Greatest College Football Highlight Reels

One of the best things about growing up with YouTube is being able to watch your favorite sports moments whenever you want. At least once a week I go back and watch Nebraska’s 1995-96 Natty highlights before crying myself to sleep knowing we suck for the foreseeable future. One of the more popular forms of YouTube highlights has been individual player mixtapes that have become prevalent at almost every level. In my semi-professional opinion, the best ones to watch are college football players making other D-1 athletes look like middle schoolers. Here’s some of my favorites (don’t be a bitch if I don’t include your favorite player):

Tavon Austin

This might be my favorite to go back and watch. While he hasn’t necessarily set the NFL on fire, Tavon Austin was THAT DUDE at West Virginia. One of the most electric players in recent history with the ball in open space, Austin’s highlight tape is widely considered to be one of the best in NCAA history. He even made Geno Smith look good. Let’s just hope he doesn’t decide to go off now and win Rodgers another ring…

Adrian Peterson

Now I’m willing to bet most of you have seen this one at some point. While a lot of this list will be guys who were special in college but couldn’t replicate that in the pros, Peterson is an obvious exception. While his pro highlights are just as impressive, it’s just so damn satisfying to watch AD dominate college kids knowing what he’d eventually become.

Reggie Bush

Being the best player on one of the most talented (non-Bama) teams in recent history kind of makes his presence here a no-brainer. One of the first players I was really in awe of as a kid, Bush’s college highlight tape is absolutely insane. The NCAA (assholes) stripping him of his Heisman doesn’t take away from how entertaining he was to watch at USC.

Colt Brennan

Anyone who follows me on anything knows I like a good underdog. Being able to watch a guy at Hawaii break the records he did was awesome, even if injuries (and Washington) prevented him from succeeding in the NFL. As entertaining as any QB this century, Brennan could make magic happen at any time. I mean, the guy holds 30 FBS records, need I say more?

Ndamukong Suh

Now DL highlights usually aren’t as entertaining as WR or RBs. One of the only exceptions is this fucking guy. A Heisman finalist as a DT on a team that couldn’t be counted on to score a touchdown a game, Suh almost carried Nebraska to a Big 12 title and BCS bowl by himself. Regardless of what you think of him in the NFL (I mean a couple of dirty plays blown out of proportion isn’t much, eh?) the guy is probably the most dominant college defender of this century. I mean, just watch the big guy return INTs for touchdowns.

Johnny Manziel

Johnny Fucking Football. Everyone’s (least?) favorite Heisman winner from the last decade. Despite not panning out in the NFL, you can’t deny how much fun Manziel was to watch in college. I remember Vikings fans almost begging the team to draft him. The edits of him in almost every NFL team’s uniform were all over social media. The dude was electric and definitely had “It”. Although “It” involved railing lines and boozing on the daily…

I know there are some guys I missed (Mahomes, Honey Badger, Vick, Barkley, McCaffrey, etc.), but you can blame YouTube’s dumbass copyright policies for that. Feel free to reply on Twitter with who you think has the best highlights and enjoy watching these (especially because your favorite teams probably suck right now.)