Photos courtesy of Mike Barker
If you’re a college football junkie and you’re on either Instagram or the app formerly known as Twitter, you’ve no doubt come across Michael Barker. From August until deep into December, the man behind the College Football Campus Tour handles on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram can be seen living every college football fan’s dream.
He is on a seemingly endless tour of all the cathedrals of college football, both large and small. Notre Dame Stadium? He’s seen it. Is Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge at night? He’s done that. Bailey Memorial Stadium in Clifton, South Carolina, home of the Presbyterian Blue Hose? Yeah, he’s been there too.
During the 2023-24 season, Barker attended a staggering 90 college football games. Let that sink in. Now, marinate on this; for the 2024-25 season, his goal is to attend an astounding 100 games. At the time of this interview, Barker was getting ready to start his most ambitious week of the season, attending seven games in six days.
For this conversation, Barker talked about getting started on his tour, his hilarious Obstructed Views posts, and what’s left on the bucket list for him.
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EM: I know you’ve got a pretty packed schedule these days, so I appreciate you making some time for me. Let’s just jump right in. How did this all get started?
MB: My pleasure. I started in 2017 when I took a trip to Lake Estes, Colorado. There’s a hotel there called the Stanley Hotel. It’s where Stephen King stayed and inspired the book and the movie The Shining. Along the way, I made two stops at Colorado and Colorado State.
My dad played college football. He played one year at BYU and two years at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He said one of his best games was at Colorado State, where he had 19 tackles and an interception. So, I stopped and checked out the colleges and the stadiums. Rather than spend two nights at the Stanley, I ended up going into Laramie to see Wyoming and back down to Colorado Springs to see the Air Force.
I enjoyed it, and when I got home, I went to see the two Arizona schools and Oregon. I went to games that fall, 13 in 2017, 30 in 2018, 50 in 2019, and after 2021, I accomplished the goal of seeing a game at every FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) school. Since then, I’ve been going back to COVID games and revisiting those. Now, I’m trying to do all of the FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) schools. Last year, I set a record of seeing 90 games in one football season.
EM: So, what is your ultimate goal, if you have one?
MB: I went to Stephen F. Austin on [October 5], and that was Division I school number 220 out of 262. That leaves 42, and they’re all FCS schools except Kennesaw State, which just moved up. They pretty much all play on Saturday, so it’s not like you can do 40 in a year. So, last year, I started with 51 and went to 17. So, 17 times three is 51, and that’s the goal. I think I can be done by the end of 2026.
The issue is Mercyhurst was added this year. Next year [UT-Rio Grande Valley] moves up. Chicago State is talking about [moving up]. So, you keep making progress, but they keep throwing new ones out. I don’t know what the goal is; I’m just going as hard as I can. I’ve already been to 10 new FCS schools this year, and I said I want 17.
That’s the goal, to be the only [person] to see games at all 262 Division I schools.
EM: Let’s shift gears a little. How did the “Obstructed Views” bit get started? For those who don’t know, you find what is the worst seat in each of these stadiums and take pictures of the action from there.
MB: In 2018, I went to Washington State versus Oregon. It was when College GameDay was there. It was Gardner Minshew and Mike Leach versus Justin Herbert. I put that game on the schedule at the beginning of the year, and as far as I was concerned, it was just going to be Oregon versus Washington State. It wasn’t a big game. When it rolled around, I think both teams were 5-0 or 5-0 and 4-1, and every ticket was going for like $750.
I was going by myself, and I found a ticket for $250, so I bought it. When I got there, there was one part of Martin Stadium [with] the light towers, and one of those is inset into the bleachers. My seat happened to be right behind that tower. I took a video of Gardner Minshew throwing a fade in the end zone, and the wide receiver disappeared behind the pole and came out the other side for a touchdown.
That was a first-hand experience of being a victim of the “obstructed view.” In Wyoming, they have this place called “the knothole,” which is up at the top. It’s a common thing where they build the press box but leave the seats next to it. So, I put up a photo of that in 2019. It wasn’t until 2022 at Western Michigan. I called it the “makeout seat,” where it was just a two-seat bleacher. I had someone take a photo from behind me, like this first-person view, and that thing went crazy on social media.
It’s pretty much become a little bit of a phenomenon. People will take photos and tag me in them. It’s grown my following and opened up doors for me that I didn’t think would ever happen, which is cool.
EM: So, you’ve got the goal of 100 games this year. That’s pretty ambitious, to say the least. How do you go about coordinating something like that?
MB: So, last year was 90 games, and as soon as I did 90, everyone in the comments asked, ‘Can you do 100?’ I said no. Two things happened, though, first, they added an extra week to the regular season, and the other was the 12-team playoff, which extended the postseason. I found that there could be 100 games to get to.
I tell people that the most fun thing I do is going to games, and the second most fun thing to do is planning to see games. What you do is, all the weekday games, you pick those out as soon as they get announced. Once times are announced, I try to pick two games on a Saturday: a day game and a night game.
As the season goes on, it gets more challenging because they have the 12-day and the six-day rule, which is where they withhold kick times and try to put the best games in the best TV slot. It’s good for them, but it’s not good for you when you’re trying to plan and book flights on short notice.
The game [on October 3] at Troy started a stretch of 52 games in 59 days. I see 77 in the regular season and 24 in the postseason, with the possibility of adding one or two more. If all goes according to plan, knock on wood, I’ll get to 100 games this season.
EM: I won’t ask you to pick a favorite stadium because I feel like that’d be asking someone to pick a favorite child. What’s been something on your travels that has surprised you, though? Something you weren’t expecting in a good way.
MB: Well, I can just tell you, a couple of weeks ago, I went to the season opener at Grand Valley State. I’d visited that stadium, and I knew that they were a DII power, but that was like Group of 5, Sun Belt vibes. I mean that the crowd was crazy, the student section was full. They had those thunder sticks like back in the California Angels days. There were fireworks, and they just destroyed their opponent. That one blew me away.
Also, I just went to see [the Texas A&M Aggies at] Kyle Field on October 5. This was my second visit. I had gone back in 2018 when they were unranked; they played number one Clemson. It was 28-26, and if they’d gotten a two-point conversion, they would have gone to overtime.
I had never seen a crowd just with a team that almost beat the number one team in the nation. I went…to see them play [Missouri], and A&M is two-and-a-half-point favorites against a higher-ranked team, and they obliterated them. The crowd had a big impact again. I love that.
Two other stadiums I talk about a lot are App State and Kidd Brewer Stadium. I call it the “field of dreams.” I’ve been there six times, more than any other place. It’s special. My favorite place, though, is [UTEP and] the Sun Bowl in El Paso. It’s at a 4,000-foot elevation, and I-10 runs behind the stadium, with one side the U.S. and the other side Mexico. The visitor's side and press box are carved into the mountain.
It’s almost like Baskin-Robbins, though. What’s your favorite flavor? Do you like the 100,000-seat stadiums? Do you like the Montana Washington Grizzly Stadium going wild? There are all types. Even if I’ve been to all of these places, I hear that well, you haven’t gone on homecoming, you haven’t gone on a rivalry game, you haven’t gone to a playoff game. Even though the individual places, I’ve gotten to most of them, the bucket list is almost endless.
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Follow Eric Moreno's Stadium Journey on Twitter at @EricMoreno6477.
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