How much football did you watch?

Also keep in mind that when many of us were kids (when dinosaurs roamed the earth), Saturday was college football and Sunday was pro football. There were no ESPN/ SEC/BIG 10/etc. networks. No Monday night games, no Thursday night college games.

I didn't really start watching football until I started playing in 8th grade. And even then, I might not have watched an entire game.

I'm almost 49 now, started watching around 4/5th grade. I still have the Bengals/Raiders game where Bo Jackson had the career ending injury on a VHS tape. Recorded it while I was out shooting BB guns and ridding bikes with my buddy's that weren't into football yet.

I had an uncle that was the local high school football stud, then went on to play D1 ball. Dude was my hero so football was pretty cool to me at a young age. 

I watched the hogs and Monday night football. I wouldn’t say I watched a ton though

started playing in jh.
that was the first available opportunity to actually play.

Once I got started really watching CFB in like 8th grade, I watched kind of a lot!

Basically I'd play Friday nights and then spend most of Saturday mornings watching CFB and then the Niners on Sunday.

Televised football, back in the day, wasn't as professionally filmed as it is now.

Neither was it as on-screen analysed, with several cameras and many different angles...slow motion etc.

Even the penalties are picked apart to the "nth" degree.

It's a lot more fun to watch a game now. You get the details and the analysis unlike you saw in pre 1980.

Still, kids don't watch and IDK why. But...as long as they want to play and participate, I'm OK with that. It's the best we're gonna get...

I never watched a single football game until I was 9 and the 85 Bears were big. And then, I only watched Bears games. I didn't watch any college until my Sr year of HS when our coach said our offense came from Nebraska's playbook. So, I started watching them and really no one else.

I watched a ton in college (as much as I could while playing) and probably up until we had my daughter in 2005. I had season tickets to Illinois during the Juice Williams/Aerilious Benn era. The more I coached and the more my family grew, the less and less I watched.

Now, I don't really watch any with any passion.

it can be more fun now, with all the angles, tools, etc... available.
not to mention bigger tv screens. and color.   we didn't get color tv til late 70's (don't remember exact year).

nfl has really screwed up the rules though.
back then, you couldn't hold a receiver but you could beat the hell out of him until the ball was in the air, then you couldn't touch him. was a lot easier to see and call interference.   now, there's interference every play, and you never know when/if they're gonna call it.    kinda like holding on the o-line.

don't even wanna get started on what a catch is.   used to be if they thought you had control of the ball, for even an instant, it was a catch.   now nobody really knows what a catch is.
the old rule was simpler, and actually easier to see.

i did watch college fb after i got out of college.   watched bowl games, and big games before then.   i remember watching big games in the 60's.

when everybody went spread and games became 40-50 something to 30-40 something, i lost all interest.   if i wanna watch basketball, i'll watch basketball.
which i never will by the way, cuz i hate bb.
sorry for the ramble.

i guess this makes me old.

get off my lawn.

But yeah I recruit high schoolers now and it's way, way more common than not that they follow a team because of a particular player they saw on social media. Almost none of them sit down and watching anything, much less a full game. It's all clips and highlights. So many of them get to college now and don't understand that the game is actually a lot more than one-handed catches and running around cones.

A lot more then than I do now.

If I get a gap to chill on a Saturday, I’m more likely to pop in LOTR and disassociate for a few hours.

I’m so wrapped up in the team I coach, I really can’t care about a top ten SEC matchup.

Dad was a fan; he wasn't home much b/c of work, but those Sundays watching the Falcons on the couch with him were gold for me.

Being a farm boy, those Monday Night Football games were hard to finish.

I bought every Scholastic book from the monthly catalog we got in school on football; the All Pro, All Rookie, Greatest, etc... and wore them out reading them over and over.

Jefferson Pilot ACC game of the week at 12 noon was something I never missed unless I had chores and usually I got up early to make sure I got those done.  Also the ABC college game of the week and getting to listen Keith Jackson was always a thrill.

After watching games, I would go out in the yard and try to emulate plays/actions I had seen on TV.

Of course back then it wasn't 24/7 so you kind of knew the day/time slot that a game would be on, but I was a bit of a junky for football at an early age.

Grew up watching the Colts. The BALTIMORE COLTS.
Unitas, Moore, Berry, Ameche, Parker, Donovan......et al
Late 1950's and on.

1958 World Champs "The Greatest Game Ever Played."

Then watched as much football as I could find on black and white network TV.
I started drawing up plays by my junior year of high school.

I remember going to my high school's games ever since I was a little kid. Then we'd watch the Gophers and Vikings every weekend. I started watching other college games when I got into junior high and high school. Football was always on TV when I was growing up.

We are different than the typical kid.