Six games in 5 days: What a college football road trip taught me about the state of the sport

 

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ALL OVER THE CAROLINAS AND ATLANTA — College football is an assault on the senses.

It’s the smell of gumbo simmering in a cauldron on a foreign campus, a literal melting pot of clashing cultures.

It’s the sound of 20,000 voices carrying out the final stanzas of “Enter Sandman,” that Virginia Tech anthem, after the speakers cut Metallica’s guitars.

It’s the sight of black paint covering the chests of fans in the front row of North Carolina State’s student section, 14 of them spelling out “WOLFPACK NATION” — and a 15th representing the exclamation point.

College football is so many things. This week confirmed that. From Thursday to Monday, I drove more than 1,000 miles, attending six games in five days during the sport’s opening weekend.

I embarked on this ambitious, exhausting journey to better understand a sport in the midst of a rapid, unpredictable evolution. Television money has fueled the sport for decades but is finally making its way into players’ hands. A mostly unchecked name, image and likeness market and free transfers have generated nomadic rosters and tenuous ties between players and campuses that were once deep-rooted. Conference realignment has broken up rivalries and created bicoastal behemoths with no identity. The sport’s detractors have never had more fuel.

And yet, on college campuses and even in cavernous, neutral-site venues, the sport remains a way of life, a through-line for its communities.

A Saturday (or a Thursday, Friday, Sunday or Monday) on campus is a time machine set to a fan’s most formative years. It moves them in ways small and big — moves them to stay for the alma mater after a disappointing loss, or to pay for season tickets and donate to a program to support building the next great facility and compensating the players who populate it.

A sense of belonging keeps fans coming back even when there are so many reasons to spend time and money elsewhere. And while the games are the main event, the spectacle surrounding them is the return on investment.

College football is the secret handshake of fans who cross paths anywhere, but especially outside stadiums.

If a South Carolina fan yells “Game,” most within earshot are going to respond “Cocks” in perfect cadence. If an NC State fan yells “Wolf,” those in their tribe know “Pack” is the password to gain entrance to their private club.

And when the chant happens in a tunnel that connects a parking lot with Carter-Finley Stadium, it’s loud enough to make you feel your eardrums rattling.

NC State’s season opener Thursday against East Carolina was the first stop on the six-game journey. Those who spend their lives inside the gate know what outsiders might not understand.

One NC State fan held up a hand-painted sign of the Wolfpack’s black lab named Ripken, who had two jobs: wear a red bandana and retrieve the kicking tee.

“Win one for Ripken,” the sign read.

Ripken died in January. His brother, Champ, took up the bandana and tee duties for the season opener.

NC State’s student section ended the game by jingling their keys toward the East Carolina visitors, a universal sign to warm up the bus. The keys came out after the Wolfpack stopped their in-state rivals on fourth-and-1 to seal a win, nine months after the teams literally brawled in the Military Bowl.

Less than 24 hours later, Appalachian State and Charlotte — their campuses separated by a little more than 100 miles — kicked off their season at Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers in uptown Charlotte.

“Every team is somebody’s favorite team” was one of EA Sports’ guiding principles as it developed the return of the college football video game last year. Appalachian State and Charlotte, minnows in the big business of FBS football, will never have the massive fan bases of the sport’s blue bloods or pack a 100,000-seat stadium.

But for those invested, it couldn’t mean more.

“Today I give my ALL for Appalachian State,” read a polished wood sign in the shape of North Carolina, painted black with a simple message for players to touch as a promise on their way out of their locker room.

After Charlotte defensive back Ja’Qurious Conley made an otherworldly effort to punch a ball out just before it crossed the goal line, he rushed to the sideline to receive a wrestling championship belt with “TFC” spray-painted in black across the oversized buckle. After a replay upheld the play, he jumped on the bench and held it up to a delirious band of 49ers fans behind the bench.

Later, as Charlotte’s players filed into the tunnel, the weight of a 34-11 loss pressed on their spirits.

A lone fan above the tunnel wearing a Charlotte green polo sought to lift them.

“We good! We good!” he yelled, reaching down for high fives from players leaving the field. “704 baby! That’s a warmup. Let’s go!”

An overnight drive down Interstate 85 brought me to Atlanta, where I checked into my hotel just before 3 a.m. Little time to sleep before the most challenging leg of the trip: a Tennessee-Syracuse matinee in Atlanta, followed by a title-contender clash between Clemson and LSU on Clemson’s campus.

College football is its heroes and villains. Those who embrace the roles can become unforgettable.

Tennessee fans ran into an old villain early Saturday; Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, who tormented the Vols for four seasons, was called upon to offer a pregame prayer. Tennessee fans loudly booed.

Meanwhile, new Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar assumed the role of hero. When he found Braylon Staley on a deep post for a 74-yard touchdown, breaking open an eventual 45-26 win, half the orange-clad fans in the stadium slapped their seat in frustration. The other half? High-fiving any neighbor in sight.

Aguilar was on one side of a modern college football hero-and-villain story that gripped both Vols fans and the college football world in the spring. Quarterback Nico Iamaleava, whose jerseys dotted Neyland Stadium as he led the Vols to the College Football Playoff a year ago, transferred to UCLA in the spring amid a contract dispute. Aguilar, who was at UCLA, moved to Knoxville to replace him.

By the end of Saturday, Iamaleava, who would lose his UCLA debut later that night, was no longer on the mind. For now.

With Tennessee’s season-opening win in hand, I raced back up Interstate 85. I had three hours to drive the 125 miles to Clemson for the top-10 showdown. Traffic? It’s hard to drive with crossed fingers.

All the cars were already parked when I arrived 40 minutes before kickoff. On my mile-plus walk from the media overflow lot to Memorial Stadium, there were only a few stragglers still on campus.

Everyone was already either in their seats or just outside the stadium.

As Clemson’s players made their way in full pads around the stadium in buses, a video showcasing the history of Howard’s Rock played at deafening volume on the gigantic video board. Memorable quotes from coach Dabo Swinney — “Tonight was BYOG, Bring your own guts,” he said after a rain-soaked victory over Notre Dame in 2015 — served as the voiceover.

Finally, Swinney placed his hands on the rock and sprinted down the hill covered by the orange carpet adorned with the word Clemson. Once the team was on the field, fans filled in behind, turning the hill behind the end zone into a sea of people. The stadium was a powder keg for the first snap.

College football is its names, relics and traditions. Clemson’s tiger mascot held a sign that said, “Welcome to the real Death Valley,” a jab at its opponent, which also claims to play in the real Death Valley. In this sport, two fan bases can fight over the right to name their stadium after a place on the other side of the country that earned its name by being fiercely hostile to all living things.

At LSU, numbers hold value. Quarterback Garrett Nussmeier bears the weight of history and expectation on his shoulders by wearing No. 18, the first quarterback to don the number since national champion Matt Mauck in 2003. Edge rusher Harold Perkins wears No. 7, traditionally given to the team’s top playmaker. It’s his pressure that forced Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik into a game-sealing incompletion.

As Clemson’s night ended with disappointment, the lull of a loss hung in the air. But the home fans knew what to do. After singing their alma mater — a tradition win or lose — they made their way onto the field to be together. It’s known as the Gathering at The Paw, a Clemson tradition that dates back to 1942.

Tradition is tradition, even on a frustrating, forgettable night. Kids tossed a football. Friends caught up.

LSU fans even took part, turning the northwest corner of the stadium into Bourbon Street as they danced to jazz music from the visiting band.

Elation and deflation lived on the same field. I found myself in the middle of two fan bases having contrasting evenings.

But they were together with their people.

It was time to reintroduce myself to Interstate 85 and spend two hours traveling back to Atlanta for Sunday’s game. Thanks to a steady stream of coffee, I’m granted safe passage and return to my hotel just before 4 a.m.

College football is history and lineage. It played out Sunday between two schools connected by a surname: Beamer.

South Carolina coach Shane Beamer grew up in Blacksburg, Va., home of Virginia Tech. His father, Frank Beamer, is the most revered figure in Hokies history, a coach who took the program to a national title game and won seven conference titles.

Frank Beamer gave Virginia Tech the proudest era in program history. He gave South Carolina Shane Beamer, who built a roster ranked in the top 15. Expectations have rarely been higher in the Gamecocks’ 122-year history.

So when Frank Beamer took the microphone Sunday for a pregame prayer — wearing a black South Carolina jacket with a Virginia Tech logo pinned beneath the Gamecocks logo — both sides gave him a rousing welcome.

Shane Beamer couldn’t hold his emotions in check when he saw his parents waiting at the end of a receiving line of fans as the Gamecocks entered the stadium. Then, his team used a special teams touchdown — his father’s team’s hallmark — to send Virginia Tech to 0-1.

Quarterback LaNorris Sellers found Frank Beamer on a golf cart after the Gamecocks’ 24-11 win and gifted him a game ball, the past and future meeting in a moment to begin a season.

Every program has them: Relics of a proud past, figures who haunt the sideline, hoping the days that made them legends return for their programs.

A day later, the last stop on my trip is full of them. Julius Peppers and Lawrence Taylor. Michael Jordan.

Sunshine beat down on the idyllic North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Monday. The nation’s spotlight turned to the Tar Heels, their fans hoping Bill Belichick might change the football program’s fortunes.

The row of fraternity houses hosted packed lawn parties with karaoke and signs celebrating Belichick’s arrival. ESPN brought its A-team for Monday’s lone game.

But college football is, ultimately, unpredictable. Hope can bounce from one fan base to another. Inside Kenan Stadium, it did just that.

The UNC fans who filled most of the stadium left in the third quarter. Most of the stadium was quiet as TCU closed out a dominant, 48-14 win, but the northeast corner was loud. Defensive back Bud Clark signed autographs and posed with the purple-clad fans, the hero of the moment.

As TCU’s players and fans celebrated, they joined in song. Few of the lyrics would show up in Webster’s dictionary.

But any Horned Frog knows them by heart. Together, they sang them at the top of their lungs.

“Riff, ram, bah zoo! Lickety, lickety, zoo, zoo! Who, wah, wah, who! Give ’em Hell, TCU!”

(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Icon Sportswire / Getty Images, Katie Januck / Getty Images, Lance King / Getty Images)