What Makes a Great College Football Entrance?

While I'm a lover of all sports, there will always be one that holds a special place in my heart: college football. I think it was probably because I grew up spending Saturdays making the long drive into the beautiful of mountains of southwest Virginia to see Virginia Tech play. I was a Hokie fan at the right time. My first game was spent nearly freezing to death in a late-fall game where the Hokies beat a Syracuse team led by freshman Donovan McNabb. The first year I remember well is VT's 1995 season where true pocket-QB Jim Druckenmiller led the team to the Sugar Bowl where they defeated Texas. From then on, I was hooked. The next few years would be the beginning of the golden years for Hokie football. Greats such as Bryan Still, Ken Oxendine, pre-incarcerated Michael Vick, Cory Moore, John Engleberger, Lee Suggs, and Kevin Jones would be just a few of the greats that I would consistently witness on beautiful Blacksburg Saturdays.

I wouldn't attend Virginia Tech for college and instead went to the University of South Carolina. While the two schools were different in their campuses and student bodies, they were the same in their zeal for football. Also similar was the fact that at both schools people said, "you HAVE to be there for the entrance of the players. Both schools do have great player entrances - for VT, it's the playing of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" and the jumping of all the Hokie faithful. For Carolina, it's 2001 - a tradition started by the late Joe Morrison who wanted to provide something unique for his Gamecocks to run out to. I still remember my first 2001 - it was against UGA with ESPN's College Gameday in town, and all day I talked to strangers who got wide-eyed and said, "I can't believe this is your first 2001," as if I had been deprived of one of the essentials of life for 18 years. 2001 lived up to the hype, but the team did not (we blew a lead and lost), and I was officially a Gamecock fan. It would describe much of the next few years of my time at Carolina football games. Great entrance, disappointing play. But no matter how bad the team played, 2001 was always special.

So that got me thinking - what makes a great pre-game atmosphere and entrance? The following are my brief thoughts on the matter, along with a few videos to illustrate:

Fan Passion

First and foremost, a team's entrance has to excite the fans. For example, there are plenty of schools where the stadium doesn't fill up until after the team has run onto the field. A great entrance must be something that the fans want to be there for. That's what really struck me about 2001 at USC. The stadium was full before the players took the field because everyone wanted to witness it. I would say the same for VT. Basically, don't claim that your school has an incredible entrance and then have 10,000 fans show up after it's done. If your own fans don't make the effort to be there for it or aren't going crazy during the entrance, then it's really not that great. For example, check out the VT entrance and see if there's an empty seat as the team comes out:

VT Entrance:



Tradition

Also important is tradition. If your entrance is only the playing of a recently popular hard-rock song and your players run out on the field from a tunnel, then you're not doing anything that's worth getting fired up for. It's important to not change your entrance every 5 years (whether it's the song or the method of entry). That's why the following schools' pre-game environments are so well known:

The M Club Supports You:



Script Ohio:



Splitting the T at Tennessee:



Uniqueness

In the world of sports if you do something weird or unique long enough it becomes cool. That's what has made 2001 so popular at Carolina. I've heard many talk about when they first started using 2001 as the entrance, and that many of the fans had no idea what was going on or even didn't like it. But, after a couple of decades it has become a trademark of Gamecock football.

A Classic 2001:



The same thing, just twenty years later:



The same can also be said for Mr. Two Bits down in The Swamp:



Don't Use Stupid Videos

Most importantly, DON'T USE STUPID PRE-GAME VIDEOS! Sorry to use the all-caps, but that's how strongly I feel about it. Now that any respectable school has a jumbotron, there is almost always a video that precedes the team’s entrance. Unfortunately, this privilege has been horribly abused. I've given two examples below. A pre-game video should never include 1) An animated movie with your mascot beating up the other team's mascot as seen in the Arizona State video below and at UVA games or 2) your players doing any sort of extensive acting (and by extensive, I mean doing anything beyond looking at the camera in an intimidating fashion). A plus for entrance videos, as seen in the A&M video below, is using old clips to show off the program's accomplishments. Write this down: show football players playing, not acting.

Arizona State entrance video:



A Nebraska entrance video:



A Good example: Texas A&M's video:



So what's important? Fan passion, consistency, tradition, uniqueness, and an avoidance of stupid videos. Most importantly, always build up your own school's entrance and never acknowledge your rivals' entrance as being cool or intimidating, which is exactly why I've chosen not to include any discussion of Clemson running down the hill in this post. Go Gamecocks!