College football certainly wouldn’t be what it is today without the rich traditions and entertainment that university marching bands bring to millions every Saturday as part of the game-day experience.
From an unprecedented collaboration between two in-state rivals to a band-loving celebrity sighting, here’s just a taste of some of the coolest things seen from marching musicians during week six of the college football season.
1 Pure Michigan
2 Garnering attention for the Aggies
Golden Globe Award-winning actress Jennifer Garner, who’s known to be vocal about her time as a saxophone-playing marching musician, showed some love for the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band while attending the Texas A&M game in College Station.
3 The Wave
One of college football’s newest and most feel-good traditions at University of Iowa games started as a grass roots effort on social media to get the entire stadium to wave in unison to the young patients at the Stead Family Children’s Hospital located just behind the stadium. During the Big Ten matchup between Iowa and Illinois, the Hawkeye Marching Band got into the action by marching into a sideline-to-sideline formation of a hand and waving it back and forth.
4 Float like a butterfly, sting like a Buckeye
5 Running back can bust tackles and a move
6 Conducting with style
Twenty college and university marching bands took the field during the annual Collegiate Marching Band Festival at J. Birney Crum Stadium in Allentown, Pennsylvania on Sunday, October 1. Anthony McDonnell, executive drum major of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Marching Band, took time at the event to explain a unique style utilized by his band’s conductors.
