The North Carolina A&T Aggies versus the UCF Knights is, on paper, a football game so geographically modest that a European could sneeze and miss it. Yet this September collision in Orlando—part of UCF’s annual “Let’s Try to Look P5 While Still in the AAC” showcase—offers a perfect micro-dose of the global malaise we all…
Cal Football, or How a Struggling Pac-12 Side Became a Metaphor for Late-Stage Empire By “Special Correspondent in Mild Exile,” Berkeley-adjacent BERKELEY—While COP28 delegates argued over commas in Dubai and the European Central Bank quietly asked Italy for its next fiscal miracle, 50,000 souls filed into Memorial Stadium last Saturday to watch California Golden Bears…
West Point cadets, Kansas wheat farmers, and a global audience of insomniacs tuning in at 3 a.m. from Singapore to São Paulo—welcome to the latest episode of “America’s Collegiate Gladiator Hour,” where a football game between Army and Kansas State is sold as a clash of civilizations rather than what it really is: two groups…
The Curious Case of Fran Brown: How One Gridiron Mercenary Became the World’s Most Reluctant Diplomat By Dave’s Locker International Desk Somewhere between the hash marks and the hashish of international politics, Fran Brown has improbably emerged as the closest thing planet Earth has to a consensus-builder. On paper, he’s the new head coach of…
Ohio State Football: America’s Gladiatorial Cult Reaches Out to the World By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, Buenos Aires The first thing to understand is that in most countries, the word “football” conjures images of Lionel Messi gliding past defenders or a rain-soaked Champions League night in Manchester. In Ohio, however, it summons 102,780…
Jackson State vs Southern Miss: When a Mississippi Football Game Becomes a Geopolitical Rorschach Test Dave’s Locker, International Desk — Somewhere between the humidity-soaked stands of M.M. Roberts Stadium and the algorithmic churn of a thousand WhatsApp rumor mills, Jackson State and Southern Miss prepared to do battle last Saturday. To the naked eye it…
Zach Calzada, Quarterback Without Portfolio, Drifts into the Geopolitical Void ————————————————————————– If you squint at a world map hard enough, you can almost see the faint contrails of Zach Calzada’s career arcing above the usual fly-over states like a rogue weather balloon—visible, vaguely ominous, and ultimately nobody’s responsibility. Once a celebrated three-star from Georgia via…
The Pacific and the Plains meet in Dallas, which is already a geographical punch-line, but the Alamo Bowl insists on staging Oklahoma State versus Oregon as though the fate of hemispheres hangs on which set of teenagers can better choreograph a lateral. To the rest of the planet—currently juggling inflation, war, and the creeping suspicion…
Columbia, Missouri – While the rest of the planet frets over melting ice caps, runaway A.I., and the faint possibility that someone might actually read the iTunes terms of service, a small quadrant of the American Midwest has narrowed its existential dread to a more manageable size: 120 yards of artificial turf and the weekly…
Wake Forest Football and the Global Theater of Mild Rebellion By Dave’s International Bureau of Existential Sportswriting If the planet were a pub, American college football would be the loud regular in the corner insisting his regional lager is the finest brew ever fermented. From the outside, the spectacle looks like a gilded civil war…
FAYETTEVILLE, USA — Somewhere between the Ozarks and the Ozempic, the Arkansas Razorbacks are playing football again. That may sound like local color to most of the planet, but in an era when American college sports have become the last reliable export that doesn’t explode on the launchpad, the Razorbacks are—believe it or not—global news….
**Boise’s Golden Ticket: How Ashton Jeanty Became the World’s Most Overqualified Tourist Attraction** *By our correspondent who still can’t believe American football is called “football”* GENEVA—In a world where nuclear powers trade barbs on social media and central banks treat inflation like a drunk uncle at Christmas, the global economy has found its newest safe-haven…
