Fortunately, for all southerners, we not only get to enjoy our Saturdays from September to January, but we also get to engage in what I like to call the other three seasons of college football. This may seem wild to some, but just as we have the four seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer and fall; we also have the four seasons of college football.

Season #1:  National Signing Day

Over the last 6-7 years, National Signing Day has become a spectacle that many across our great country could do without, but not college football worshippers of the south.  After all the bowl games have subsided, and the SEC has hoisted another crystal ball, we begin to talk about the 17-18 year old kids, who we think will be the next savior at the university we love so dearly.  We read about kids taking visits, committing to our university and then backing out, only to commit to another rival university and break our hearts.   ESPN has led this explosion, with their 12 hours of coverage on ESPNU, which may be considered by some of us as a national holiday.  They have given the southern football fanatic something to live for during the early months of the New Year.  Kids sitting at tables with the hats of the university they will choose have become the norm on this day.   Some, in recent years, have even chosen to pull live animals out from under a table to let the world know where they will play college football.  With the evolution of social networking sites such as Twitter, “southern idiots” can now tweet their favorite young athlete and let him know how much they agree or disagree with their choice of where they will play college football, but most importantly get their college education.  Please don’t become involved in this genre of southern football; it really makes all of us who truly love the game, and live in the south look like idiots. Recruiting is definitely the life line of college football.  Without great players, it is very unlikely that a program will win games, let alone compete for National Titles, which is the goal of every program.  In the South, we live and bleed college football, so it is no surprise that National Signing Day and the month leading up to it should be the very first season of our college football year.

Season #2:  Spring Football

When Nick Saban took over as the coach at the University of Alabama, Bama fans cheered from Huntsville to Tuscaloosa.  While Alabama fans cheered, the national media chose to crucify Saban for the way he left the Miami Dolphins after denying that he had any interest in the Alabama job.  Well, when 90,000 plus screaming fans showed up to Alabama’s A-Day game, it was game on.  Spring football has become a right of passage in the south, and to a few other areas across the country as well.  Again ESPN leads this charge with the live broadcast of these elite universities spring games.  What makes it even better is you get live interviews with these elite coaches, either on field level or in the press box doing a little commentary.  Football fanatics watch as most star players sit out or wear a green jersey, so as to not get hurt, while other players battle for depth chart supremacy leading into fall camp.   Now, you can catch pretty much every southern team’s spring game in a 45 day span from March to the end of April.  As college football continues to increase in popularity, so does the televising and promoting of these spring football games.  It’s definitely a season all in of itself, especially for the southern college football fanatic.

Every year as August approaches, you can feel the anticipation of football season.  The preseason magazines have been released and every football fanatic has at least 2-3 or maybe more of these on the ole coffee table.  From Phil Steele to Athlon, Lindy’s to Sporting News, most of us fanatics have read up on all our favorite teams from the conferences we follow, just in time for fall practice.

Season #3:  Fall Practice

When the first week of August arrives, southern football fans can feel it in their bones.  The teams hit the field for their first practice, then two a days, and then the game planning begins.  The blogs get fired up, the team specific websites are officially up and running.  We now have daily practice reports telling us which players are dominating practice.  We have insiders telling us which true freshman are showing out and may have a chance to avoid a red-shirt.  We have post practice interviews from coaches, where they will downplay their preseason ranking and often beat around the bush about how good or bad their team will be.  Again ESPN, a common theme here, will have special shows documenting what is going on in the 100 degree August heat.  From quarterback battles, to film study, to workouts, to even following around players for 24 hours to show what it’s like to be a college football player, fall practice can be considered a season leading up to “The Season”  for most of us fanatics.  All this will go on for 25-30 days, as we get ready for the month of September, when the real pageantry begins.

Season #4:  College Football Season

Ahhhhh, September is here and it’s time for kickoff.  Nothing in the world compares to college football season in the South.  Every week has drama.  It is truly the only sport where every week counts and every game matters. People in the South live and die by each first down, each touchdown, and every game’s outcome.  It’s serious down here; some may even think it’s a religion.  But for most of us die hard southern college football fanatics, it’s pure excitement for 12-13 weeks of the regular season.  We eat, sleep, and breathe football for the entire season. Every Saturday is game day.  Every Saturday is an event.  Every Saturday of the college football season is plain and simple “WHAT WE LIVE FOR.”

Copyright © 2012 Chuck Oliver.Net