Go Team! ... Wait, What Team?

The tradition, the pre-game tailgates and post-game parties, the roar of the crowd, old-school marching bands, and the camaraderie with fellow students (and, let's be honest, the late-night hookups). There's so much to love about college football.

We loved it, too, at UC San Diego when Erica and I went there. Problem was, the college did not. In fact, UCSD didn't even have a football team. And we're a little bitter about that. I take that back — we're VERY bitter about that.

C'mon, we and all our friends wanted to sit in the stands, all bundled up to stave off the November cold while sipping a hot toddy and — who'm I kidding? This was San Diego; we would have been downing mai-tais and wearing tank tops and flip flops. Still, we finally could have cheered for the Tritons and shown some school pride, or as much pride as one can show for a male mermaid. (Which was the school's, ahem, unique mascot).

The most disappointing part was that the student body itself voted down the football team. We couldn't even pretend we were like “Animal House” and blame the “evil” school dean for ruining our fun; it was actually our fault for being so lame.

So instead of big-time football at the beachside campus in La Jolla, we had intramural badminton. And power tanning ... and inner-tube water polo … and human frisbee, and — Oh, God, I'll stop there.

But, hey! We also had talking trees (it was an art project), and neon signs flashing the Seven Human Vices (it was an art project), and a big fence with a blue canvas (yes, it was an art project) and a statue of a large bird called the Sun God, which is painted with so many colors it looks like the San Diego Chicken on acid. Yes, it was an art project. Seeing the pattern here? Truth is, I love offbeat art and music. I even like those Berkeley tree-sitting hippies who wanted to block Cal's new sports facility. But remember what all those yoga sessions are about: Balance. So howzabout a little balance on campus, tossing in a little ol' fashioned testosterone and tailgating to offset all that other cool alternative stuff?

In retrospect, we should have started that other college tradition: a grass-roots movement. We could have handed out leaflets to the history majors to get them to appreciate gridiron tradition, or held protests with the business students and chanted: “Football here, football now! Make the pigskin a cash cow!” We should have reminded the philosophy students: Humans do not live on boogie-boarding alone, man. Okay, a few did back then — but they had names like Turtle and practically lived by the keg.

We should have had a march on campus, demanding our football rights, dammit. Come to think of it, we did have angry “marches” around town. But they were called pub crawls.

Alas, we never did any of this. We were too busy watching other college teams on TV. And Erica was too busy fantasizing that she went to a Southern college where girls dress up to go to games, and you have “dates” to take you to the big matchup every Saturday.

Years later, our alma mater still has no football team. The Sun God, however, is still there. So, like a Texas cheerleader’s mother, we live vicariously through others. Such as the students who were smart enough to attend these big-time football colleges. Here's our list of top game-day scenes that are so fun, we wish we had gone to school there.

LSU: A GameFace college if we ever saw one. Tons of female fans who love dressing up for the game and cheering loud for the hometown Tigers. It also has all the community passion that comes with Southern football, coupled with mouth-watering cuisine for which Louisiana is loved. 

PENN STATE: This perennial powerhouse is known primarily for two things: coach Joe Paterno and producing NFL linebackers. Oh yeah, and crockpots. Penn State fans and their world-renowned tailgating are just as legendary as the eternal JoePa. 

HARVARD/YALE: These Northeastern campuses look like just like college in the movies — all brick and ivy and snowy fields. Not to mention real student-athletes, which, not every university can claim.

TEXAS: Football isn't a game or a business here in Longhorn Country. Just like Indiana and basketball, Texas football is a religion. Except that sometimes it looks more like a cult. A cult that we desperately want to join. Hook 'em 'Horns.

USC: Even Snoop Dog is a fan. With no NFL team in LA, this is where Hollywood goes for its football fix. UCLA is cool, but this has been SC's decade, and this being MovieLand, the nearly 100,000 that pack the Los Angeles Coliseum often looks like the world's biggest casting call.