Seen 'em all – 133 FBS teams in action. Three new members to be added the next two years. All divisions: 712 games attended since 1979! Get my new book now available on Amazon.com in Kindle and in Paperback: Fifty Years of Tailgate Tales: The Good, the Fun and the Ugly! Follow our 31-game schedule in 2024.
Lebanon, TN – Sports Illustratedreleases its “Swimsuit” edition annually during the freezing doldrums of cold winter months. SI warms things up for the anticipated beach season. So, we’ve decided to fire fans up anticipating the cooling effects of Autumn with our end of summer College Football Cheerleading Edition. These photos we’ve taken have graced our Game Reviews primarily in 2016-2017. They look as good now as they did then. We feature some of our favorite cheerleader memories here!
We look forward to capturing more school spirit along the sidelines at games this upcoming season. Many venues on our slate this year we’ll attend for the very first time. Enjoy our Cheerleading Edition as we approach two weeks from our “Week 0” kickoff of 2024. We look forward to seeing who’s along the sidelines as well as who’s playing on the gridiron. With that in mind, look for a few more season previews here before the start of our 2024 season.
Twirlers and Dance Teams make our Cheerleading Edition 2024 as well
Tennessee twirlers performed during halftime in the Outback Bowl a few days later in Tampa. Their Vols trounced the Northwestern Wildcats, 45-6. We’ve attended seven UT bowl games over the course of this fantastic voyage.The Delaware State Hornets Dance Team performed before the new First State rivalry.They kicked off against in-state foe Delaware for the opener for both Football Championship Subdivision schools in 2016.The Delaware Fighting Blue Hens dominated this one, 56-14. In 2025, they will join the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Conference-USA.
East Coast Cheerleading squads are hip. Check out their styles!
Rutgers Cheerleaders shake pom-poms at 2016 game at High Point Solutions Stadium in 37-28 win against New Mexico in 2016. This year, the UNM Lobos will open our season for us in Albuquerque. On August 24, they play the strong FCS Montana State Bobcats.South Florida lost to Temple, 46-30, at The Linc in Philly in 2016. However, a couple of their pictures won them a few spots in our 2024 College Cheerleader Edition. They could smile after this season as their USF Bulls finished the season ranked No. 19 in the country.Speaking of Temple Cheerleading, we always enjoy their performances with the band during halftime shows at The Linc. Here, all smiles for their Owls against the Midshipmen at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium in a 34-10 victory. Here, they cheered them on to the American Athletic Championship in 2016.In their standard Cheerleader Uniforms, these Pitt girls withstood a freezing-cold day in late December. Their Panthers fell, 31-24, to the Northwestern Wildcats in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium.Tough Ladies!
The Midwest Farmers’ Daughters look better than just alright!
In 2016, collegefootballfan.com attended the Notre Dame-Stanford game in South Bend.We had a chance to meet Irish Cheerleaders on a tour the day before. Good thing! If you read my book, you’ll see we had an obstructed view from where we sat during ND’s loss to Stanford that Saturday (photo taken by William T. Serafin). We made it to the Music City Bowl in 2016 to see the Nebraska Cornhusker Cheerleading squad lead their fans to root against the Tennessee Volunteers. Their Huskers fell to the Vols, 38-24.
And the Northern Cheerleading teams warm their stadiums up all night
Penn Staters showed up with Blue and White pride in the 2017 opener against in-state rival Pitt to revive the discontinued rivalry. They cheered their Nittany Lions on to a victory, 33-14.You don’t see it on these girls’ faces, but this game was played on a scorching hot day. Navy Cheerleaders led the Gold side of Navy-Marine Corps Stadium to cheer against the Cincinatti Bearcats for a 42-32 win in 2017.In the same game to our left on the Gold side in Annapolis, Cincinnati Bearcat fans followed their Cheerleaders against the Mids in the tough loss under first-year Head Coach Luke Fickell. In 2024, we’ll see him coach his Wisconsin Badgers against the highly-ranked Oregon Ducks. Looking to our first “Fifth Quarter” celebration there!
And the Southern Cheerleading with the way they talk…
At a pregame rally in 2018 adjacent to Wake Forest’s Truist Stadium, The Demon Deacons Cheerleaders amped their fans up prior to a 42-32 victory over Heisman winner Lamar Jackson of the Louisville Cardinals.On the road at Virginia’s Scott Stadium in 2017, Georgia Tech’s squad roused their Yellow Jacket fans to no avail, but we saw an exciting 40-36 win by the Cavaliers in a driving rainstorm.On a dreary day, we saw the Coastal Carolina Chanticleer squad cheer their team in a losing cause against Georgia Southern on their home turf in Brooks Stadium located in Conway, SC. You can see they did, however, brighten things up.
Do “we wish they all could be California girls?” We prefer to enjoy the Cheerleading talent wherever we go!
At our first big rivalry game at the Las Angeles Coliseum between USC and UCLA in 2017, the Bruin Cheerleaders gave us plenty to cheer about most of the game as they performed directly below us. To their disappointment, their team didn’t give them much to get excited about as they fell to the hated, crosstown, rival Trojans that evening, 28-23.We have to throw out one more shot of the California girls of UCLA since we took so many of them for some reason.We’ll wrap this edition up as these South Florida Bull Cheerleaders snuck away under the TV camera crew, but they couldn’t escape our keen eyes from our seats among us real fans!
ed. by Steve Koreivo – Member of Football Writers Association of America
Unless noted otherwise, all photos here have been taken by Steve Koreivo