Up until a few years ago, my only exposure to football had been going to Washington Redskins games with my dad. I always enjoyed attending football games, but it was more to talk to people and have fun than it was to watch the games. It wasn’t until 2013 that I really started digesting and analyzing football as a sport. But let’s leave that for a second and travel back in time.
I went down to Auburn University for an architectural camp in 2010, and while a friend and I were in the dining hall we met some students who were relaxing and hiding from the sun. We hung out with them for awhile but ended up leaving so we could continue gluing Styrofoam to wood in an effort to make a 3-D model. I turned on my TV months later to see one of the guys we had been chatting with in the dining hall, and apparently he was up for some small award called “The Heisman”. Well, you’ve probably guessed by now, but I had met Cam Newton; honestly, I would never have guessed he was a big time football player based on his down-to-earth demeanor. I decided I would root for whoever ended up drafting Newton. A few months later the Panthers became my team.
Photo: John Reed/USA Today Sports
Back to the 2013 thing. I ended up playing fantasy football that year with some friends, and as an Auburn student, I had to go to games, no college experience is complete without them. I really enjoyed the analytical aspect of football and after watching both “The Prayer at Jordan Hare” and “Kick Six” in person I was hooked. For the next year, I read about football nonstop and I came to the realization that a lot of the content wasn’t all that interesting. A lot of it was rehashes of rehashes of rehashes of rehashes with no interesting details or real thought put in. So I did what any logical person would do and started analyzing the players myself. At that point I started doing scouting reports for Reddit, slowly progressed into doing Panthers analysis and in just three short years, I have learned more about the game than I had ever thought possible. I’m still learning with every tape I watch. I’ll try my best to try to teach you too.
