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By B.J. Bennett
SouthernPigskin.com Senior Editor
A continued look at the significance of college football in the south. Share your thoughts on the SouthernPigskin.com Message Boards or email us at
Down Here II is a follow-up to Down Here.
For folks in the south, I would compare college football to food. We love both, we’re immersed in each everyday and we mingle the two together like nobody else. Whether it's pulled pork or the 3:30 SEC Game of the Week, we simply can't get enough. People down here are passionate about their choices, stubborn in defense of their favorites and will get downright ornery if you challenge what they like. We are prideful, knowledgeable and intense about both. For every Bear Bryant and Bobby Bowden, there's a Justin Wilson and Paula Deen.
I love being from this part of the country. We are all Americans through and through, but it just feels like we’re a little closer in the Deep South. Consider us the hardened piece of the pie that comes out of the oven. A little stubborn, a little rough around the edges...but we're in this thing together.
So many things tie us together in the south: family, religion, food, the outdoors and, of course, football. It’s why we greet strangers in our team colors like old friends. It’s why “Roll Tide” and “War Eagle” have become verbal handshakes: hearty, honest and meaningful. It’s why 85,000 of us at a time will wear a plastic hog on our heads, put Tiger tails on our trunks or spell out zoo animals at the top of our lungs. The south is the only place in the world where grown men are thrilled at the sight of rolls of toilet paper and boxes of detergent. It’s the only place in the world where the trashing of a city corner isn’t a misdemeanor, it’s a custom. It’s where two fingers in the air don’t mean peace, picnics are fit with white lace and crystal and hearing the same song over and over never gets old. Down here, tailgating isn't a traffic offense. And you're always welcome to another burger or dog.
Few things unite us quite like our college football teams. Just like our cooking, football is more than our pastime, our hobby or our interest. It’s our culture. Like families pass down heirlooms or recipes, they pass down stories of Jeff Davis and Terry Kinard, Herschel Walker and Billy Cannon’s 89-yard punt return for a touchdown versus Ole Miss. When time, location even some disagreement rain down on friends and family, college football is part of the big umbrella that keeps us all huddled together.
Life is complex, tenuous and hard. People have different likes, interests and desires. Few things bring true joy to large groups of people. Mention Peyton Manning in a small restaurant in Tennessee, however, and that room will light up like somebody just flipped a switch. 
We get a little riled up during the fall. Our friends in the woods may hibernate when it’s cold. We tend to relax a little bit more when it’s warm. Everything has more color in the fall. Stroll through any southern town on an Autumn Saturday and you’ll see orange and maroon, garnet and gold, crimson and cardinal red. The leaves follow suit. We will soon get a quick taste of things to come as hundreds of thousands of fans in the south will attend spring scrimmages at their respective schools. For a few hours, focus won't be on politics, the economy or work and responsibilities. Temporarily, everything will be right with the world.
Think it’s just a game? The world’s largest secular stained glass windows were recently constructed and installed back in 2004. Not for a cathedral in Europe, rather Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, Florida. The shrine to Bobby Bowden is one of the top five largest stained-glass windows in the United States. College football has a devoted following down here; area grocery stores, grill and charcoal producers and most four-legged animals would passionately agree.
The truth of the matter is that none of it makes a damn bit of sense, really. The fascination, obsession rather, that we in the south have with college football is just confounding. We pin our hopes and dreams, not to mention personal sanctity and salaries, on the fortunes of people we will never meet, on outcomes that we can never shape. Our personal pride, more so the mood of our entire state, hangs in the balance every Saturday. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
You can call it a lot of things, football in the south. It’s our history, our culture, our bloodline, our pulse. It’s our sustenance. Maybe it’s a co-dependent relationship we have with the game we love. There’s just something about effort, persistence, teamwork and toughness that appeals to people down here. We're a meat and potatoes kind of people. Throw in some some ribs and BBQ, too.
College football is a national fixture and a pastime that is celebrated all across America. One has to appreciate the history, fervor and charm of places like Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State and Southern Cal. That said, college football, just like good food, God and family, are tried and true fabrics of who we are down here.
It’s an old southern saying that hungry is a great sauce. Down here, we just can’t get enough.
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Comments
Very good article, Glad to be from the South!
Being from the West (Colorado and California), these article have been very informative about how football and culture in the South.
*Messed up
Being from the West (Colorado and California), these article have been very informative about how football and culture are connected in the South.
Make Yourself Heard
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