Scoggins: College football across America ... literally

Michael Barker’s itinerary this weekend calls for him to attend three college football games and one NFL game in four different states.

He decided to take it easy.

He usually attends six college football games in a week.

“I love college football,” he said.

Love might not be a strong enough word to describe Barker’s dedication to a pursuit that has brought him “C-minus celebrity” in the college football universe.

He attended 104 college football games in the 2024 season alone, which sounds humanly and geographically impossible, except Barker provides proof on his X page (@cfbcampustour). His navigation tally: 87,000 miles flown, 16,000 miles driven.

“Every stop pulled out, no expense spared, to try to put up the biggest number possible,” he said by phone last week.

He is returning to Minnesota for the Gophers game against Nebraska on Friday night. He previously checked Huntington Bank Stadium off his list at the 2018 opener against New Mexico State.

“My goal is to be the only person in the world to have seen a game at all 265 Division I schools that are FBS and FCS,” he said.

Which begs a few questions: Why? How?

“My dad had a saying: If you can conceive it, you can achieve it,” he said. “College football to me is the vessel. It takes me to all these cool places. I’ve been to Niagara Falls, Mall of America, Civil War battlegrounds. All these places that if I didn’t travel for football, I wouldn’t have seen. I’m a competitive person. I played sports growing up. This is a game now. That competitive spirit never leaves you.”

The game started back in 2017 on a trip to Colorado.

“By the end of the trip, I was like, man, I want to visit colleges,” he said.

That summer, he mapped out a route that took him to 99 campuses from Miami to Minnesota. He took photos of himself standing next to statues of every school’s mascot and/or football stadium.

“That inspired me in the fall to start going to games,” he said.

He hasn’t stopped.

He attended 13 games in 2017 and steadily increased that number until setting a goal of 100 last season.

“I’m a little bit pigeonholed by what I have left,” he said.

He begins planning in the spring as soon as conferences release schedules, using color-coded Excel spreadsheets to map out trips. Smaller conferences schedule midweek games for TV opportunities, which allows him to attend games from Tuesday-Saturday. Plus, there are conference championship games, FCS playoffs, bowl season and College Football Playoffs. He’s attended six of the past seven national championship games.

“There’s also some special circumstances,” he said.

A hurricane postponed an FCS game in North Carolina to Sunday one year. Check.

A junior college national semifinal in Georgia also was played on a Sunday one year. Check.

Before that, he attended the Potato Bowl in Boise, Idaho, on Dec. 23, flew to Honolulu for the Hawaii Bowl on Dec. 24, took the redeye home to California to spend Christmas Day with family, and left at 6 a.m. the next day for the Rate Bowl in Phoenix.

This is a good time to mention costs.

He estimates spending $35,000 to $45,000 each season. His social media popularity has attracted sponsorships and ad revenue that cover about 25% of costs.

Technically, he’s self-employed as an appraiser, giving him schedule flexibility. Last month he did 22 appraisals and attended 24 games, a perfect work-life balance.

“I call it the glamour life,” he said sarcastically.

As soon as he lands in a city, he searches for a grocery store to stock up on protein bars and beef jerky and a Planet Fitness where he can work out and get a shower any time of the day.

He parked 2½ miles away from Penn State’s Beaver Stadium to avoid a parking fee.

“I love everything about a college campus,” he said, “except parking.”

He also loves stadium architecture and settings.

Ask for his favorite venue and he compares the task to picking a favorite flavor at Baskin-Robbins. But he names a few, starting with the Sun Bowl in El Paso.

He also loves Oregon, and Washington, and BYU, and Ohio State, and Harvard, and Montana.

“I can go on and on,” he said.

Naturally, he’s witnessed his share of thrillers.

The most memorable came in 2017 when UCLA erased a 34-point deficit to Texas A&M in the second half with Josh Rosen throwing four touchdowns in the fourth quarter to win 45-44.

In 2018, he saw Oklahoma and West Virginia combine for 115 points and 1,372 total yards.

He has rushed the field in victory celebration at 16 stadiums.

He was at Virginia in September when the Cavaliers upset Florida State in the second overtime in what might have been the fastest field storming in college football history. Fans were on the field about one second after the final play.

“I could start to feel my body being compressed,” he said. “That was the first time I ever was fearful because of what was going on.”

He had a weird experience at Kennesaw State last season after the Owls defeated Liberty for the program’s first FBS win.

“We actually rushed the field twice,” he said. “They threw an incompletion and everybody rushed the field. Then the review put one second back on the clock. They threw another incompletion, and we ran on the field again.”

Said Barker: “There will be a day where I either walk into a stadium and say, ‘This is not feeling the same,’ or I’m home watching games and say, ‘I’m OK with this.’”

That day has not arrived yet.