The Current State of College Football: Losing My Religion

Examining changes in American football fan culture in the technological age uncovers similar patterns in American religion and politics.

The Current State of College Football explores changes in football fan culture over the past thirty to forty years, specifically regarding who is viewed as a worthy leader, whether a coach or player. With focus on the Deep South, these changes parallel the move from a religious, story-telling culture to a technological one. The latter provides immediate statistical updates and constant visual access from a phone, a reality that cuts off any slowly developing character arc within football fandom. As a result, the former ability to perceive presence in leaders by the average fan is no longer exercised. As stories give way to statistics, any potential ＂prophets＂ of the game are either ignored or lauded for things having nothing to do with presence, the perception of which was homed in a specific religious context and was once a common religious perception.

This cultural change is mirrored in the current political realm, the inability to recognize and choose leaders largely the result of losing this ability to enter the narrative arc and discern authentic characters. Those who we now view as unique are often the most predictable parts of the system itself while feigning to be above it. Because our muscles of perception now lie dormant, we more easily fall prey to them.

Joshua Coleman, PhD is an independent scholar and author of Seeing and Being Seen: Aesthetics and Environmental Philosophy (Hamilton Books, 2018).