M-TEAM MEDIA PRODUCTIONS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 8, 2012 E-Mail: info@collegefootballquest.com

COLLEGE FOOTBALL QUEST: SELECTION COMMITTEE DAY

Trip Is Part of Their Mission to See a Game at Every College Football Stadium in the Country

Beginning with the 2008 season, Jarrett Singer and Al Botta have been on a rather unorthodox quest: to watch a college football game at every Division I-A (FBS Division) football stadium in the country. They’ve previously started the website www.collegefootballquest.com to keep fans updated on their progress, display pictures and write-ups from each trip, to track their ever important map of visits, and this year they have added www.facebook.com/collegefootballquest as well as Twitter handles @collfballquest and @collegefbquest for Al and Jarrett respectively. “It was due time that we became a more involved with social media for our blogging and posts, plus it’s a great way to meet the local fans prior to our trips!” Al mentions. “It will also help document for one of the two books we are publishing.”

Today marks a very important day on the College Football Quest calendar; “Selection Day”. It is the first day Al and Jarrett speak about the Quest after bowl season, and attempt to hash out where their Quest will lead them for the upcoming season. The 2012 meeting occurs at this year’s College Football Quest Headquarters on Park Avenue in New York City.

“There are many things that go into the selection process, such as having each conference release their full schedule, preliminary television scheduling, initial travel costs and availability of such travel,” Botta says. “Many of the games we have no idea what time kickoff will be until the week before, so trying to plan the best possible travel scenarios for ourselves (and families, work, etc). It truly is a work of planning art if there’s such a thing.”

“A few years back we decided that we should make an event out of the planning stage of the trips,” Jarrett adds. “Conference realignments make it extremely difficult as it delays the entire process as conferences release their schedules late and the preliminary television schedules are also slow to emerge. It is important for us to set a schedule as early as possible to facilitate travel planning but more importantly so that we can begin the research process for each event we are attending, and each campus we are visiting.” Jarrett further added that “We have a mental list of high priority sites that we want to get to sooner rather than later so we try to work those in as well, but of course, we need to visit each and every one eventually.”

Today’s events are in a small conference room, lined with lots of scattered papers, two laptop computers, 2 speakerphones and a bag from Five Guys. “One laptop is always open to the College Football Quest map on their website and the other to a site of the NCAA football schedules by week. These sites have all the information we need to plan the trips,” Al laughs, “but it’s the phones that are most important. They are there to call the wives to bribe, beg, and plea with them for ultimate approval.” Jarrett added, “It is important for us to not speak prior to this meeting so that we each come in with our own views on what trips we want to do for the upcoming year and proposed trips. We try to make the entire year fit together, so one small change could change the entire year.”

After a long drawn out process, and a proposal from Al for an 8 day road trip covering 5 games and a ridiculous amount of miles, that actually came very close to being voted as the winner, a final schedule has emerged. Jarrett and Al have locked into visiting Nashville, Tennessee and the Vanderbilt Commodores on Thursday August 30th to see them face the South Carolina Gamecocks. On Saturday September 29th, the Quest goes to Lincoln, Nebraska to see the Nebraska Cornhuskers face off against the Wisconsin Badgers in a prime-time game. And on November 10th, they are off to Oxford, Mississippi to see the Mississippi (Ole Miss) Rebels take on the Vanderbilt Commodores and try to figure out what #hottytoddy is all about. The guys from the Quest stopped short of a complete schedule and left the one or two midweek games undecided. “Toledo, Wake Forest, North Texas, Arizona State, and Virginia Tech are all options at this point; it really depends on how our personal schedules play out beyond September. Keep in mind we also have to make the annual trek to Florida Field to see the Gators, a game scheduled for November 3 against Missouri.”

“We really are looking forward to the visits we have planned this year. Throughout the life of the Quest, there have been several campuses, stadiums, and game experiences that have always come up in conversations with fans. These three are a few of the recurring mentions.” Singer says.

Both Botta and Singer are members of the Football Writers Association of America.

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If you’d like more information about College Football Quest, or to schedule an interview with Jarrett Singer or Al Botta, please contact them at al@collegefootballquest.com.