The Hot Seat: A Year of Outrage, Pride, and Occasional Games of College Football

A fan's search for the truth about American history, human nature, and whether Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh will keep his job

Being a University of Michigan football fan should be joyful. Michigan is an elite academic institution whose football team boasts forty-three Big Ten championships.

But these days, college football is complicated. The NCAA is corrupt and exploitative, and Michigan keeps losing to Ohio State. It's hard not to wonder, as Slate writer and superfan Ben Mathis-Lilley does in this book: Why are we doing this?

The Hot Seat is a chronicle of one of the wildest years in Michigan football history, but also a search for the truth about fandom, from the pages of history books to the wilderness of online forums. Is it embarrassing to care about what happens in a game? Why is Jim Harbaugh like that? Is it somehow Thomas Jefferson's fault? This book explores all these questions and many more.

Against the backdrop of a quickly changing sport and country, The Hot Seat is an exploration of the all-consuming culture of fandom, and why it matters.

ISBN-13: 9781541700338

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Publication Date: 08-30-2022

Pages: 240

Product Dimensions: 5.80(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

Ben Mathis-Lilley is a senior writer for Slate.com, where he writes blog posts, columns, and feature stories about news, politics, and sports. He worked previously at New York magazine and, briefly but gloriously, as the editor of BuzzFeed’s sports section. He lives in New Jersey.

Table of Contents

1 I've Never Felt This Bad 1

2 The Hot Seat 7

3 Hope-O-Meter 15

4 Western Michigan 25

5 Washington 55

6 Wisconsin and Nebraska 79

7 LSU vs. Florida 109

8 Michigan State 137

9 Florida Atlantic vs. Marshall 163

10 Penn State 179

11 Ohio State 197

Epilogue 219

References 223

Acknowledgments 227

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