Chasing the Magic of College Football Saturdays with Josh Sims (@cfbtravelguy)

Seth Saunders: Just something about stepping into a college town, being near campus, you feel that energy. Like it is palpable. You feel it around you. And as long as that still exists in the sport, college football is not going anywhere. Like you can expand the playoff to 128 teams. You can do whatever it is that gets people mad on Twitter. They're still going to show up if that feeling is the same. Because the same feeling I had walking into a Ford LSU game at five years old is what I'm still chasing every weekend. Like that's why I keep coming back because those that memory is so strong. And it just kind of what you said. The the traditions and pageantry and all the stuff that goes into making college football unique and different and just totally on its own among American sports. That's why people keep coming back. And that's that's really what I'm trying to capture. Yeah. Yeah, fire up the grill, crank the speakers loud. Saturdays feel holy in this college crowd, Seth and James on the mic. Gospel true, talking rivalries, legends, red, black, old, and blue from dead valley lights to the camp, Randall Cold. They're telling stories. They never get old. Ain't no bench, warm hearts on the show tonight. They're walking on proud on the stadium lies. Little preferred walk on. No scholarship still putting it on from the church of tailgate hands in the air. Welcome to the preferred walk-on show, the People's College Football Show. I am your host, Seth Saunders, and Maybe no other guest in the history of our show gets it as much as our guest tonight. We are a show that celebrates a culture of college football as much as we do the game of college football. And there's nobody that gets that more than our guest tonight. He has crisscrossed the country, been to stadiums from coast to coast, and has experienced college towns at their best. And we are fired up to talk to him. Josh Sims, CFB travel guy, on all your social media handles. He is a must follow. Josh, welcome to the show, brother. Thanks so much for having me, man. Well, ⁓ I've been trying to get you on for a while because I love what you do. And I just want to hear about it mainly. This is selfishly for me as much as it is for our listeners. So for anybody who is uninitiated, tell them a little bit about Your story and what you do. Like I alluded to, you've got awesome, awesome social media accounts that to me are must follow because you are making adventures every weekend, man, in the fall and ⁓ experiencing everything that's great about this game that we love. So so let's just start there, man. Just give us a little intro to kind of what you do and what you love. Well, the backstory isn't quite as fun as I'd hope it would be. ⁓ I went to the University of Florida. I'm sorry to all your dog listeners out there, but after I graduated, Host a tailgate on campus. So that was my Saturday routine. I'd drive up to Gainesville from Tampa where I live, hosted tailgate for friends. We'd have a great time. We'd go to the game, go back home. I'd make road trips to watch the Gators play on a pretty regular basis. Always loved kind of getting out and seeing the other side's fantasy. ⁓ but around 2017, just kind of hit that age where everybody's starting to have families and kids. And it gets a lot harder with Gainesville being still kind of in the middle of the state. People are still mostly driving from Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, wherever it may be. Tailgate just started to dwindle a little bit. And ⁓ I think you kind of see that once you get to a certain age. So as that happened, I started to think, you know, I should just maybe start checking out some other places. You know? If if the tailgate's not gonna be as lively as it once was, why am I watching Florida play the Citadel when I could go check out some other place? Yeah. And then it it really just kind of synced up. I've got three older brothers. Close up age to be is a pilot. So he became a commercial airline pilot right there in 2017, 2018 and kind of had only a few options of where he could be stationed. His wife's from Michigan, so he ended up choosing to be up there. They lived in Ypsilani for a ⁓ he was based out of Detroit Ports to the ⁓ in a way. We're southern parents went to a shoot side, a family has deep, deep LS roots. So we kind of grew up with that. frame of mind, but once he was up there, it's like, let's let's just go check out some Big Ten sites. Yeah. So really starting in 2018, we hit Purdue, Nebraska, Michigan, handful other Big Ten schools. And that really just kind of starting to scratch the itch a little. And you know, time to get that itch, scratch and just come cheer. That's kind of default. So there continue the games. 2020 with COVID, obviously, was was a setback. But Really started then and then back in twenty twenty three season, one of my buddies in all season leading up to that really just said, Dude, you gotta start posting all this stuff. Cause he knows I like to research where I'm going. I want to go to the restaurants that have been there for seventy years that camp has. You know, I want to see the traditions that I've only seen on T V to experience those up close. So really just trying to cover all those bases, not just go to a game, but really experience the whole campus environment. And the way that energy builds starting on a Friday afternoon with classes let out and just all the way through the weekend, get the best of what each each town has to offer. Yeah, so I think that's what I have enjoyed most about following your journey is that exactly what you said, right? It's not just and I think this is the beauty of the sport in general, is obviously the three and a half hours on Saturdays or Friday nights or whatever it may be gets all the pub and as it should, 'cause that's the that's the star of the show. But I think the supporting characters in all this are the towns themselves and the restaurants that are there, the bars that are there, and man, the scenes, right? That kind of you know, I feel like college towns in so many ways are a magnet and they just draw people back. You know, it's like you you can't you can't not go back. It's always pulling on you. And I think you celebrate that. And I think that's what's so cool about what you do. And I think you're doing a a great job through your feed of highlighting those things, right? Like and then it almost gives you a front row seat as the the consumer of that to kind of see that and experience those towns, which is awesome. And so tell me this a little bit, like logistics wise, okay. How do you set up the weekends? How far in advance do you have to plan? How pliable is the schedule? Like how does all that so that's kind of the the sausage making that I I haven't talked about a lot, but would like to to start doing more just to help people out as they try to plan trips. You know, one of the coolest things about Starting this page, something that I really wasn't counting on. It was really just to share stuff more easily with friends and have them able to share with it print without, you know, all being kind of my personal account. I wanted to separate that with just football stuff. And that's really kind of the way it started. But one of the coolest things has been the number of people who had reached out and said, you know, I decided to go to a one game a year with my brother. Yeah. And that's what we do. So help us figure this out. Where should we go? What's the stuff we have to do? And you get a lot of those where hey, I actually had one guy a couple months ago that has got older, has a tissue. So they want hit a couple sites this fall and just kind of talking through that and the logistics and how it works and how you find hotel rooms and flights and kind of that whole that whole shebang of how you actually logistically plan out a trip. And for me it does start very early I think about it all here because I'm always thinking College football and college sport in general. And it it kind of started on that s time more twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, that I started to figure out the credit card points game. Yeah. And that's honestly been a big piece of it, being able to do that Leon. And the having a brooks a lot. ⁓ buddy pass on united so I can basically apply the hut standby ⁓ for very cheap. Yeah. So that's been helpful. Yep. But in in terms of the actual planning and the stuff that I post about most, it's really just taking the time to to research each place during the off season before I go. I have the most ridiculous set of spreadsheets that kind of map out where I've been, where I want to go, you know, how many times I've been to each place. And then the scheduling spreadsheet is just out of this world. A fellow fellow dog of yours started the fbschedules.com. Yeah. The single greatest site on the internet for somebody like me. I mean, I use that thing at least two or three times a day. Just looking at wait, when's this game? Should I maybe switch this around? And really when I was first starting because I didn't as much stability, didn't have kind of the brother buddy pass privileges. I did plan the entire season in way in advance and there was no altering it. I mean my plans were set and I didn't really have the the opportunity or Ability to change those. And other times that works out incredibly well. The 2019 season, I had the most insane run of consecutive games. I think I went to seven straight that were top 15 matchups. Of those, six were top 10. Wow. And five hosted game day. So it's like trying to most pulling me around, not the other way. That's right. Yeah. So sometimes you kind of luck into that and you get some really, really great games. And then as I've started to explore more, I've taken some sure find place that people necessarily think of right off the bat. The burnout's incredible. Like nobody that told me the Pullman Washington for a Washington State Thursday night game against Colorado would be one of my favorite college football experiences, but it was. So from a planning standpoint, there is a lot of kind of nitty-gritty with planning and arranging flights and hotels and I mean that's I think your podcasts need to be about seven hours to get through even just a little glimpse of that. But that's something I do intend to share more of over time. Yeah, I'm interested in that just 'cause like part of the reason I I enjoy consuming the stuff you post is it it's a passion of mine too. Like there's nothing that I love more than a college football road trip. And it is, man. There's the I feel like if if you're into this stuff, the logistics is kinda and this is gonna sound weird to people who hate this stuff, it's kinda part of the fun of it. Like the the planning piece of it, like figuring out the puzzles kind of fun and like figuring out where you're gonna stay and and all those kinds of things and then figuring out like where we're gonna eat and and where we're gonna have drinks and and and all the different stuff. Like that's part of the adventure, I feel like. ⁓ but you brought up Pullman. I'm interested in this because I had a good buddy in law school that went to Wazoo, diehard coup, and ⁓ we were in law school back like ⁓ six to ⁓ nine. And ⁓ you know, YouTube was obviously big then, but it wasn't like it is now. But dude, there was this song that this guy cut and it's called the Pullman Song. And so every time the Couggs would play on Saturday, he would crank this Pullman song in Boston, Massachusetts, and dude, it became like this anthem for us. So yeah. So yeah, man, when I ⁓ whenever I go to game day now or like I'm at a game where game day's at, I'll I'll go get a picture of the the Coug's flag and send it to him. And yeah, man, it's just so funny. So if you haven't heard the Pullman song, I'll send you the link. But it's please Please would it's a worthwhile listen. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's cool. I love that. So that that leads me to my next question, which is let's do this. What are the five I don't want to say obscure, but what are the five visits you've made, or even do top three visits you've made that just surprised the hell out of you? Where you were like, This town and this environment kicks ass and it totally snuck up on. Yeah. I mean, Wazoo immediately comes to mind. That one. And I I've said this to a bunch of people ⁓ of the schools you know those names in the state tend to be very very underrated like even within the SC Mississippi State people will dump on Sartreville like there's no market. It's a great college town. Yeah. And those games are fun when when they're decent and those cowbells are ringing, that's a fun place to be. And you kind of go throughout each conference and you see the same thing. Texas Tech, before they started spending all the money, I went there and I guess it's twenty two Or maybe twenty three, when they had an early season game, I think it was week two against Bo Nicks in Oregon. And man, the environment there. Yeah. Student section just lined out the street or the bar trips across from campus that I've seen. Lumpick was a great town. And I mean, when you come in from the airport, you don't expect it at all. Yeah. 'Cause I mean, it is tumbleweeds, West Texas. I mean, every movie you've seen, it it looked like a scene out of hell or high water. I'm not sure if you've seen that, but yeah, yeah. Lubbock is that stereotypical West Texas town, but then you get towards campus and it's green and it's beautiful and kind of matching stone everywhere. And I ⁓ you kind of even if you're not an architecture person, you kind of appreciate the look and consistency of it. And then you get into that stadium and they had it ⁓ they didn't have a checkerboard like Tennessee, but they had kind of the stripes going through in red and white. Yeah. You know, they you've got a mascot coming out on a horse throwing tortilla's beer for reasons that I'm not sure Most things there still I don't think understand. ⁓ there's just too much aloric, that kind of stuff. They even a place that, you know, has had its great moments. You know, people remember the crab tree catch against Texas and how big one that was for Texas Tech. So it's a program that is legitimately part of the, you know, power four now. Is now really throwing its weight around because of some of the oil money. But it's also a place that sneaks up on you. I don't think people go think to themselves, ⁓ I need to go to Lubbock. Yeah. But you do. And I would say the same for schools like NC State. I think going to Raleigh where they have big Bratt's retail it's outfielded. Kind of s similar to South Carolina, where it's at fairgrounds. So there's a big open area. And you kind of walk this gauntlet from that area and kind of the bulk of the parking And they're people who have whether it's, you know, their short bus tailgates or, you know, just the people who've paid money to be kind of in this corridor leading towards the stadium, you walk through there and they're just handing out food as you walk in. Like, hey, one more roadie and a hot dog. You you still got time before you get in the stadium. Yeah. And you experience some of those things and you go, NC State, really? Yeah. And then you get in the stadium. And I was I sat in a section where I was surrounded by folks in Raleigh who knew every player and what high school they went to. Do the parents' names and it was much more like almost high school feel. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There are just so many unique things you like that. There have been some really, really small schools that I enjoyed, eastern Washington. Yeah. So I I've I have become an inland northwest person between that and you know, University of Idaho and Kibi Dome. See in that area. And that's only twelve miles from Pullman, Washington, right across the border. And then not far from there, just kinda on the other side of Spokane, is what I found out. I thought it was pronounced Cheney Washington. It's really Chiny, ⁓ but just a very, very small town. I think it has maybe two stoplights. Yeah. And it has an old ⁓ Meansy and Oakland pizza place there. And I mean I just love that. Like four bars, they're all directly across one another. Yeah. Just one of those neat little towns and actually had maybe the be best breakfast place. From my personal taste that I've ever been to. I mean, like easy top five. See, this you're speaking my language now because I am a huge proponent of FCS football. And so I think especially in that corridor of the country where FCS is the only show in town, boy, you got some world-class college towns that get no shine. And like I I will tell you the two things that are Absolutely on my bucket list. The things that if I can just if I could set the world in order, my real life, be able to do whatever I wanted at the time. Two of the big ones would be to take the entire month of November and just work remotely, live at my brother's house in Michigan, just be the pest, kind of staying with my brother and sister-in-law, and just do weekday maxion. Yeah. The entire month of November. Hit every school in the back. And then on the weekends. go to Big Ten schools all within driving distance. I think people forget up there in the Midwest, there are so many schools that are so close to one another that you can drive within, you know, kind of a three hour radius and you're you're within the the zone of twenty five thirty schools. Yeah. The same thing I would love to do is just get out to big sky country. Mm-hmm. Just take I I think I would prefer to do ⁓ maybe September out there. Yeah. And just kind of start off and just for my own personal sake do Yellowstone and you know the Grand Tetons and all that ⁓ in August and just make it like a six week show. Yeah. Where ⁓ where I get to kind of see a lot of the stuff out west that I've always wanted to, but then also experience big sky country. You know, I I think you talked with ⁓ Jeff Collins about out to the brawl of the wild and that it won thousand Yeah, that is with a bullet for me. My co-host and I have talked about this. I think well, I don't think. We're gonna do everything we can to make it happen this year. I had messaged with you. I was trying to make it happen for the Super Brawl last year. Right. Yeah. For the for the playoff game. And both of those, ⁓ both S IDs at Montana and Montana State have been really kind to us and really accommodating. And both were like, Yes, come out. We'd we'd love for you to come out. And I was yeah The timing, you know, to your point, like life gets in the way, right? You s we just couldn't figure it out. And with the time of year it was and trying to get out there with flight, man, it was just kind of a mess. But dude, they've already said it. Like, dude, Brawl of the Wild is November twenty first. I'm pretty sure it's a noon local kick. Like it all kind of works itself out pretty well. And I think, Josh, the way that season is setting up, that could very realistically be one versus two for the Big Sky title. Yeah. And for home field throughout the FCS playoffs. And so like it could be massive. And Bobcaster defended national champs. It's getting played in Bozeman. Like, and I've tried to tell people this too. And I feel like you get this, but I feel like some people don't that don't consume FCS football, man. But there is no more bitter or heated rivalry in all of these United States than Montana and Montana State. They loathe. each other. I'll be honest, I didn't really get it until I went to Eastern Washington because I happened to be playing Montana City and just often with oak saw and rogue Bible. Yeah. I'm getting from Busman to Chini. Not the easiest thing in the world. Yeah. And they came in droves and just talking to them, the the pure, just unadulterated hatred they have for one another really is special. ⁓ it's special, man. Like I love it. And it's funny because, you know, we have become like you where we're trying to post things that are kind of universal to the game. But you know how it happens. You post something about a school or a team and the other side just assumes that you're one of them. And dude, I mean the messages that I got. I went to A and ⁓ last year and Maine. I had the entire state of Texas just up in arms. Yeah, dude. It's It cracks me. But I love it because like that's the passion, right? And so yeah, it's just really funny. Like we posted a clip from ⁓ talking with Coach Kennedy just talking about how great Washington Grizzly Stadium is, which objectively it is. It's awesome. And dude, these Montana State fans are just wearing us out. Like it's a dump. God, it's outstanding, man. I and I Well you hear the same. I mean, when I was, you know, trying to everything I could to make the playoff game in Bozeman. Happened last year. Yeah. There's some folks I know who have worked and even coached in Montana and they were like, Who wants to go to Bozo? You can go to ⁓ Missoula. Just wait a couple of years. Yeah, exactly. Like I'm worth going there. And I'm like, SCS playoff game between two beaten rivals and you're telling me I shouldn't go. Yeah, exactly. The other side that much. I mean, that's that's special. That's the epitome of though. Well, do you bring up a good point too? I I love the Midwest point because we experienced that firsthand. ⁓ we we crossed paths without knowing we were crossing paths. You were at ⁓ 2024 Old Oak and Bucket, which we were as well. ⁓ we had started that weekend in Madison for Paul Bunyan's axe. Brother, that is the coldest I think I've ever been as a spectator of the great sport of football. It was 11 a.m. kick in Madison and it was a balmy. Three degrees outside of kick. So believe it or not, the coldest I've ever been, the temperature would not give it away. Yeah. But back in 2019, as part of just an incredible that incredible string games I mentioned earlier, Penn State Ohio team. Seven versus two or whatever ranking are at the top. I shoot, I went to that fly kit. It's like thirty one, thirty two degrees. I was comfortable. Like it felt fine. Yeah. I had plans and since I had spent all day I actually got on there Thursday night, spent Thursday night, all day Friday in Columbus, was planning to go to Cleveland afterwards and do Cavs game Saturday night. Yeah. And then on Sunday go to a Browns game. That Browns game was also thirty one degrees. I'm wearing pretty much the same stuff I had on the day before, just different undershirts 'cause I'm from the South and that's all I got. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking I'm gonna be perfectly fine again, you know. A little chilly, but You know, manageable. The way that the wind cuts off the lake through the Brown Stadium. Yeah. I mean, when I say send shivers down your spy, there's not a there was not a single piece of me that wasn't shivering. I mean, it was the coldest I've ever been. It was thirty-one degrees outside. But I swear the wind chill, that lake effect wind had to have the feels like temperature had to have been like negative seventy. I it was unreal the way it just penetrated every bit of clothing. That's that's how Madison was, right? Because it sits on the lake right there. Like, dude, we went to the my buddy had never been to Madison. So I'm like, dude, I gotta take you to the union. Like the union is one of the coolest parts about Madison. All the chairs out there when it's warmer out overlooking the lake. Yeah, it's awesome. We walk out, you know, nobody out there. Like the chairs are like frozen. He's like, yeah, it's great, man. I'm like, see man, you're not getting it. But dude, the wind off that lake and then like God, we were just freezing. Of course, we had the wise idea. We had pre-planned to do like a pregame show outside of Camp Randall. So we're just out there freezing our behinds off, taping this thing. And I will say this: they were prepared. As we're like walking to Camp Randall, we see this guy with like a big panel truck, and he's wheeling down off the panel truck like seven different patio heaters that he's setting out around the truck in like a semicircle. And then inside the truck he had two full size refrigerators with kegs put in ⁓ with four taps on each one. Yeah. I mean, they were ready to rip. And dude, it was eight o'clock in the morning. Yeah. Blessed boy. These ⁓ these badgers get after it. I went to a night game, ⁓ Michigan of Michigan State in East Lansing. And that game sticks out in my mind for two reasons. Well, three reasons, I guess. One is that they don't allow anybody to really park. directly next to the tailgating areas, unless you're in the main lot right outside the stadium. So a lot with places where they're setting up on grass in the interior of campus, people were parking and just hauling stuff half mile. I'm like, what are you doing when when it ends? Yeah. And yeah, same deal. They're sending people and having just waves to haul everything back over much longer distances than I've seen in other campuses. So that kind of stood out. There was also the the widest array, kind of to your point in Madison. They had every conceivable method of heating available at tailgates. It they had electric, they had propane gas powered, they had, you know, just simple little coal-fired, self-contained heating elements. ⁓ there was even one guy out there, you know, I probably from the Dearborn area had his ⁓ had his URL going. Yeah, okay. out there all day early in the morning. Again, for a night game and just had everything prepped and ready to go. I was amazed at just the variety of heating elements that exist to be used outdoors. Had no idea. That was the ⁓ first time I've actually had snow fall during a game that I've got. And like that tailgate scene was the same, man. I feel like people were just they're just getting after it, figuring it out. And like So okay, give me this because I I feel very strongly about this and have told anyone that will listen, but Bloomington, I feel like, does not get talked about enough for being such an aces college town. I I'd I tell people all the time, like, I think there's near universal agreement that Athens, Madison, Boulder are all somewhere in that top ten. I think people kind of universally agree on those. Anybody doesn't have Bloomington in there, out of their mind. Out of their mind the way it laid out. The way the campus is structured, the whole deal. I mean, it is top, top notch. And some of the best bars that I've been to in any college town. Dude, I think, okay, first off, Nick's is its own animal. Super cool. Like the vibe in there is awesome all by itself. Then you add in the ability to eat the food and then play sync the biz. Like, dude, homie, top. Sync the biz. Sync the biz of Nyx is one of those things that if you're a college football fan, you have to do. And so when I I lived in Atlanta for four or five years after college and ⁓ just happened to get in with a group of people that had gone to Purdue. So I had a still day, several very close friends that are Padual Purdue alumni. And they told me for the Oak and Bucket, first of all, we're gonna do everything we can to meet you there. Yeah. Even though they knew they were gonna go wax. The second thing was if you if you don't do sync to biz at Knicks, you didn't even go to Livington. Yeah. Well, so that was one for us. Did the other one I was surprised about? I did not know the game that Upstairs Pub had until we went. And like to see the full freaking scoreboard from Assembly Hall. Awesome. Yeah. Like just awesome. Yeah. And and a lot easier to get into. I mean, you've got to wait in this. Correct. You go to Upstairs Club and just you know, you might wait a couple minutes, but you can get in and out of there and they'll pack you like sardine, but still worth it. Dude, it's it's so great. Like I I have become as much of an IU evangelist as anybody on this planet since we went. Just because we do, we just had an incredible time. I just remember thinking like, this is why we A do what we do and this is why we love it so much. This experience we just had in this town. Like, and dude, it was Thanksgiving weekend, right? Like, so it's not even really like a an actual weekend where like everybody was there and all the type stuff like that. So yeah, man, it's it's up there for sure. Now, I I gotta ask you about this because I haven't been. And I'm just so interested to hear a firsthand account of it, but I need to hear about Army Navy. Trying to think of the best way to explain this. So as somebody who is a self-professed college football guy, like that's always been my sport. I've loved it since I was a kid. I used to watch Gary Danielson and Vern Lundquist do the CBS, you know, I mean two, three o'clock in the afternoon, kind of weird time, set aside zone day after championship weekend, watch that game over and over again growing up because it was on. But I used to just kind of roll my eyes every time they would just I thought they were moan so overboard about the pageantry and what it meant and the feeling of it and how it is different from every other college football game and really thought it was just BS. I mean, I just I was like, Okay, you don't have to oversell it this much. But then you go and it is just different. Yeah. I mean, you got veterans, when you've got officers who actually attended the academies all converging in this one place. And then you have the cadets and midshipmen all dressed up in uniform. They're coming in and doing ⁓ the marching at the stadium. It it is a different, different game. Yeah. Now you've been to West I tell people all the time, it it has changed my thinking to the degree that kind of by the same token. I used to always see these rankings of top rivalries and College sports and Army Navy, you know, might be in the top three. And I used to come on, no. Iron Bowl, Ohio State, Michigan, and basketball, you got North Carolina Duke, you know. Army Navy. Yeah. But to your point, we were starting at the West. ⁓ yeah in the in the eighth champion game too late. And ⁓ being able to kind of tour that campus and just see how it's this fortress on the Hudson that's really and just the way on a day to day basis that place operates and the demands that these kids now, I mean, I'm old enough I can I can call ⁓ kids. These eighteen to twenty two year old kids are taking upon themselves with the discipline and kind of regimentation of what they do. It it gives you a different feel and a different appreciation for those schools. And ⁓ one thing stands out there's kind of tunnel connect because literally d the campus at West Point is kind of up on a hillside built in. And there's a tunnel that kinda leads you down. And it's the beat navy tunnel. It's painted with a, you know, placard that everybody will reach up and touch and it's there every single day. And they they will end, you know, yeah, I'm not sure about all the specifics of when they do it, but they will end all sorts of events with Go Army Beat Navy. That's what they do. And it's the same in Annapolis from what I'm told, I'm trying to get out there ⁓ for the first time later this fall, but yeah, the Service Academy's deserve a lot more a lot more hype and credit than evil. I think that the campus at West Point is probably one of the top five most beautiful campuses in all of America. Absolutely. It's unbelievable. Like I told people stand down by the water and look up at the chapel and vice versa. And yeah. I don't think anybody would disagree with you. Yeah. I I mean I'm I'm excited to I'd like to go and see it now that they've done the renovation at the state. Because it torn down that sideline while I was there. So it's kind of open the ⁓ I forget what they call it there, but just kind of that little body of water right behind it. Mm-hmm. And yeah, that should be just from the renderings and things I've seen, looks awesome. Well, I can't I can't advocate for and attest to the worth worthwhileness of taking the Annapolis trip too. So I'm glad you're gonna do that because you will love it. Annapolis is It's funny, man, 'cause they're both campuses built on water but in very different ways. Right. And like Army, but not to To the Stadium. The neighbor academy base or to the stadium. Yeah. Like 'cause you know, Army Stadium is right on campus. And Navy Stadium is set off of campus, not far, but it's like its own thing. Like it has its own dedicated parking lot. So yeah, it's it's definitely organized in a unique way. ⁓ Yeah. But we went I took my dad and we went to they played UAB last year and it did a lot of fun. Atmosphere was great. ⁓ it was week two, so it was super hot, but their pre game pageantry was really cool. Had the flyover, like had a guy parachute in with the game ball. Like I mean, it was it was aces, man. Like I I really enjoyed that. We were actually I had set ⁓ I was trying to set up last year where we were gonna go to a UNL V game on Friday night. We were gonna take a five AM flight from Vegas to Denver. We were gonna go see Colorado play at noon. And then we were gonna go see Air Force play at like seven thirty. It's gonna be awesome. And it was all kind of laying itself out. And again, my like life at home took took precedent. But ⁓ it would have been an epic weekend the way the timing had like laid itself out. I can't remember which year it was. It was a ⁓ it seems like it was a while back though. But I think there was a Thursday night Air Force, Friday night Colorado State, Saturday, Wyoming. Cause people don't realize how close those are despite being, you know, different states. Like Colorado and Wyoming are not far from one another. Yeah. Dude, I this has become my new thing. Is to your point you're talking about like looking at the schedules and stuff. I'll get on and be like, okay, if we hit this one, could the game times work where we could like pop and hit this next one? Or like The best is if you could catch like a Thursday, Friday, Saturday trifecta. Like and dude, you know the one I've thought about is you talked about NC State. The triangle is a perfect spot because you got three campuses there. And then dude, Wake is not that far of a drive. I've actually done Wake and NC State same day. Same day? Nooner and at eight o'clock, yeah. Perfect. And it was actually at the nooner was Clemson Wake when they went in the triple overtime. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good one. Dude, that's a cool campus and that stadium is cool for ⁓ for its size, I think. That setting's cool. Being that they were playing Clemson, you on the one end zone, they've got their little hill there. Yeah. It's hill in the A in the ACC. Just kept walking around telling the Clemson fans that they took me really well. Yeah, I'm sure they did. There's a there's a good slate the weekend of like September nineteenth, where Wake plays Friday night against Miami. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Wake plays Miami Friday night and then Clemson plays. I know I've seen that. Yeah, I think that's right. But I was gonna say Clemson plays Carolina in Clemson on Saturday. Okay. So you could do Wake Friday night, pop down, do Death Valley, or as some would say the other Death Valley, depending on what your vantage point is. Right. I said this, Josh, and I think given ⁓ your lineage, you would you would have a good say in this. But I said when they set up the LSU Clemson game, there should have been a wager. that whoever lost couldn't use Death Valley for the entire season. I I totally agree. They should have put some some additional stakes on it. Yes. But like I think I think Clemson fans take that a little bit more seriously than LSU fans do. I think so too. Some of the lore behind it with LSU, they get more upset about Clemson using ⁓ Tiger Ag. Yeah. It's their their post touchdown song. Than they do about Death Valley, which is funny. That's because there's really no disputing. Like, I had a Clemson fan argue me once when I was living in Atlanta that they had Tiger Rag first. I'm like, so you got a jazz song called Tiger Rag invented in New Orleans. Yeah. And it made its way to Clemson, South Carolina before it did 45 minutes down the road to Baton Roof. Really? Yeah. So like there's more, but with the Death Valley thing, it was really Death Valley, D E A F. Because of the noise in LSU and that kind of evolved into Death Valley over time. Cause I remember as a kid, the P Mac, P. Maravitch Assembly Center, when Shaq was playing there, they called it the Death Dolly. Yeah. And it can work back to that same thing. So I think there are a fair number, I I wouldn't say even a majority, but a pretty good number of LSU fans, I think, kind of know that that's how the origin of Death Valley started at LSU and they really had nothing to do with Clemson. Yeah. So I don't think there's as much tension there. I think they get much more upset that Clemson plays tiger rag and then plays it incorrectly, according to LSU fans. Plus, I just think inherently, and maybe this is my bias showing, but I just think inherently there is a little bit of little brother syndrome with the ACC when it comes to football. So like I think I think there's there's some of that there as well. Okay, tell me this before I let you go, because ⁓ you've been generous with your time. What is the I just I'm looking at the counter up there and saying 39 minutes. I'm like, dude, I've gone up two hours. What is the trip this year that you're most excited about or most looking forward to? It's a great question. Cause it there is more flexibility in my schedule now. So there are some kind of flex options and dates. If if I can pull it off, and I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to, there's ⁓ there's a handful of games in November that Are kind of in those flex zones I haven't fully decided on yet. But there's kind of combo there that could work out really well where I could do multiple games in a weekend, but kind of that Thursday, Friday, Saturday, like we were talking about. Part of the reason are you familiar with CFB Canvas Store? He's kind of the go to really getting around everywhere. And the reason he's able to get so many games in the weekend is because he's doing a doubleheader every single Saturday. And he's kind of the capable. plotting the out there's that you get to see more places but to really see everything around them. You know, I want to be in this place and be able to experience the town and the restaurants and the bars and kind of the whole vibe around just the game itself. So I try not to do those things. ⁓ I know I'm kind getting off topic here, but one thing that's been on my mind that almost worked out, but I think it would really require another day. There's a Friday Saturday ⁓ BYU Colorado home game stretch. If that were Thursday, Saturday, I could have done the train ride from one to the other. That'd be cool. Which goes through the mountains. Yeah. That's something I wanted to do. But in terms of just really looking forward to a particular game, this is gonna sound weird to some because it's the same day as LSU O Miss, which is unquestionably the the biggest game of the early season. Mm-hmm. ⁓ you know, Ohio State, Texas may have a higher ranking, but just in terms of vitriol and everything else, it's gonna be going into Lane Kiff and going back to Oxford. Delvin's number one same weekend, strictly as a homer. I'm going to Auburn or Florida Auburn at Jordan Hare at night. And it's somebody who grew up an LSU fan, but in Florida, to me, Florida and Auburn were massive rivals. Like that's the way Florida fans always looked at it. And they one little known fact, depending on Whether you believe Georgia's count of the cocktail party or Florida's, then Florida prior to two thousand two, when they went from two permanent crossover rivals to just one across divisions, Florida had played Auburn either the same number of times as Georgia or one more time than Georgia, depending on who you believe for the Florida Georgia series. So interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. So Auburn was just as tenured of a rival in the SEC with Florida as Georgia was in the mind of Gator fans. It wasn't necessarily as heated. It was a more friendly rivalry. And you go back to the mid 90s, you know, I'd interned for Danny Werfel back in the day. And when he was playing, Auburn had his number. That was the one team that upset him twice. Yeah. During that spurrier run. So that game, I I'm just hoping for Auburn's sake, that they can get past these last several years that they've gone through. Cause that place at night is magical. I mean, I think Saban said. You know, it's haunted. And it really is. You get your on a on a good night and man, that place absolutely rocks for what, eighty five, eighty eight thousand, whatever it is. Yeah. I mean it's not one of the biggest in the SEC, but that place rocks incredibly hard. And now it can add to its list of accolades. It is the house that launched Twitter sensation Freddy. That's true. That is true. I'm not sure there's a higher honor. That's right. That's right. Yeah, my co-host is fond of calling Jordan Hare the Voodoo Pet Cemetery. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's like that place is just dark magic. The entire place. It really is. Yeah. And and because the fact that the way the SEC scheduled evolved over time is, you know, realignment, added teams, and we had thirteen per year and then fourteen. Florida has not played in Jordan Hare since two thousand eleven. I was there fifteen years. That's why rivals that used to play every single year. So never more than two years playing one another. Yeah. Now fifteen years since Ford has gone to Auburn. All right, I can't let you go before I ask you this. I feel terrible that it's taking me forty five minutes to ask you this, but I gotta talk food with you. So if somebody was like, Okay, Josh, you could only eat for the rest of your life five places in college towns across this great nation. What are the five meals that you're telling me to have? And this can be inclusive of ice cream, my friend. I'm not opposed to this. Good, because I was gonna go there. I mean, I'm the self proclaimed college dairy store expert in the United States. So That's right. I'm here for that. I mean, in the very first interview I did after starting social media stuff, I posted that video and MPR was like, Hey, you want to talk about college dairy stores? I'm like, that's all I want to talk about is matters. That's exactly what I want to talk about. Let's do that. ⁓ that's great. All right. Top five meals. We'll try to get a breakfast in there. So I'm gonna go. I mentioned a place earlier. There's a place in Chinegee, Washington called Benny's, I think. Okay. But it's basically they make a couple dozen different varieties of eggs Venedic. That's their thing. And so they have like the one I got was like Southwestern style eggs benedict. So, you know, avocado salsa. It was on like a flat crispy shell. I mean just Incredible stuff. And then they also have number flights because, you know, sometimes you gotta get that thinky in the air and just have a good time. That's it, man. So that one's probably gonna in my top breakfast spot. Although it's in competition with another one up there at ⁓ in Moscow, Idaho. Okay. Place called Breakfast Club, where they had the most incredible, like spicy French hook hot breed th that I've should pictures to fully dis this thing. But I think I'd go with with Benny's and ⁓ in Chini, one meal's gotta be barbecue. Yep. So then it comes down to what do you consider a college town versus a city? That's always fair. That's fair. Okay. Like I'm gonna enter cellar barbecue, phenomenal. Mm-hmm. But in terms of being even though it's technically in Wolf Earth, just southside of Lubbock, I mean like ten minute drive from campus and from the stadium, heavy maze. I think it's the best had that is more ⁓ just than very close proximity to college this just nominal Texas barbecue. That's way up there. But then you yeah, think about TCU and all the stuff in Fort Worth. Yeah, that's that's tough one. But I'm going to Emmy Midias for barbecue. How about to get a slice? What kind of pizza we gotta have? This is this is gonna be a very homework thing for me to do, but my heart belongs to Satchels in Gainesville. Okay. You can you can build your own slice there. They have phenomenal calzones on top of that. But the real secret is I think only on Fridays, I don't even know what they do the they used to do deep slices. I mean deep dish. It's not really deep dish. It's not like anything you've had in Chicago or anywhere else. It's really just super thick pan pizza where you lay the cheese over the top all the way to the edge so it caramelizes. So it's like pequads in Chicago, but without bits that's salt underneath. Yeah, on top, yeah. So that's that's kind of my Homer pick. But with that said, had some really good. I'm a big Detroit style guy. Yeah, I like Detroit style pizza. Around the country. There there have been some good places there. But I'll stick with satchels. In terms of in terms of ice cream, you've got to go dairy store. Have my d store writings out there. I think you can make a really strong case among the top four. I think Washington State, NC State. Or the right there but hence Wisconsin are the do the given they I would seen for one spot. Yeah. But with that said, University of Maryland has a very, very small creamery in the union. It's been there over a hundred years now. And they actually sell in the stadiums. And Cameron they they have a a flavor when I was there for a game against Southern Cal that spoke to me in a way that That ice cream was supposed to I mean it was like a salted caramel pecan. It was like if you it was almost like ⁓ the turtle flavor that you see in Louisiana a lot, ⁓ mixed with praline, mixed with salted. It was just all kind of thrown together in the perfect way. So I'm actually gonna say in terms of just smoothness, quickness, flip or if just one particular flint of ice cream, I'm gonna era off the wall. He a turp. I'm all right with that. Yep. So I got one left. Yeah, this could this could be a wild card. We can go we could go burger on this. We could go loaded fry. We could go a a drank of choice if if that's your if that's your predilection. I I mean look, you don't get a physical like ⁓ without a little bit of that. Wolf said one of the just off top my ⁓ great, great brewery, I obviously Vanath and creature comfort's phenomenal. Yes. ⁓ in Iowa City, another like Bloomington, like I would also argue Fayetteville, very underrated college town. Iowa City, they've got a place called Big Grove. Okay. That has some very good beer, but also just one of the more fun, just Friday evening, you know, getting some happy hour drinks before you go grab supper places. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure how it is. November. But in September, that place is a pot. Yeah. So I guess we could throw that in there. I'm sure there are gonna be some. Like there was one I I did a little college baseball tour this spring, a weekend after I yeah in the Dallas Fort Worth area for work. And when going through ⁓ I also went up to Oklahoma and when I was in Stillwater, yeah. It's like a little kinda Asian noodle bar that's apparently tupped back in this mark that you would have been you wouldn't but you've been told about it. They told me unfortunately I was there on a Sunday for the base game and they were some mics. Yeah. Yeah, okay. ⁓ to get to experience that I'm sure there's gonna soon as end up. I'm gonna think of like four or five places that are just little hidden hole in the wall places I've been that were phenomenal. So you know there at some point I need to do more rankings, not just because that gets a lot of followers and views, but yeah. Like to do stuff that's off the wall because people will argue if you're ranking like best stadiums. Yeah, yeah. You you know you're a thousand different ways of looking at that, ⁓ you know, best road trips, whatever. People get really upset about that stuff. So I like to do more, you know, a little bit off the wall rankings, like I did on you know, short quarter zips. So like which college towns have the highest rate of quarter zips and just to spoil the fun, it is without a doubt Charlesville, Virginia. That place has the highest quarter zip per capita that I've ever seen. Thousand percent could see that. Yeah. When it's even a step above, you know, Ole Miss, Clemson, some of the others. Yeah. Maybe I'll do some food ones like best late night spots. Ooh, that's a good one. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah, like this is a lot of really really great places that are open late. I mean, you've got the food trucks that they had rutgers that have kind of become famous over time for just having kind of their fat they have a bunch of there's place here's a good one that's hidden and and tucked away in Aggieville. In the Little Apple, Manhattan, Kansas. Yep. Yep. Ema. Yeah. Every man a wildcat baby. They've got a lot of cool stuff there. Kansas State is also just one of those underrated, very fun places to go. And there's I forget the name bar, but it was like lab. I was figuring out how to get to African Realize that I over time they acquired two or three different spaces. Different spaces figure away to knuckle all the move between them that had diff patio were kind of aggregate. I figure out this place hurt. Well I finally get outside and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go to the varsity donuts truck that is supposedly somewhere in there. And I'm like looking how to get there and I swear you walk down this really narrow path between two of the buildings and you come to a dead end. And it looks like if you turn either way, you're gonna get murdered. And I think maybe if I turned the wrong way, that would have happened. But the other way You kind come around the corner and there's this bright shining truck selling you a maple bacon tops donut one thirty in the morning and you never experienced anything better in your life. So No, I can't imagine that there would be much better than that, especially that time of day. Yeah. That's what I love that. It's funny to me that you and only because we I have recency bias, but I was in Chicago last week for a day for Big Ten Media Days and Pat Fitzgerald specifically mentioned going to Iowa City in his year off and he tailgated and he's like, you know, you guys in the media get to do this and I don't get to do this. And he's like, tailgating is awesome. It's like, yes, Pat, it is out freaking standing. But it also made me chuckle because I was like, Could you imagine rolling up to the beer pong table or the flip cup table? And Pat Fitzgerald's buttkus award winning ass is standing across from you. God dude, it'd just be I would have laughed out loud. I mean, I think I made that comment on ⁓ a clip you posted from your interview with Jeff Collins. Like he's gonna go around the games this fall and I mean, is he just gonna bring the swag chalice with him? You just show up and you're there are people playing Flip Cup and then there's Jeff Collins just standing in the corner with swag chalice, just sipping some like neon green monstrosity. Yes, I have t I told him this. I was like, his first off, his energy is off the off the charts. Like It's incredible. Well, it's crazy to me how many people in the ACC hate him now just because of the way things played out. When he was the defensive coordinator at Florida, we loved him. Some of the stuff he brought in there still exists to this day. Well, I will tell you this. That kind of thing. We've been so fortunate to have so many folks come on the show. And I don't know that we have had as much positive feedback from a guest as we did from Coach Collins because of former players. and former guys that coached with him, like, dude, the outpouring was crazy. And so obviously his players love him, like Right. It's just funny. It it is so funny to me. And I'm sure you've noticed this too as you've traveled, but dude, there's just so much passion in this sport that we love. And so what happens is is that gets in between sometimes our humanity and our ability to look at people. And it's just so funny, man, 'cause we have Really by necessity, just you get to talk to people and you're like, This person's awesome. Right. And it's like, I maybe wouldn't have thought that three weeks ago. And then like your whole brain kind of flips on and it's like, I think the game is full of so many incredible characters. And I think that's what makes the tapestry so rich is there's so many incredible folks. And then you also then start to learn through their stories, dude, all the people that you don't even know about, right? Like all these cool players or all these cool coaches or like staff members and like man, it's just it's just incredible. Like I fall more and more in love with college football every single year from learning new stuff or whatever it may be. Like that's why I love the stuff you do and post about cause we try to do the same thing. We're like you're posting about history of the game and stories. Like you did you did a p post that went I mean, dude, it was huge. You did a post on how Michigan got their uniforms. And The kinship with Delaware, which I thought was incredible. And like those type of things is what makes the sport as rich as it is. And my hope is that given how rapidly things have changed on, like, I guess you could say the economic side of things. Right. I hope we don't lose all of that in the process. That's that's my one big area. Cause like economically, man, I'm totally cool with the money flowing and players getting paid and all the things, right? I just want to do that in a way where we still maintain what makes this what it is and not the NFL. And like, dude, the NFL's a great product. I'm not trying to knock that down or anything. It's just it's different. And what's different is what we want to celebrate and keep. And so yeah, I I just I think that's part I think that's part of what you're doing with with what you're doing with your messaging is capturing that. That's why I think it's so great. Well and I I try to stay away from discussion. I mean obviously, you know, my text chain we talk about this stuff, but Publicly, I try to I try to stay away from stuff and I up and try to report one way that so on these obviously there are people including me who are very frustrated the direction that's taken. Mm-hmm. Not necessarily with, you know, money being spread around, but just the way enforcement has been basically non existent. And, you know, you've got judges stepping in to just make decisions that to rules they had no no involvement in forming and Mm-hmm. You know, there's just been so much upheaval and lack of structure to the sport lately. But when you go to a game on Saturday, better yet, when you get when I get there on Friday, yeah, just something about stepping into a college town, being near campus, you feel that energy. Like it is palpable. You feel it around you. And as long as that still exists in the sport, college football is not going anywhere. Like you can expand the playoff to 128 teams. You can do whatever it is that gets people mad on Twitter, they're still going to show up if that feeling is the same. Because the same feeling I had walking into a Ford LSU game at five years old is what I'm still chasing every weekend. Like that's why I keep coming back because those that memory is so strong. And it just kind of what you said, it the the traditions and pageantry and all the stuff that goes into making college football unique and different and just totally on its own among American sports. That's why people keep coming back. And that's that's really what I'm trying to capture. I do think to your point too, college football has a monopoly on the Friday. And that there is something so unique and special about that. And I think this is this is kind of the beauty and why America is so in love with football broadly, is there's so much anticipation. Like, dude, I'm a huge baseball fan. And being a baseball fan is not for the faint hearted because there's so much volume. So, like, dude, you got to live and die with this thing 162 times. And like, there's beauty in that, but there's also, hey, we could turn the page tomorrow and see another one. Whereas with football, you're only getting like 12 of these a year, maybe 14, maybe 15 if you're lucky, right? And so then you have all off season you got to wait and anticipate and all these things. And then it's week to week. And so you got all this buildup, all this anticipation. And then that Friday, man, is like, There's so much juice and so much energy. And then like the lead in and decided, like, God, it's just it's magic. And college football has a monopoly on that. Like it's not like that in pro football. It's not like that anywhere else in any other sport except college football. It's it's the magic. It's funny. As you were saying that, I was kind of having a flashback to between my junior and senior year of college. I did an internship for a financial firm up in New York. And, you know, I'm working at their headquarters building in in midtown Manhattan. You know, just all the hustle and bustle that that provides. And I end up talking with an older guy on my floor. I say older, he's probably the age I am now. But had born and raised New York. I mean, had the accent, the whole deal, and he he just couldn't understand why during my downtime while I was eating lunch at my desk, I'd be scrolling through college football message boards. He's like, What ⁓ college football? Like who cares about that? To him it was all Yankees and Red Sox. Yeah, yeah. thing that really kind of flipped the switch in his head and made him go, okay, I I could see that was said, look, if the Yankees play the Red Sox, they're playing a series, lose game one, okay, move on to the next one. And they're playing multiple series each season. So like what bragging rights do you have? I'm like if my brother, who went to Florida State, if FSU beats Florida one year, I have to hear about it every day. Three hundred and sixty five days until the next one. That's right. I mean You look at Ohio State, Michigan, anytime either team wins, and I love this, they immediately start saying, Well, it's been three hundred sixty-five days since you beat us. That's right. That's right. And they that counter at three sixty five. Yeah. So by year two, it's like, it's been almost seven hundred days since you've beaten us. Yeah. You know? So there is something unique to that build up. ⁓ not just from a week to week basis, but even see it in the season because of the way rivalries are and I think the that makes rivalries so much deeper in college football than it. sports so it's it's a special special sport. I hope people don't focus too much on you know all the Twitter back and forth and instead just go to games or even watch on TV, you know, like the magic that exists on Saturday continues to outweigh all the other stuff. Yeah. Amen to that, brother. Amen to that. Well look Josh, I man, I enjoyed the hell out of talking with you. Before we let you go, tell our listeners every way they can support you and follow you. On your journeys this fall. I mean Instagram and and TikTok are the main ones. I d try to post stuff on I still call it Twitter. I guess it's X now, but don't really post as much there, but it's it is there. YouTube's the one over the next year, just if I could find some downtime away from work, would love to kind of put together some more long form videos. Mm-hmm. ⁓ I also started a website that is mostly empty at this point. ⁓ but kind of same deal. Once I've got some time and can kind of fill that out a little bit. It's cf travelguide.com. ⁓ there's I'll hopefully have a lot more resources about some of the stuff we talked about, everything from kind of the details on travel and how I get rental cars for cheaper and stuff like that, all the way to here's a full game day guide if you're going to LSU for the first time. And here are restaurants and traditions and things you need to know about and see. So you know there's there's so much you can talk about with each school and every place I visited. So I actually have just like this glut and backlog content just waiting to be made and at some point I will make it. But I would say, yeah, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, it's all there. It's good stuff. And then check out the website. Well, I don't know why you wouldn't already be following Josh, but if you're not, make sure and do that. It is just beyond worthwhile to follow and it's a ton of fun and he does a great job. Capturing all of it, man. Capturing the magic of of the sport that we love. So if you're here listening to this, you should be following him and following along on his journey. So Josh, I can't wait to watch, brother. I I enjoy the heck out of it and I ⁓ I certainly will be watching more intently and now that we chatted today, we gotta link up this year. I gotta get somewhere where you're going for a weekend and we gotta we gotta do it. I think we're I think we're kindred spirits in that right. So we have we'd have a good time. We've got some I've got most of ⁓ laid out, so I'll I'll be doing a little schedule review here in the next couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah. All right. That sounds good, brother. We're look, man. We're ⁓ can't wait to follow, man. All right, sounds good. Appreciate it.