All Roads Lead to Ferrum College

When the 2022-2023 College Football season offically started back in late August the goal was to attend the maximum number of games that a Power 5 Conference team could play. Twelve is the number of regular season games plus one if you make your Conference Championship Game and then two more if you were lucky enough to make the playoffs and then win your semi-final contest. The two teams playing for the FBS Championship should be playing in their 15th game of the season. Getting to 15 games didn't seem to be all that great of a challenge for a serious College Football fan so a need for tweaks were needed. The first one was easy enough by simply stating that it needed to be 15 different schools acting as the Home Team. Toss in that the games should be played in as many different States as possible and that the level of competition be as varied as possible to complete the challenge. It's always fun to create challenges of your own and then make it as fun to complete as possible plus the missing ingredient being - What is the goal or objective in the chase ? The goal here is to test the theory that Bigger is Always Better. I am moving further away from believing that to be true, that your football game doesn't have to the Biggest Game of the Week for it to be entertaining. The fact that the trail is set to end at tiny Ferrum (hosting Averett of Danville) in a ODAC contest makes it a perfect ending. Divion III football is a non-schloarship sport and the picturesque campus is a just 45 miles from our home in Laurel Fork, Virginia. When you add in that most of the 45 miles will take place on the Blue Ridge Parkway it just makes the trek even more enjoyable to think about. W.B. Adams Stadium will not be mistaken for the New Orleans Superdome but its both Senior Day and Hall of Fame Day plus the visitors are traveling just 60 miles so there should be a solid crowd. Capacity is 5,500 and the field also is home to the recently added Men's Lacrosse team. Up to this point there have been 6 Atlantic Coast Conference stops in Syracuse, Clemson, Louisville, Florida State, Duke and Boston College so we have the Power 5 covered. Appalachian State and Marshall of the Sun Belt plus Elon University (CAA), Davidson College (PFL) and East Tennessee State (So Con) accounted for the 5 stops in the FCS. Albany State (GA) covered both D2 and HBCU while Tusculum (D2) and Emory& Henry (freshly D2) filled a number of spots and Davidson's opponent back on September 17th was St.Andrews who plays at the NAIA level. All that remained for the Cycle to be complete is a D3 game and that will take place inside of just a few days. Once a loop is completed its fun to take a look at the trek and see what facts were uncovered from it all. Should prove interesting! The Averett Cougars are currently 2-7 and have dropped six straight contests since defeating Brevard College back on September 17th and Ferrum sits at 1-8 but one of those squads will leave the gridiron on Saturday a winner and hopefully a few thousand fans will be there to share in the experience with them!