David HaleDec 23, 2025, 07:00 AM ETCloseCollege football reporter.Joined ESPN in 2012.Graduate of the University of Delaware.Follow on X
play1:30Marshawn Lynch takes a ride down memory lane… in a cartBefore the start of the Washington-Cal game, former Golden Bear Marshawn Lynch makes his entrance by driving on the field in an injury cart, a moment that will go down in Cal history when he drove a cart 10 years ago after team win.
play0:45Edible Pop-Tart served to bowl winner Kansas StateKansas State’s head coach and quarterback enjoy a huge Pop-Tart after winning the inaugural Pop-Tarts Bowl.
play3:22How agonizing defeat can lead to viral fameCollege GameDay explores the connection between fans dealing with the agony of defeat and one of the world’s most feared and dangerous creatures.
Manny Diaz recalls the glory days of Miami’s turnover chain (3:33)Duke coach Manny Diaz tells the story of how Miami’s turnover chain came to be. (3:33)
Ian Johnson celebrates 10 year anniversary of Boise State trick play, proposalIan Johnson reflects on the glorious moment when he successfully pulled off the “Statue of Liberty” trick play for Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl followed by a spur of the moment proposal to girlfriend Chrissy Popadics.
Ian Johnson reflects on the glorious moment when he successfully pulled off the “Statue of Liberty” trick play for Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl followed by a spur of the moment proposal to girlfriend Chrissy Popadics.
Marshawn Lynch takes a ride down memory lane… in a cartBefore the start of the Washington-Cal game, former Golden Bear Marshawn Lynch makes his entrance by driving on the field in an injury cart, a moment that will go down in Cal history when he drove a cart 10 years ago after team win.
Before the start of the Washington-Cal game, former Golden Bear Marshawn Lynch makes his entrance by driving on the field in an injury cart, a moment that will go down in Cal history when he drove a cart 10 years ago after team win.
Edible Pop-Tart served to bowl winner Kansas StateKansas State’s head coach and quarterback enjoy a huge Pop-Tart after winning the inaugural Pop-Tarts Bowl.
Kansas State’s head coach and quarterback enjoy a huge Pop-Tart after winning the inaugural Pop-Tarts Bowl.
How agonizing defeat can lead to viral fameCollege GameDay explores the connection between fans dealing with the agony of defeat and one of the world’s most feared and dangerous creatures.
College GameDay explores the connection between fans dealing with the agony of defeat and one of the world’s most feared and dangerous creatures.
play1:53Ian Johnson celebrates 10 year anniversary of Boise State trick play, proposalIan Johnson reflects on the glorious moment when he successfully pulled off the “Statue of Liberty” trick play for Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl followed by a spur of the moment proposal to girlfriend Chrissy Popadics.
Upon his retreat from Moscow, Napoleon reportedly quipped of his army’s harrowing defeat that the margin between “the ridiculous and the sublime was but a step.”
Fall Saturdays offer a wealth of the sublime: dramatic games, brilliant plays, awe-inspiring athleticism. But what truly sets college football apart is that after all the on-field heroics, the sport slips so easily into pure chaos.
For all the highlights, what often binds us most closely to college football are all those other moments, storylines, sound bites and memes so ludicrous, so stupefying, so perfectly … college football.
So, as the end of 2025 nears, it seemed a good time to consider the things that felt the most unique to college football, a celebration not of the sublime but of the ridiculous.
To make the list, the college football moment cannot have happened during the course of game action (no Bush Push or Kick Six), but it can be something that happened on the field of play (like, say, throwing someone’s shoe).
The list can include some bad moments, but not something that involves an actual law being broken (so no crab legs).
And while, in retrospect, all of these moments probably feel like they were inevitable, they should have felt entirely unexpected in the moment.
Ultimately though, a great college football moment is determined by the same metric used by former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to define another rather unrefined industry: You know it when you see it.
Narrowing this list down to 25 was an impossible task. Indeed, we’ve likely forgotten a few moments that would’ve easily cracked the top 10. Here are a few favorites that didn’t quite make the cut.
The best college football moments are appreciated in vastly different ways depending on whether you’re making the joke or are the butt of it, and the term “Clemsoning” captured that duality perfectly.
It started as a joke between podcast hosts Dan Rubenstein and Ty Hildenbrandt long before Clemson became a national power. The idea was simple: From the early 2000s through Dabo Swinney’s early years, Clemson had a tendency to start a season hot then run headlong into a pratfall against a lesser opponent. “Clemsoning” became shorthand for any team that torpedoed its season in the dumbest ways possible.
As Swinney built Clemson into a national power in the early 2010s, however, Clemson outgrew the moniker, but those outside Death Valley were eager to keep making the joke. It all came to a head in 2015, after Clemson beat Notre Dame in one of Swinney’s signature career wins. The national media continually referred to the next week’s contest against Georgia Tech as a prime opportunity for Clemson to, well, Clemson, and Swinney seethed the whole week.
The Tigers then walloped Georgia Tech, and the game had the feel of a turning point — the moment when Clemsoning officially died. Only, Swinney wasn’t eager to offer its eulogy.
Clemsoning has occasionally wormed its way back into the vernacular since — sometimes for Clemson itself but often for another team that has fumbled away lofty expectations against a lesser foe. But after Swinney’s “it’s bull crap” outburst, the term lost much of its luster.
By July 2013, Johnny Manziel had already established two things: He was one of the most electric players in recent college football history on the field, and he was the sport’s biggest agent of chaos off the field.
There are myriad Manziel moments that could’ve made this list, but let’s go with this as the favorite: He went to a frat party at Texas, the hated rival of his Texas A&M Aggies. He was 20. He was asked to leave. He did.
And then, according to photos shared on social media the next day, he ended up at a completely different Texas party, this time sporting a Tim Tebow New York Jets jersey.
The first recorded incident of a shirtless dude outbreak occurred in 2021, amid a traditionally woeful Indiana season, during a loss to equally woeful Rutgers. A handful of Hoosiers fans in an otherwise vacant section of the stadium took off their shirts. Soon, more fans joined. And more. And more. Until, without planning or intent, a party had broken out. And for four years, Indiana’s shirtless celebration of misery remained a beautiful one-off.
Then Oklahoma State fired Mike Gundy, and its fan base had no choice but to honor the departed coach by doing something entirely within the wheelhouse of a man whose hair inspired millions to find just the right balance between business and party.
From Stillwater grew a national craze. Fans everywhere were losing their shirts, rollicking in stadiums both big and small, packed and empty. While shirtless dudes in the stands may never feel as organic as it did way back in 2021, this year’s trend was a perfect reminder that passion, dedication and, occasionally, a lack of scruples by fans, are the foundation of college football’s greatness.
College football commitment ceremonies became their own cottage industry in the 2000s, with dramatic reveals, angry parents and the occasional dog.
So, it was perhaps inevitable that someone without the necessary pedigree for a blockbuster announcement would manage to seize the spotlight like college football’s version of the balloon boy.
In 2008, Kevin Hart, an offensive lineman from Fernley High School in Nevada, took to the stage in front of TV cameras and a sizable audience, two hats resting in front of him as he was set to announce whether he’d be playing for Cal or Oregon. Hart reached out, snatched the Cal hat, and the crowd applauded.
In the aftermath, Hart’s high school coach was fired for, ostensibly, not uncovering the ruse in advance, but Hart did eventually live out his dream — albeit on a smaller stage — playing Division II ball after a stint in junior college.
Florida State’s 2013 national championship team was jam-packed with stars: Jameis Winston, Kelvin Benjamin, Jalen Ramsey, even Jack Nicklaus’ grandson Nick O’Leary. Yet, no one had the star power of Frankie Grizzle-Malgrat, the team’s ball boy.
Blessed with luscious red curls, a full Viking beard and enough energy to power a midsize city, Grizzle-Malgrat became a social media sensation nicknamed “Red Lightning” after TV cameras caught him sprinting down the sideline alongside an FSU player en route to the end zone. His rise to fame coincided with the Seminoles’ rise in the polls.
That his 15 minutes of fame was bound to end with the Seminoles’ national championship was inevitable, though Grizzle-Malgrat did later work with the Atlanta Falcons. He is currently the head equipment manager for Florida State’s women’s soccer team, which has won a couple of national titles with him, the most recent being this past season.
As the most recent realignment roller coaster started in 2021, the commissioners of three leagues banded together in hopes of putting on the brakes. The ACC’s Jim Phillips, the Big Ten’s Kevin Warren and the Pac-12’s George Kliavkoff held a joint news conference via video conference to announce the formation of “The Alliance.”
The idea behind the partnership was to counter the seemingly outsize influence of the SEC — which had just nabbed Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12 — by working together toward an agenda that wouldn’t just benefit one league.