30 bucket list items college football fans need to experience
Making a college football bucket list? Check out these 30 games, stadiums and events every fan should experience.
Football is the most popular sport in America, and for many fans, college football is the best version of it.
College football holds a special place in the hearts of its fans. The passion one feels for his or her alma mater, or home state, is often greater than the passion one feels for a professional team. The love for a school – a place – runs deeper than a pro franchise that can (and often does) pick up and move, or at least fills its roster with similar transients.
In most cases, players don’t choose where they play professionally. They are drafted there, or acquired via trade. Only free agents have the ability to pick and choose a destination, but college football players always have a say in the matter, even if they transfer. Therefore, the connection between fans and players is often stronger at the college level.
That connection often makes us fans of college football itself, even if we are diehard fans of a particular college or university. Therefore, college football fans often have a true appreciation for the things that make each program special. The unique traditions schools have created outside of the games themselves, in many cases dating back more than a century, that still show up every fall Saturday. Many fans hope to experience those traditions up close and personal, regardless of the ties to that particular city, state, or team.
As a result, fans create college football bucket lists, and plan road trips or schedule vacations to experience those great traditions before they die.
With that in mind, we’ve selected 30 of the best bucket list items college football fans need to experience. As we count down, the 30 events aren’t necessarily ranked in terms of which are most important. Instead, the list is grouped to include venues of historical significance, followed by exotic locales, legendary pre-game and in-game traditions, and must-see rivalry games.
Everyone has a different opinion, and there are many other worthy options that wouldn’t fit on this list, but this is a great place to start planning the journey.
30. College Football Hall of Fame
What better place to begin our bucket list than with the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta?
The National Football Foundation began the Hall of Fame in 1951, but there was a long and winding road between honoring those early players and coaches and the big, beautiful museum open to the public today.
The NFF originally hoped to put an official museum in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where the first football game was played in 1869, but settled for a site in Kings Mull, Ohio, which opened in 1978. A new museum opened in South Bend, Indiana near the campus of the University of Notre Dame, in 1995, but the Hall of Fame was relocated to downtown Atlanta in 2012.
Built near Centennial Olympic Park and the Georgia Dome in downtown Atlanta, the 95,000 square foot facility includes three floors of galleries, memorabilia and interactive exhibits, as well as an indoor football field and a feature wall that displays 750 college football helmets. Nearly 1,000 players have been inducted into the Hall, which the museum calculates is fewer than 0.02 percent of those that have played the game at the collegiate level.
While in Atlanta, visitors have an opportunity to visit Grant Field at Bobby Dodd Stadium, home of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and one of the oldest football stadiums still in use today. Fans can also see one of the newest: Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the new home of the Atlanta Falcons, which will also host the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic in September and the SEC Championship Game in December. Plus, the University of Georgia and 92,746-seat Sanford Stadium is about 70 miles up the road. All are worthy destinations.