The Hot Seat

Ben Mathis-Lilley’s thrilling account of one very magical college football season puts you on the sidelines, in the trenches, and inside the coaches’ heads to tell a bigger story about what it really takes to win—in sport and in life, too.

College football is for rabidly delusional true believers, mass hallucinators, duped marks, and complete lunatics. Which is to say, it’s the truest American sport there is. The Hot Seat is funny, passionate, wry, and observant, and it has more empathy than any college football fan I’ve ever met—and I say that as a dedicated member of that tribe myself. If you want to make sense of this ridiculous, thrilling sport and the country that can’t stop watching it—this is where you should start. But make sure to paint your face first.

Mathis-Lilley has written a rip-roaringly funny book about the absurdity that is college football, making the whole enterprise accessible and wildly interesting even to people who couldn’t possibly care about whether Jim Harbaugh stays in Ann Arbor for another couple of years. These are stories ostensibly about the game and the people who keep it going, but they’re also about how an academic extracurricular activity became a national obsession and why. Anyone who cares deeply about anything that seems inconsequential can see themselves in this book.

“Surprisingly funny and filled with heart, this isn’t just a play-by-play recap of a college-football season; rather, it’s an insightful exploration of fandom and why 'there is no fully explainable reason to care what happens in a game. . . but there is nothing more important.' While a basic knowledge of football will help, this book will appeal to devoted fans of just about anything.”