Find Your Midweek MACtion
my dad and i were crying at a story from mcready and siskey about certain things on the hotel walls from an Arkansas state texas a&m game from 17 years ago or a story of the red wolves going to beat monroe and freeze maybe starting to charge a little bit more on jackets then he should. Caring about college football used to be simple: if you went to a school, you rooted for that school. If your dad went there, you wore the colors. If you grew up going to the games, you stayed loyal. It didn’t matter if the team was 12–0 or 0–12 — it mattered that they were yours.
I’ll never forget jumping for joy when Arkansas State beat an 0–12 Western Kentucky team just to start 0–4. That win meant nothing nationally. It meant everything to me. Because it was my team, my school, my connection. That’s the essence of college football — caring about something even when the rest of the world doesn’t.
Nobody should be ashamed of finding joy in midweek MACtion, or in a Sun Belt win that doesn’t move the playoff needle. In fact, that’s the soul of it. The Tuesday night game in November. The rivalry no one else notices. The conference tournament you have to stream on a janky website. Those are the things that make fandom real.
Bandwagon culture and playoff obsession have warped the way we talk about the sport. Lose to a top-10 team on the road? Suddenly it’s a meltdown. Fire the coach. Burn it down. Meanwhile, the people who actually go to the games, sit in the student sections, and wear the gear on Mondays know better. Caring isn’t about perfection. It’s about belonging.
In a weird way, gambling culture has helped here. People bet on midweek MACtion, and suddenly they care about Ohio vs. Akron on a Tuesday night. Sure, it’s not pure. But it’s proof that caring is contagious — even the ugliest game becomes something when you’ve got a reason to pay attention. Now imagine if the reason was your school.
That’s why my favorite teams will always be the ones I lived with: Idaho State, where I earned my degree. Oklahoma, where I’m chasing my MBA. Arkansas State, where I took classes in high school and grew up cheering because my dad went there. None of them are perfect. Arkansas State has never won more than 10 games or made the NCAA Tournament in basketball or baseball. But I still care. That’s what makes it worth it when they finally break through.
Because at the end of the day, caring is the point. Find your midweek MACtion. Find your team. And stick with them.
