It was a beautiful fall Saturday afternoon to attend a college football game.

As I was sitting in the visitors bleachers watching Minnesota State University Moorhead playing SMSU in Marshall Saturday a thought came across my mind, I realized how much I miss small college football and wondered why I don’t go to more games. I live in Madison and within an hour or two drive of me there is a number of colleges with football programs. The closest being Marshall and Morris. Brookings has a division one program at SDSU. Saturday I really enjoyed my time watching my cousin Pete’s boy, Jack Bungarden play linebacker for the Dragons.

My first experience with small college football was attending many University of Minnesota Morris Cougar games in the 1970’s. Roxie and I had a friend Jeff Houselog who started as a defensive back for the Cougars. Jeff had played football at Ruthton High school and won a state championship in 1975. Roxie and Jeff’s girlfriend Darla were good friends.

There was nothing better than going to Morris on a fall Saturday afternoon to watch Jeff play. They always drew huge crowds and they had a very good football program. I especially liked when they played Moorhead because my high school football teammate Jeff Hanson played for the Dragons and I could watch them both

My next experience was when my oldest son Josh played football at St. Cloud State in the mid 90’s. It was so much fun. I think there were four former LQPV Eagles that played for the Huskies at the time. I couldn’t wait to get to St Cloud on a Saturday afternoon. We also traveled to watch him play and put many miles on the van.

Todd Bouman was the quarterback for St Cloud State and he later played in the NFL. Our family has some really good memories watching St Cloud State football. It’s sad that they have dropped the football program.

My friend Dan Tuckett and I have gone to a few local college games over the years. Dan played college football for Huron and more recently Dan’s son Danny Jr played college football in North Dakota and at Bemidji State. So both Dan and I live for college football. Saturday in Marshall watching Jack play just brought back a lot of memories for me. The atmosphere at college football games, passionately cheering for your team, visiting with people in the stands, taking pictures after the game with football players, family and friends all make for a great day.

Driving home Saturday Dan and I both said we had a great time and that we really need to do this more. So maybe you will see us at SDSU or NDSU game next.