Chemtrails Over the Campus Quad: The Charming (and Less and Less Relevant) America of Men's College Football

Art by Onkar Shirsekar

< p> Fifteen minutes into the game, a lone North Carolina State forward picks up the ball at the halfway line and heads headlong into a North Carolina defender. 'Retired Clemson University. Despite his determination, the no. 9's heavy touch ends his one-on-one counterattack as the ball is picked up by a centre-back who swings it to Clemson's left-back. At this point, the lead commentator exclaims, "And now the ball goes to Charlie Asensio," his southern drawl emphasizing the middle syllable, Ass-IN-see-o," the 5'9'' junior from Roswell, Georgia.”

A seemingly mundane moment in an utterly mundane 2020 conference game, ending 1-0 against the then-number-one-ranked Clemson Tigers thanks to a late penalty. And yet, the lead commentator's Ted Lasso-esque "ah-shucks" naivety, frantic tempo and ramshackle attacking play, all set in a beautiful historic stadium packed with a school band amidst a bucolic campus is a distillation neat of the charm of men's college football. Due to its growing insularity to the professional ranks and international football in general, it is one of the last places you can experience men's world football as a local phenomenon unique to the United States.

Once America's premier football talent pool for national team and professional football, men's college football has been losing relevance for years as MLS-affiliated development academies and the international transfer market begin to provide the dominant share of talent in the United States. Long gone are the days when one could derisively but credibly accuse the U.S. men's team of being a "galloping side of corn-fed college kids," while child-academy professionals like Brendon Aaronson have become the model for player development. /p>

To illustrate, 17 of the 22 members of the 1994 U.S. Men's National Team (USMNT) World Cup squad played for their collegiate teams, while the other five were born outside of the United States. United. That number is down to 7 out of 23 on the USMNT's most recent list. This is undoubtedly the consequence of the local player rule, which was adopted by MLS in 2007 to encourage clubs to invest in their academies. As a result, the annual MLS SuperDraft has become a decaffeinated event that, at best, can be seen as a net that can catch the occasional straggler who lacked the talent to break into the pro ranks earlier.

Beyond its diminishing sporting importance, the growing insignificance of college football...