Thetownend.com

Been watching Last Chance U on Netflix, which I've found enjoyable but in places baffling as I'm not a fan of American egg chasing. One thing in particular that puzzles me is when their season (sporting not TV) runs to/from? And is it different for the junior colleges? They seem to start the season in late summer/autumn but then it looks like they finish in December? Which seems awfully short. If that is correct (and it may just be the way it comes across in the programme and/or me being a doofus), then what do they do for the rest of the year? Do they have two or three "seasons" in a calendar year? Or just a very long break in between each short season?

And is this just a junior college thing or do all the colleges do this? Or dovetail into each other's seasons as you get higher up the ladder somehow?

Apologies if I'm being a complete idiot here (wouldn't be the first time). But I thought I'd ask as I know there's a few NFL fans on here who might be able to enlighten me

I think...

JuCo runs from the start of the academic year to December, with bowl matches and play-offs perhaps extending that. Same as the College season, and the NFL season.

LCU is amazing. Didn't love the most recent series though. Definitely the least interesting. Check out QB1 on Netflix too - similar vibe.

If you have a batshit crazy scene stealing Head Coach then you need to replace him accordingly. They did not.

Slight derail but I know the usual collegiate soccer season begins in August and is over for most in November (with the NCAA Championship game in December). Former Town youth goalkeeper Declan Lehmann has recently joined the wonderfully named Dragons of Tiffin University.

(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181001/e7f80d33152b5a171eff318739d533ef.jpg)

Cheers guys. So it's just a really short season then? So what do they do the rest of the year?

Friendlies, tours, gym work and, y'know, earning their degrees :)

How odd. But then they're a very odd bunch.

US collegiate sport is a very strange concept to grasp for any of us this side of 'the pond' but a fascinating one. Top college football coaches get paid millions...as much if not more than NFL coaches in some cases and the top teams play in front of 80-100,000+ every week. And they're just 'college kids'...

Is the Michigan Stadium still the biggest? Well over 100,000. College pride is a heck of a thing, not something we share in the UK.

Up the mighty Plymouth Blitz...!

'kin 'ell !  :jawdrop:

It's a Wiki rabbit hole I venture down from time-to-time...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._stadiums_by_capacity

To consider the support of College Football teams, you should relate it to following Swindon.  Professional sports teams came about many years after College and are limited in locations, plus they franchise and vanish every so often.  That has meant local support tends to be College based, on top of the College student base themselves.  Where I live, about 35 miles South of Atlanta, I can find Georgia Bulldog fans (based out of Athens GA) and Alabama fans.  A bit further South and you get more Alabama and then start finding Auburn.

On top of that, the College system here does manage to create a sort of life lasting affinity with it's students.  Wherever they go after Uni, they continue to refer to it with pride - I'm involved in lots of conversations where 50 year old businessmen from different companies will figure out they went to the same College and sidetrack discussion for 15 minutes.

College sport also has significant female following as well, it's a true family affair.

They are also quite loud, not like the more sanitised version you see in NFL & MLB etc.  Much closer to a proper football crowd.  In fact, College football crowds remind me of the Dutch national team fans.

To robs point - 1 minute 20

https://youtu.be/yYSu-BytQ2I

Bloody hell, that's impressive.

Nothing is US sports makes sense to be fair

That was quite amusing and impressive. Although that being a State College team, we do have to give some context. A state fan base would be similar to that of like a national fan base so a full and active crowd is to be expected; think some of the pomp when England play (it's not quite as hyped as the US of course). We have to remember that if someone attends somewhere like UCLA, an equivalent here would be like attending the University of the UK. Each state is pretty much like it's own nation, and not just in sizes but in legislation too (as we kinda know).

That's where the pride comes in too because your state is kind of your own "country". It also explains why we don't have packed stadia of 80-100k for Bishop's Stortford v Stalybridge Celtic - because it is all relative. A lot of people forget just how "huuugggee" the US is, especially when applying to sports, fan bases and the relative geography.

State is the name of the University, they have many of them in each State.

Example - Georgia State University is not University of Georgia (Bulldogs).  Alabama has multiple big ones, as does Texas and Florida.  In fact, the Southern States have lots of teams that are well supported and they don't always tie-up to the biggest Cities.  Alabama is in Tuscaloosa I think, not Montgomery, and Auburn is a small City of about 60k people.

Georgia Tech used to be biggish and they are a couple of miles from Georgia State, across an InterState.  The latter uses the stadium they built for the Olympics, the former uses a 45k capacity stadium on campus.

For sure, I understand that but in the most part they will still be covering fairly large catchment areas but there is more "pride" in the US so to speak - even if we correlate a UK/European level of pride to State level.

Of course I know that you'll have a much better understanding, since you do live over yonder way :)