Loved the "Are you shitting me?!" look at the end.

Well he picked a ridiculous game to go to for that and I'm sure they made sure of it so they got the tape they wanted. Weird part is, if you go to an NFL game, it's half the excitement. College football games are a perfect storm of stupidity and grace. There's nothing quite like it.

I love that you Sifters love this show. I'd never heard of it until I found about the Sift five years ago or whatever.

>> ^Stu:

Well he picked a ridiculous game to go to for that and I'm sure they made sure of it so they got the tape they wanted. Weird part is, if you go to an NFL game, it's half the excitement. College football games are a perfect storm of stupidity and grace. There's nothing quite like it.

As they should be. And yes, college games are FAR more exciting. The stadiums are sometimes twice the size of NFL stadiums. Universities have competitions as to who can have the biggest stadium (capacity). Since building new stadiums are expensive, they add on to what's existing. You won't find much of this in places with stuff to do, only in the midwest where there isn't anything better to do than to go to the local college football game. These college games will empty out a town.

This video is not available.

works for me

not sure i'd call Auburn a "medium sized college". it's pretty big.

i went to a big school, with a generally well regarded football program, and out games weren't nearly as over the top as this.

I love how he teared up during "America the Beautiful".

Holy crap, they actually got jets to flyby for a college football game?

Welcome to America.

Fuck yeah.

Tbh, probably because I'm an american it never occurred to me how that would all look from an outsider point of view. Stephen probably described it with characteristic accuracy though.

nachos mentioned a show this is from? what show? I'd love to see me some more Fry!

>> ^RadHazG:

Tbh, probably because I'm an american it never occurred to me how that would all look from an outsider point of view. Stephen probably described it with characteristic accuracy though.
nachos mentioned a show this is from? what show? I'd love to see me some more Fry!


Stephen Fry in America. It's a 6 part series I believe where Stephen goes to all 50 States...or 48 I can't remember. Anyways it's and amazing series and I just loved it.

Like a lot of people have already said, college football is way more popular than the NFL (especially in the South where this game is). Plus, this is an in-state rivalry so it's guaranteed to be a MASSIVE event. For the whole state of Alabama, that game is pretty much the event of the year. It's really rare though for a college game to get a flyover so (since I saw some military guys) there may have been some memorial whatever honoring some soldiers. The Auburn stadium holds close to 90,000 people and will generally sell out almost every Saturday in the fall.

As an American who moved to Europe I would KILL to be at a game like that, even though I hate both those teams (Go Dawgs). If you grew up with it and it's a part of your culture, you just love it.

You have to understand that college football is part of the college experience in America, especially if you go to a school with a great team. And some families only have a kid in college because of football. I work with, am friends with, and live with people who went to Berkeley, USC, and UCLA so it can get real ugly real fast during college football season. The rest of the world has their football, we have American football -- and it's way more epic, even if it's only us.

The romans held gladiator games for 100 days in a row. But they were decadent.

I'd like it more if they stopped calling it football. After all, it's not played primarily with the feet. For example, in baseball you go around a series of bases to score points, in basketball you put a ball in a basket. Why do they keep the old "football" name when it's become a completely different game?

Oh yeah, we're talking about the idiots who still insist on using English units that not even the English use anymore. My bad.

>> ^Morganth:

Like a lot of people have already said, college football is way more popular than the NFL


I agree with everything else you said, but from the quantitative data that I can find this is probably not true. See the first two tables here:
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/vault/Harris-Interactive-Poll-Research-Sports-Popularity-2010-02.pdf

Although yes it is probably true in the American South and Midwest.

Gave me a big smile. Thanks for sharing!

>> ^Stu:

College football games are a perfect storm of stupidity and grace. There's nothing quite like it.

It has a certain beauty, doesn't it? Truly wonderful.

American "football" is rugby-with-autism played in body-fenders. It's more like some homoerotic Broadway choreographed over-production of a divorce litigation done up by Elton John than any sport.

*blocked for me too

Invocations (blocked) cannot be called by siftlurk because siftlurk is not privileged - sorry.

As a european, this was a complete and utter *wtf for me. I thought I was rather familiar with American culture (in large part thanks to the Sift), but apparently there is still a lot to learn.

Adding video to channels (Wtf) - requested by EDD.

25th in math and 21st in science. Big football games though.

*dead

This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by direpickle.

*notdead

This dead video has been deemed functional; it must have been accidentally declared dead - declared notdead by thinker247.

"This video has been removed by the user." Oh well.

*dead

Invocations (dead) cannot be called by wolfzr2 because wolfzr2 is not privileged - sorry.

Here is a replacement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cl-f8NABMM

*dead

This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by dingens.

>> ^Zyrxil:

Holy crap, they actually got jets to flyby for a college football game?

They do flybys for pretty much anything nowadays. You could probably get one for your next family BBQ if you ask nicely enough.

>> ^EDD:

As a european, this was a complete and utter wtf for me. I thought I was rather familiar with American culture (in large part thanks to the Sift), but apparently there is still a lot to learn.


Please note that while you're drinking this in as representative of American culture, alot of us over here are completely uncomfortable with this insane dedication to a relatively meaningless game.

Alot of us are sitting @ home with our families wondering WTF as well.

Edit, wrong post quoted! Oops!

Been saying this for years

As an American, it's a complete and utter WTF for me when I read about people in foreign countries (including 1st world foreign countries) killing each other at soccer games for rooting for the wrong team.

Glass houses...

Oh, and for the record, I hate college football.

I don't get it either. I just couldn't care less about these things.

Meh. All sports are ridiculous and stupid, with the exception of motor sports because they're actually entertaining.

It's either blocked or dead everytime I come around.

>> ^ForgedReality:

Meh. All sports are ridiculous and stupid, with the exception of motor sports because they're actually entertaining.


lol? Cars going around in circles is entertaining? Pretty much any sport has more going on than motor sports...not to mention people actually using athletic ability. I hope this was sarcasm.

Trivia note : The music at the very beginning is from the very first Alien movie.

A modern day dandy commenting on American decadence.

>> ^mgittle:

>> ^ForgedReality:
Meh. All sports are ridiculous and stupid, with the exception of motor sports because they're actually entertaining.

lol? Cars going around in circles is entertaining? Pretty much any sport has more going on than motor sports...not to mention people actually using athletic ability. I hope this was sarcasm.


That's all that comes to your mind when you think of motorsports? I'm glad I have a much better imagination than you, sir.

This looks awesome. What an atmosphere!