What was the game that made you a fan of college football?

2008 Texas vs Texas Tech, I just remember being glued to my TV screen at my grandparents place, and on top of that it was the first time I had seen anyone storm the field. I've been hooked ever since.

1998 Alamo Bowl

Purdue +12 vs Kansas St  

Drew Brees throws TD to win 37-34 

Ya gonna date me now!

November 24, 1973, Michigan/Ohio State 10-10 tie. 

In my junior high school back then (7th, 8th and 9th grade) I had the same math teacher in each year. He was a grad of Ohio State and he gave us extra homework when Ohio State lost in 1971, rubbed it in 1972 when the Buc's won. In 1973 someone in class knew Tom Slade, QB for the Wolv's and he made a surprise visit to our class to berate our buckeye teacher! 

A college football fan for life after that.

In 1973, Michigan should have received the nod to go to the Rose Bowl after the tie. But Michigan's starting QB, Franklin, was injuried in the Ohio State game and the Big 10 voted Ohio State to go to Pasadena and that enraged Bo Schembechler.

Great times!!!!

army navy on CBS in 1996 back when there was 1 game on a week. Or Nebraska vs Oklahoma, or florida vs Vanderbilt on JP sports in 2000…the list goes on. 

Not so much a game, really the whole season ... Northwestern, 1995... 8th grade I grew up nearby the stadium .. didn't watch any CFB or know much  but saw NU's schedule on all the soda cans that summer, first up notre dame .. only really knew ND was ND and NU was terrible so just thought welp, that was a quick season lol.... ND actually ended up being good that year 9-3 only lost to the Cats, Buckeyes and FSU in the bowl .. beat good Texas and USC teams but at that point they were coming off a real disappointing year 6-5-1, worst record in 10 years ..  so while the win was shocking im sure it didnt really register that NU was making a rose bowl run especially after a let down game 2 vs miami ohio, NU obvi better but Miami ended up being one of those sneaky good MAC teams that year.. 

Purple fever didn't really hit until they were #25 in the AP heading into Michigan .. im sure uniman remembers that one .. tim biakabatuka, charles woodson and scary sounding D front w jarret irons and sam sword and glen steele ... the cinderella season really cemented with that big win vs Penn State at home NU was still looked at as a flukey underdog till then .. still have that SI with darnell autry on the cover.. guess if I had to pick a game it would be that one .. and forever grateful to that Michigan team for beating Ohio State and sending us to the rose bowl, im sure Uni remembers that one much better w Timbo went for 300+ yds and was like welp, time to go pro .. lol ..

anyway, most fun part of this game is finding those cinderella teams early .. if you look back at phil steele's last hundred thousand years of ATS data you'll see NU like all the others were a huge moneymaker ..  10-1 ATS in the reg ssn, upsets galore .. pretty small club of double digit ATS coverers especially in the 11 game era  ... a few others since then BYU '96 w Sark at QB, Desert swarm II in '98.. Boise State's first big breakout year in 2002 .. Utah 2003 urban's first season and again in 2004 w the undefeated season .. (Urban = ATS gold) .. Texas' Natty run in '05, Kansas' big year in '07, Tim Tebow in '08 .. and on and on ... short ssn in 2020 but think we can say coastal, liberty, SJSU and Indiana were on the right track .. real tough to spot these kinda massive jumps on O and D preseason and they're almost always a team to you should look at ways to fade the next year .. 

I attended a game in West Lafayette Indiana while the family was visiting my Uncle and his family, Purdue University, don't even remember who they played. I was a little kid in the 60's and the QB was a guy named Bob Griese, you may have heard of him. He's the reason I later became a Miami Dolphins fan. Yup, probably got a couple of years on most of you! Incredibly exciting for a little kid to see this packed, loud, raucous crowd .Loved it!

@Bridge1

 So many years NW was an easy win then Barnett put them together in 95. Always liked it when the Conf. title gets passed around.

The Wildcats broke a 22 game losing streak to Iowa, 19 to Michigan, and 14 to Notre Dame that year!!!

Biakabutuka was an immigrant to Canada from Zaire. Never played football until 12th grade. Amazing speed and power.

Probably back when Boise St was a div 2 or 3 whatever team and they beat that div one team in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl way back in like 05 or whenever it was.

2006 Fiesta Bowl OSU vs Notre Dame

Funny when you're young near a good program you just expect every guy to make it big at the next level and we didn't see a ton of that from an OSU roster I thought was loaded. Troy Smith got a head start for his Heisman campaign for the next year because I think most of the bigger names were heading to the draft that year (Young,Bush,Quinn, Matty L) and got to throw to Ginn and Anthony Gonzalez both of them felt like they could make huge plays out of thin air. Between that and a pretty good LB group leaving I think I made sure I went out to get every buckeye rookie card that year and unfortunately didn't have many turn into the stars I expected. Like I said pretty young at the time and after this game I didn't think I'd see the Bucks ever lose a bowl game since they had strung together a pretty good post season streak between their natty and this game but had a pretty rude awakening the next year when we ran into Urban

For me it was the 2007 Fiesta bowl.The excitement of the game in the final minutes of the fourth and overtime just put me over the edge as a fan

2004 Autozone Liberty Bowl

Boise State vs Louisville

@Bridge1

 I’ll never forget that NW team with Damion Anderson and zak kustok. 

incredible. That win vs Michigan. Legendary 

I can't place it, which is strange because it's my favorite sport to watch and wager on, and because I can remember other moments:

Jim Palmer beating Koufax and the Dodgers in the '66 World Series made me a baseball, and Oriole fan.

Salvador Sanchez vs Wilfredo Gomez turned me into a boxing fan.

Seeing a nationally televised game for the Seahawks (rare in those days) where Jim Zorn came from behind to beat the mighty Steelers made me a Seahawk fan.

Oksana Baiul defeating Nancy Kerrigan at Copenhagen made me a . . . no. Just kidding.

I remember a few college football games/bets that made me want to STOP being a fan, but can't recall what made me a fan in the first place.

i liked college football before this player i will mention, but i was too young to really understand it.

anthony carter at michigan was simply amazing......... kenny easley at UCLA too.. probably 1st two players to capture my imagination.

probably the first player i vividly remember from CFB was tony dorsett. but i was too young to really understand what things meant.

For me living in Big Red country, was the 1996 Fiesta Bowl. No. 1 Nebraska vs. No. 2 Florida. Where Nebraska completely steamrolled Florida 62-24.

On second down from the Nebraska 25, Neb quarterback Tommie Frazier ran an option play to the right, and decided to keep the ball rather than pitch. He gained 11 yards before being met by a group of Florida defenders at the 36-yard line, which he then dragged approximately 10 yards before shrugging them off and breaking free, streaking 75 yards down the sideline to give Nebraska a 49–18 lead. Frazier had broken no less than seven tackles on the play. Frazier would finish the game with 199 yards rushing. Nebraska also set records for most rushing yards in a bowl game, with 524, and the most points in the second quarter of a bowl game, with 29.

Since then, Nebraska has been voted as the greatest college football team of all-time in many surveys, including the all-time Sagarin ratings. An ESPN poll had them at number three, only behind the 1971 Nebraska and 1972 USC teams.

For much of the summer of 1996, a common joke on ESPN was "Hey Gators, Nebraska just scored again."

Texas v. Texas A&M 1977...Behind Earl Campbell, my Longhorns put a hurtin' on the Aggies...I was nine year's old...

Almost the entire 1984 season ..

My pops loved fading the higher ranked chalks on the money line and with the points ..Till this day he still talks about how he paid off our house , bought 2 new cars , and took us on several once in a lifetime trips after this magical season ..

I remember him running around the house dancing and screaming until he lost his voice  during many of these games below 

Week 0
No. 10 Miami 20, No. 1 Auburn 18 in East Rutherford..This game started it all

Week 1
BYU 20, No. 3 Pitt 14 in Pittsburgh...He said this was his largest bet since the mid 70's .

Week 2
No. 14 Michigan 22, No. 1 Miami 14 in Ann Arbor
Purdue 23, No. 7 Notre Dame 21 in West Lafayette
No. 18 Boston College 38, No. 9 Alabama 31 in Birmingham
Oklahoma State 45, No. 12 Arizona State 3 in Tempe

Week 3
No. 16 Washington 20, No. 3 Michigan 11 in Ann Arbor
No. 12 Penn State 20, No. 5 Iowa 17 in Iowa City

Week 4
No. 20 Georgia 26, No. 2 Clemson 23 in Athens
No. 15 Florida State 38, No. 4 Miami 3 in Miami. He got a brand new oldsmobile after the monday after this game .

Week 5
Syracuse 17, No. 1 Nebraska 9 in Syyracuse. .He took the short trip down the 90 to see this one . 

Week 6
Purdue 28, No. 2 Ohio State 23 in West Lafayette
Memphis 17, No. 6 Florida State 17 in Tallahassee
No. 14 Miami 31, No. 16 Notre Dame 13 in South Bend
Michigan State 19, No. 13 Michigan 7 

Week 7
No. 16 Auburn 42, No. 9 Florida State 41 in Tallahassee

Week 8
No. 20 West Virginia 21, No. 4 Boston College 20 in Morgantown

Week 9
Kansas 28, No. 2 Oklahoma 11 in Lawrence.. One of his biggest ML scores of the season ..Only bet it bc he was up a large stack going in and hated OU .
Wisconsin 16, No. 6 Ohio State 14 in Madison
Notre Dame 30, No. 7 LSU 22 in Baton Rouge
Kansas 28, Oklahoma 11.

Week 10
No. 2 Texas 13, Texas Tech 10 in Lubbock
No. 13 Florida 24, No. 11 Auburn 3 in Gainesville
Virginia 27, No. 12 West Virginia 7 in Morgantown 

Week 11
No. 14 USC 16, No. 1 Washington 7 in Los Angeles
Houston 29, No. 3 Texas 15 in Austin
Maryland 42, No. 6 Miami 40 in Miami
No. 5 South Carolina 38, No. 11 Florida State 26 in Columbia
No. 10 Florida 27, No. 8 Georgia 0 in Jacksonville

No. 6 Oklahoma 17, No. 1 Nebraska 7 in Lincoln
Navy 38, No. 2 South Carolina 21 in Annapolis
UCLA 29, No. 7 USC 10 in Pasadena

Mississippi State 16, No. 9 LSU 14 in Starkville

No. 18 Auburn 21, No. 15 Georgia 12 in Auburn
No. 10 Texas 44, No. 12 TCU 23 in Fort Worth

Week 13
Baylor 24, No. 6 Texas 10 in Waco
Notre Dame 19, No. 14 USC 7 in Los Angeles

Week 14
Alabama 17, No. 11 Auburn 15 in Birmingha

Bowls
No. 4 Washington 28, No. 2 Oklahoma 17 in the Orange Bowl...This sealed the deal on his miracle run ...

i was already a fan when this game took place...

but to me the greatest college football moment was rutgers beating louisville at home on ESPN thursday night..

i know other people will scoff but this is simply my personal opinion. i don't expect this game to be on  top 10 college football game ever lists done by various media

i concur so much with the one poster's mention of 1995 NW team. darnell autry and company.... such a huge season. and i used to fly through ohare regularly in those days, so i'd see the excitement in the Chi-Town papers.

nebraska-missouri late 90's game was amazing..... google the ending if you don't know it.............. colby jones was simply amazing for Mizzou

Oregon state beating Oregon was amazing last year...... and if you didn't see the game, it was extraordinary drama.

Oregon State had to bring in a cold, 3rd string QB for 4th and 1 at the Ducks goalline late in the game to win.... so dramatic :)

this was like winning the superbowl for the Beavers.

The first time I saw Notre Dame...  lose 

@jimrockford22

WOOOO-HOOOOO Jim.. 

Went down to NU practice w a buddy .. Coach Fitz, then LB Fitz, said whats up to us .. Also got Darnell Autry's autograph .. Ace Ventura 2 premier ..  program goes from only being an afterthought because they are a punchline to everyone rally'in w those car flags and sellout crowds is just one of those life gifts .. imagine the folks down in Myrtle Beach w Coastal Caro totally had that this year .. nothin quite like it .. 

For me... I was already big on college football in high-school but It was a TEAM. Not a GAME. The 2004 Cal Bears was the team that brought me to college football. That team was LOADED. Marshawn Lynch, Aaron Rodgers, Deshaun Jackson, Nnamdi Asomougha, Brandon Mebane to name a few.... That was first Cal team in my lifetime to hit a top 5 ranking and I cant remember if it was #1 or #2 at one point in season. But yea..... That team made me an NCAAF lifer

You from the bay?

@StumpTownStu

 Yep. SF born and raised brutha.