As NIL and Transfer Portal bloom, faith found its way into the college football spotlight

• In this age of college football, players recognizing something more than themselves is hard to imagine but that’s what happened in this bowl and playoff season.

There’s an expectation at Chick-Fil-A that goes beyond a good sandwich hot and fast.

When you pull into the drive-thru there’s a feeling of confidence that you won’t spend as much time there as at some other restaurants.

There have been social media take-offs on this, poking good-natured fun at redshirted employees fast-walking a car to this next level of the experience, mixing in “my pleasure” at least once, before the customer grabs a bag and resumes his day.

Chick-Fil-A was the third-leading earner among fast food restaurants in 2024, trailing McDonald’s and Starbucks.

Here’s the catch. Chick-Fil-A makes its money six days a week, not seven.

CFA founder Truett Cathy decided for his business good service would be as important as good food.

Cathy, a devout Christian, understood the call of service to others as followers of Jesus Christ. His lifestyle became his business model, and it’s been a big success.

Enough about chicken.

Service to others as a result of faith in Christ was one component of a championship football season for Ohio State, it’s been said this month.

There are other reasons, to be sure, like key transfer portal acquisitions in quarterback Will Howard, formerly of Kansas State, and running back Quinshon Judkins, formerly of Ole Miss.

A string of top five recruiting classes helps.

But revival has broken out on the Ohio State campus, and it’s caught the attention of national media both Christian and secular.

“Ohio State University football players are leading a religious revival on campus,” National Public Radio wrote and voiced in late December.

“Nearly 1K People Attend Christian Revival Led by College Football Stars,” wrote The Daily Wire last August.

The story grew as the Buckeyes blasted their way through the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff field culminating with their 34-23 win over Notre Dame last Monday.

Not only the Buckeyes

Faith found its way to news coverage through Ohio State, but it certainly wasn’t limited to the Buckeyes.

In fact, it’s hard to track such things, but it seems that college football players this bowl season loud and proud more than ever before in using their platform – the on-field interview or postgame press conference – to share their faith.

The more Notre Dame kept winning, the more we saw its quarterback, Riley Leonard, talking about Jesus.

We saw Texas freshman running back Nick Sanders praying on the field with Arizona State running back Cam Skattebo after Skattebo had played his guts out in his team’s loss to the Longhorns.

We saw Boise State’s Ahmed Hassanein crying through the postgame presser after his team was eliminated by Penn State, not because the Broncos lost but because he was thanking his coach, Spencer Danielson, for leading him to Christ.

“Coach D you changed my life. I didn’t know God before I got to Boise State,” Hassanein said.

Hassanein is believed to be the first Egyptian FBS football player.

A photo of many Ole Miss football players praying in the end zone before their Gator Bowl win over Duke made the social media rounds too. It was not the first such occurrence this season for the Rebels.

Ultimately, Ohio State and Notre Dame were the last two standing, and their faith stories caught the attention of ESPN broadcasters Scott Van Pelt and Rece Davis in postgame coverage.

“It seems that both faith in above and faith in one another is what got Ohio State through,” Van Pelt said.

“Notre Dame has a lot of that going on as well,” Davis responded, mentioning a previous conversation with Fighting Irish coach Marcus Freeman.

“Marcus talked about that a lot this year, that it made guys selfless, and that’s the power in it, not some kind of magical thing that they’re going to hand you the trophy if you do it, it just helps you relate to your teammates differently.”

Indeed it does.

It makes your teammate’s well being as important as your own, elevating that person above yourself, playing for love.

It’s recognizing the collective goal is more important than the individual one.

It’s not a revolutionary concept. Coaches have preached the team concept for years, and sometimes the message gets through.

The other team prays too

Faith in sports is not about praying for wins. As Van Pelt points out, “the other team is praying too.”

But when faith is not forced and becomes a lifestyle, the Lord provides. Provision doesn’t always mean winning a college football game, as Hassanein found out, but there was something bigger than football, he learned.

College football players recognizing something more than themselves right now in the age of NIL paychecks and annual roster upheaval is kind of hard to imagine.

But that’s what happened in this bowl and playoff season.

In fast-food terms, it’s skipping the extra-value sized ego for the humility and service-to-others combo.

It was fun to watch, and I’d hit that drive-through again.