What makes college football unique?

ESPN's Chris Low has a short piece in today's ESPN.com opinion page that reminds us what a great game the college version of American football continues to be, and names ten things that make college football unique, which he hopes never change.

No such list is comprehensive, of course, and his inclusion of (for example) OU and Texas at the Cotton Bowl demands by inference that we also include the World's Largest Cocktail Party (Georgia/Florida), the Alabama/Auburn game, and for that matter on-campus rivalries that were in peril during the realignment rage: OSU/Michigan, Cal/Stanford, Harvard/Yale, the Apple Cup, the Civil War, the Border War, USC/UCLA, and so on and so forth.

His inclusion of the Rose Bowl view implies the other iconic stadia - the large (Michigan's "Big House", Notre Dame and Touchdown Jesus, etc.) and the small (even seen BSU's blue turf at a game? There's no bigger home field advantage in the game). 

His inclusion of marching bands - a personal favorite of mine, having taught them for thirty years - should also include the cheerleaders and yell leaders; the pre-game ceremonies that are unique to each team (running through the tunnel of fans or band members or whomever); the stadium announcers who never saw a penalty against the home team they agreed with in their lives, and so forth!

The live mascots are a blast! But what about the Sooner Schooner racing across the field? The Nebraska bouncing Husker Boy? Stanford's living tree-with-sunglasses? Too many cool ones to mention them all!

And, of course, by invoking Clemson's touching of the rock, you implicitly name every such team tradition of 253 division 1 schools and the other 500 or so lower division programs across the country. Everyone has them - no matter your team, you can name one or two, I'm sure. You don't think there's such things in the NFL, do you? In the cookie-cutter stadiums of old, in the PC entertainment packages and sideline showgirls and non-existent team traditions because they all work for Roger Goodell in the end? When we root for an NFL team, too often we're really rooting for laundry these days...but we're all loyal to our alma mater college (and high school, for that matter!), and so are the players.