Every year, some 80-plus college football teams become bowl eligible and extend their season by a few weeks. An even luckier few will make it to the College Football Playoffs for a chance to play two more games and win a national title.
And then there’s the rest of the programs across the sport.
The ones who didn’t accomplish much. The ones who almost never accomplish much. For every Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State out there, there’s a Temple, Boston College and Cal.
Yet every year, fans of those schools keep tuning in and filling the stands. An earnest Reddit thread on r/CFB wanted to know why. It turned into a lovely (and hilarious) meditation on the pull of college athletics and collective suffering across sports.
Here are some of the best response to a simple question: Fans of teams that are perpetually bad, what keeps you engaged?