5 Iconic Players Who Have Shaped College Football

June 19, 2024 by Staff

College football is as American as it gets. If we’re not watching the game on TV or tailgating with friends and family, we’re watching movies about football. From serious biographical films like Paterno (2018) and The Blind Side (2009) to goofy comedies like The Waterboy (1998) and Necessary Roughness (1991), and dramas including Concussion (2015) and Everybody’s All-American (1988), there are enough college football films to fill the offseason.

While the basics of the game and the emotions it inspires have remained the same since the earliest days, the game itself has been shaped by many of the players who have given their all on the field.

When we think about iconic football players, our minds usually go to the heroes of the NFL. But those players had to earn their stripes and develop their skills somewhere. For nearly every player, that is in the conferences of the NCAA. This is one of the things that truly sets football apart from America’s other favorite sports where players can go pro right out of high school or by working their way through the minor leagues.

Here are our picks for iconic players who have shaped college football and turned it into the modern game we love today. Looking at the impact that these players have had over the years, we can only imagine how players in the next decade will further improve the game.

Herschel Walker (Georgia)

Herschel Walker was a running back for the University of Georgia from 1980-1982. In all three seasons that he played for Georgia, he was named the SEC Player of the Year, Unanimous All American and 1st Team All SEC. In his third year at Georgia, he won the Heisman Trophy. Walker was unstoppable on the field and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1999.

Walker changed the game by putting an emphasis on speed. Alongside his early football career, Walker was also a track star. The training for track and field events is very different from football training, and that balance inspired coaches who wanted their players to pick up the pace in spite of their size.

Reggie Bush (USC)

Reggie Bush was a running back for the University of Southern California from 2003-2005. He won the Heisman in 2005, though it was temporarily stripped from him due to an NCAA investigation. This didn’t have anything to do with his playing. Bush was one of the most creative and electric players USC and college football had ever seen.

He inspired a younger generation of players to keep their eyes open and play with fluidity and creativity. Bush also left his mark in forcing the NCAA to reconsider their amateurism model and the impossible position it puts players in.

Dan Morgan (Miami)

Dan Morgan played for the University of Miami from 1997-2000. An incredible athlete, Morgan inspired his teammates on the field. Morgan’s contribution to college football was to show that a player didn’t have to be a quarterback or a running back to be an independent force on the field.

Morgan is still the only player who has won the Butkus Award (best linebacker), the Bednarik Award (best defensive player) and the Nagurski Award (best defensive player) all in the same year. He’s carried his legacy back onto the field in his current career with the Carolina Panthers.

Owen Thomas (Penn)

Sometimes the best football players shape the game off the field too. Owen Thomas never got the chance to have the NFL career that he had been working towards. The Penn captain was a defensive end and led the team to the 2009 Ivy League Championship. After his untimely death in 2010, an examination showed that he was in the early stages of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). He was the first non-professional player to be diagnosed with the disease.

Having such a young player who had no history of excessive concussions show signs of the disease forced the NCAA to acknowledge the dangers of repeated head trauma. Thomas’ tragic death has inspired doctors, action groups and researchers to put pressure on the NCAA to enforce safety measures. Hopefully, in the next few years, we’ll see those measures in action.

Theodore Roosevelt

Before Theodore Roosevelt became the president of the United States, he attended Harvard, which was one of the football powerhouses of the day. Although he didn’t actually play football in college, he was devoted to the game and played an important role in it becoming one of the nation’s pastimes.

By the end of the 19th century, football had become so violent and out of control that universities were giving up on the gridiron and adopting other sports in its place. Roosevelt played a key role in the creation of the NCAA and the development of new rules that made the game safer and more controlled.

While he wasn’t a presence on the field, Roosevelt is one of the reasons the game still exists today, and all college football fans are surely grateful for that.