20 college football moments that deserve to be made into movies
By John Buhler
If a movie can be made about a Notre Dame walk-on sacking a guy, here are 20 college football moments that totally need their story told on the silver screen.
College football is really about a series of moments involving 18 to 23-year-old men competing against each other that we just take way too seriously. It’s okay because college football is awesome and it’s pretty much a total shame if you don’t have a favorite team yet. Going to a party school that matters definitely makes your fall Saturdays for the rest of your life more enjoyable.
Some of the best times we don’t remember until later happened watching or being at these football games. Since most of us go pro in something other than sports, that’s why we have such an affinity for college football. It’s about the love of the game and the boosters making sure our alma mater’s team can keep entertaining us so we’ll eventually pay for a new library or something.
Anyway, some of these college football moments never fade. For that reason, we’re going to eventually put them on the silver screen or at least turn them into 30 For 30’s. So that’s what we’re going to try to do right now.
If you’re done watching the same two Notre Dame movies with that president guy and that hobbit dude in them, well, let’s make some more fun college football movies. Here are 20 moments in college football history that if we were a production company we would definitely want to turn into Hollywood blockbusters or a delightful documentary you can enjoy from your own bed on Netflix.
20. Send Me a Marinangel
When you think of college football, probably the last thing you think about is the Vanderbilt Commodores. Vanderbilt is a prestigious academic university out of Nashville, but hasn’t been a landmark of greatness on the gridiron in the last 100 years. Well, back in the mid-1990s, Vanderbilt punter Bill Marinangel would have given the late Grantland Rice something to write about.
Vanderbilt might have gone 2-9 back in 1996 and 0-8 in SEC play, but for one shining moment, Marinangel was the patron saint of taking it to the house on the Alabama Crimson Tide in their house. It was the fake punt nobody saw coming, as Marinangel channelled his inner gazelle and stampeded all over the Crimson Tide.
Yeah, the Commodores definitely lost that game, but Marinangel became somewhat of a brief folk legend in Middle Tennessee. This movie would be an obvious dramatization about how Marinangel and the Commodores won in defeat that day. Marinangel might have disappeared off the face of the earth.
He’s like the Benny Anders of Houston Cougars basketball or the Bertram Weeks of The Sandlot. Marinangel inspired a generation of punters to go for it in hostile environments. This movie would definitely be a think piece about this punter that was Almost Famous on the Vanderbilt campus.
There is a good chance this movie is about finding Marinangel to help christen Vanderbilt Stadium as Cutler-Marinangel Stadium with the help of former NFL quarterback and FOX’s Jay Cutler. It’d be a hit in Nashville, assuming the viewing experience comes along with a nice plate of hot chicken and no baseball jersey-wearing Ryan Brothers trying to sneak a bite.