Growing up, college football season was surpassed only by Christmas in terms of importance within our family. It was a time to pull out the team shirts and flags for the house, and support our teams through thick and thin. Now you might be thinking that these items were purple and gold, but I wasn't raised in Louisiana. I grew up in Arkansas. But don't think for a minute that “Woo Pig Sooie” was yelled in our house. My mother was a proud graduate of the University of Alabama—the reigning National Champions. I grew up cheering Roll Tide and at a young age knew who Bear Bryant was. If you notice, I used the word ‘teams’ with an 's' at the end. My younger sister, being a defiant child, gravitated toward Arkansas and the Hogs. All of her friends were Razorback fans so she was, too. But it gets even better. My grandmother and grandfather, who lived in the house behind us, were graduates of Georgia and Vanderbilt respectively. Our house was booming with SEC Pride. This did cause a few Saturday night dinners to be a little on the quiet side. But silent treatment or not, I loved the atmosphere that was college football season in our house. There is nothing like a little rivalry to bring a family together.
As I grew older and began to visit colleges and consider which one I would eventually enroll in for school, I began cheering for a new team—the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs. Though they aren't an SEC school and, well, they don't even belong to a major conference—I was going to support my Dawgs through it all. I mean, if my grandfather who says his team can't beat the girls' school for the blind can still be a proud Commodore then I, too, can do the same for the Bulldogs.
Speaking of cheering for a team that has a tradition of losing, my husband is a die-hard Saints fan and has been all 26 years of his life. I didn't even like professional football when we met 7 years ago—I was one of those people who watched the Super Bowl for the commercials. He soon converted me. Mind you, this was still the 2003 and 2004 seasons when I first started liking the Saints. I'm not a bandwagon fan. This season I will attend my first-ever Saints game. Not only will I get to experience the Super Dome on a Sunday afternoon, but as our anniversary present to ourselves, Husband and I have bought our tickets to spend Thanksgiving day in Dallas cheering on New Orleans. I have been so excited about this trip that I have already planned our tailgate menu. It's going to be a great season for the Cobbs.
This past Thursday marked the official beginning of autumn and, yes, that is supposed to mean cooler weather; but for me it means Saturdays and Sundays—with the occasional Thursday night, Friday night, or Monday night—watching football, watching my favorite pregame show on Sundays, helping Husband with his fantasy football teams, and making tailgating plans. It means calling my mom on Saturday night to congratulate her and her Tide on a victory and ask how my grandfather is taking yet another Vandy loss (though they did win their last game). It means wearing Blue on Saturdays and Black and Gold on Sundays. It means friendly trash talk with friends from all over and a little bit of gloating after a successful weekend. From the first kickoff at the beginning of September—or end of August, depending on the year—to just after the last second has ticked off the game clock on Super Bowl Sunday in February, it's all about football.