Do you still enjoy college football/sports?

[Bison]

I think fans who were really into recruiting as part of their year college football addiction are feeling a little bit of a "hole" in the calendar. With the Internet a cottage industry was born around recruiting - Rivals, Scout, etc. - and it grew to be a force in the world of college football. Keeping fans attention during the off season similar to the NFL draft. Drama was created around who did we offer, who is visiting, who has put us on their final list.

It would appear much of that has been lost with the increased emphasis on the transfer portal so I believe some fans who really enjoyed following recruiting feel like something is missing.

You can say you only care about the games and what happens on the field but that is not all that College Football is about. There is obviously a lot of turmoil in college athletics and it will impact fans perspective.

I'm one who never really was invested into recruiting pre-internet and remained that way during the internet days.

Not having that annual college football videogame since 2013 left a hole in me and that is about to be filled back up. Thankfully that is coming back and will fill a huge gap in my offseasons from football.

 

[66BUFF]

I'm one who never really was invested into recruiting pre-internet and remained that way during the internet days.

Not having that annual college football videogame since 2013 left a hole in me and that is about to be filled back up. Thankfully that is coming back and will fill a huge gap in my offseasons from football.

 

[Alfred91]

For many of us, it's not simply sports entertainment. There are reasons why we care more and differently than we do about pro sports. If those reasons are taken away, it's just watching minor league sports which very few of us bother with in basketball, baseball or hockey.

I've been a fan of CU athletics since the Buffs wore blue jerseys. I have always been a fan of all CU athletics, not just football.

I went to CU. It was never a real question for me. I turned down an opportunity to play small school college football because I wanted to go to CU. (To be fair though, I also didn't want to play small school college football.)

I am a fan of the University as a whole. Something that is good for the University, in athletics, in academia, or anything else makes me proud. Things that are negative for the University bother me. The recruiting 'scandal' in the 2000s bothered me not just because of the effect on the football program, but because of the way it affected the reputation of the institution as a whole. Ward Churchill, John Eastman, and Mark Kennedy bothered me just as much as Karl Dorrell, because I care about CU, of which the Buffs are just a part. A huge part, but still just a part.

So for someone to think/say that it's "just sports" and we should only care about what happens on the field, well, that's just not possible for me. Maybe that means I have issues. I don't tend to think so. I think it's because I take a wholistic view of the University and not view them simply as a football team with a school tacked on.

 

[The Alabaster Yak]

I've been a fan of CU athletics since the Buffs wore blue jerseys. I have always been a fan of all CU athletics, not just football.

I went to CU. It was never a real question for me. I turned down an opportunity to play small school college football because I wanted to go to CU. (To be fair though, I also didn't want to play small school college football.)

I am a fan of the University as a whole. Something that is good for the University, in athletics, in academia, or anything else makes me proud. Things that are negative for the University bother me. The recruiting 'scandal' in the 2000s bothered me not just because of the effect on the football program, but because of the way it affected the reputation of the institution as a whole. Ward Churchill, John Eastman, and Mark Kennedy bothered me just as much as Karl Dorrell, because I care about CU, of which the Buffs are just a part. A huge part, but still just a part.

So for someone to think/say that it's "just sports" and we should only care about what happens on the field, well, that's just not possible for me. Maybe that means I have issues. I don't tend to think so. I think it's because I take a wholistic view of the University and not view them simply as a football team with a school tacked on.

If I was still a student at the University I think I would give more ****s about the players essentially all taking online classes and not really being part of the broader University/campus life, or not being in Boulder for 4-5 years, or not really caring about the fight song.

But none of that stuff really started in the past couple of years. The 2016 season was a CU fans wet dream as the team was good and it had a bunch of 4-5 year guys who we all followed from their freshman years. That was a unicorn team and that model wasn’t sustainable.

I stick to my theory that CU fans are having a crisis around this stuff right now because we are finally playing big boy football w/r/t to mercenaries and caliber of player that has legitimate options, with NONE of them ever growing up dreaming of playing for CU. Winning will cure a lot of these feelings.

 

[Bison]

I've been a fan of CU athletics since the Buffs wore blue jerseys. I have always been a fan of all CU athletics, not just football.

I went to CU. It was never a real question for me. I turned down an opportunity to play small school college football because I wanted to go to CU. (To be fair though, I also didn't want to play small school college football.)

I am a fan of the University as a whole. Something that is good for the University, in athletics, in academia, or anything else makes me proud. Things that are negative for the University bother me. The recruiting 'scandal' in the 2000s bothered me not just because of the effect on the football program, but because of the way it affected the reputation of the institution as a whole. Ward Churchill, John Eastman, and Mark Kennedy bothered me just as much as Karl Dorrell, because I care about CU, of which the Buffs are just a part. A huge part, but still just a part.

So for someone to think/say that it's "just sports" and we should only care about what happens on the field, well, that's just not possible for me. Maybe that means I have issues. I don't tend to think so. I think it's because I take a wholistic view of the University and not view them simply as a football team with a school tacked on.

Father went to CU and that is how I was introduced to CU but I didn't attend CU for college so that would explain how I view CU differently than CU fans that went to CU.

 

[Alfred91]

If I was still a student at the University I think I would give more ****s about the players essentially all taking online classes and not really being part of the broader University/campus life, or not being in Boulder for 4-5 years, or not really caring about the fight song.

But none of that stuff really started in the past couple of years. The 2016 season was a CU fans wet dream as the team was good and it had a bunch of 4-5 year guys who we all followed from their freshman years. That was a unicorn team and that model wasn’t sustainable.

I stick to my theory that CU fans are having a crisis around this stuff right now because we are finally playing big boy football w/r/t to mercenaries and caliber of player that has legitimate options, with NONE of them ever growing up dreaming of playing for CU. Winning will cure a lot of these feelings.

TBH, I have also come to the (perhaps naive) conclusion that most of the **** that is reported about the CU football program is stuff that is pretty normal yet magnified 1000x because of Prime, or in some cases, just plain made up by bloggers and clickbait artists. Also, a lot of the stuff that I worry about with college football is not restricted to CU. It bothers me that I think college football is not sustainable at the current rate, and that might eventually affect the Buffs and CU disproportionately compared to say a Big Ten or SEC school, but those things aren't really under CU's control. We're just along for the ride at this point. I think Prime is trying to do things in his own way, redefine the way things are done, etc, but he's mostly trying to shoot at a moving target as well.

 

[Matt]

I think I would be 38% more excited if Oklahoma and Nebraska were still in the big 12. The current big 12 is depressing and if CU doesn’t finish in the top 3 in this conference year in and year out it is a failure.