Welcome to Hardcore College Football History.
I started this website and accompanying YouTube channel because I love both college football and history, but there is very little online about the subject.
You can go to YouTube and find hundreds of videos about wars in the medieval period or the history of World War II, but sports history is largely non-existent. If it does exist, it’s been diluted into “These are the greatest teams” or “These are the biggest hits”
If players are profiled, they’re reduced to discussing how many touchdowns or yards they had during their football career. They cease to be human and instead become a sports caricature of their own lives.
When it comes to the game, there’s very little about the changes over the decades that made the game what it is today.
I aim to correct that.
So many of our great coaches, players, had incredible lives, full lives, and that is as part of their story of who they were as how many touchdowns they scored.
America has been through a lot: World Wars, depressions, cultural evolution, and industrial evolution. All of these things affected the game.
The purpose of this website and YouTube channel, to tell those stories.
My name is Jon Johnston. I grew up in a small town in southwest Nebraska. I graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1987. I’ve loved college football my entire life.
My goal is to bring the complete history of college football to light. I only ask that you support me in this endeavor.
I have another very personal goal as well:
On August 21, 2015, I had a widowmaker heart attack. I was dead for 20 minutes. I have two stents in my heart, and was also diagnosed with an anoxic brain injury in June 2016.
Because of the brain injury and being dead too long, I lost a lot of my memories.
Before my death, I understood a lot of college football history. The other personal purpose for this channel is to recover those memories and share them with you.
