Ohio State Buckeyes

Ohio State, Georgia prove there's nothing like college football fans

Published Apr. 16, 2016 8:49 p.m. ET

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Aaron Torres

John Calipari's got an old saying (he's got a lot of sayings) that he likes to pull out every time he wants to praise Kentucky basketball for having the zaniest, most passionate fanbase in the sport. He drops it two or three times a year, and only at the most appropriate moments, when the absurdity of Big Blue Nation is truly at its peak.

"You people are crazy," Calipari is keen on saying.

It's certainly applicable to Kentucky basketball fans. However, it might be even more appropriate to another, broader group of people as well: college football fans.

To paraphrase Calipari, "you college football fans are crazy," is something we once again learned Saturday as spring games were played across the country.

And while thousands turned out nationwide, the craziness of college football fandom was on full display in two specific places: Columbus, Ohio, and Athens, Georgia.  

Let's start in C-Bus, where Urban Meyer urged his fans all week long to come out and support his new Ohio State squad. Heck, he didn't just urge them, he flat-out peer-pressured them, proclaiming that he wanted 100,000 fans at 'The Shoe on Saturday.

Ohio State fans followed Meyer's lead like Pavlov's dog, and by the time the festivities were over on Saturday, over 100,000 scarlet-and-grey clad-fans made their way through the turnstiles in Columbus. And they got quite a show: Backup quarterback Joe Burrows threw for three touchdowns and former quarterback Cardale Jones outshone buddy J.T. Barrett in a "deepest pass" competition.

It was all fun and games in Columbus, and it's probably worth noting that the show of 100,000 fans wasn't just impressive, but downright historic: They set a new national spring game attendance record — one that was held by, you guessed it, Ohio State — when they got 99,000 to come to their game last year.

Georgia also drew quite the crowd, even if the fans didn't quite hit six digits (Sanford Stadium doesn't hold that many people).

To ensure Kirby Smart got his big crowd, the athletic department promised "a big name musical act" at the Bulldogs' spring game event. After quite a bit of back and forth, they finally delivered, as Ludacris was tabbed earlier in the week to perform.

Based on the videos that emerged from Sanford Stadium 'Luda didn't disappoint, and neither did the 'Dawgs — particularly true freshman quarterback Jacob Eason. Arguably the top high school quarterback in the country last year, Eason threw for 244 yards and a touchdown in his first appearance in front of the Georgia faithful.

Yet while all the focus was on the field Saturday in both Athens and Columbus, it does bring us to a larger point: Is there any other group of fans quite like college football fans? Any group that shares the passion and love for their teams, like the folks in Columbus and Athens, not to mention Tuscaloosa, Baton Rouge and Ann Arbor?

The answer is no.

Name another sport on the planet where two teams holding separate, glorified scrimmages could attract some 95,000 people? You can't. It doesn't exist.  

NFL teams have to basically trick their fans into coming to exhibition games (bundling them with season tickets). And name the last memorable moment from a preseason NBA game. There isn't one. Same with the MLB: Spring training is a fun getaway for cold weather fans, but rarely are there more than a few thousand fans in attendance.

But college football is a totally different story altogether. In college football, the spring game is an event that's marked on the calendar months in advance, an event that quite literally means more to the fans themselves than the actual coaches on the field (many of whom would like to eliminate them altogether).

The reason fans show up to these events could be sociological: The ability for friends to reconvene after a long, cold offseason, fire up their grills, down a few beverages and have a good time.

Or, to quote David Puddy, you've just "gotta support the team!"

But Meyer and Smart spent all week gently nudging the fans, and again, the fans happily obliged. In droves.

John Calipari might not have been talking about college football fans when he said "You people are crazy."

But he might as well have been.

Aaron Torres is a contributor for FOXSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Aaron_Torres or Facebook. E-mail him at ATorres00@gmail.com.

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