About TCFA

Welcome to IntelligentCollegeFootball.com, The College Football Athenaeum. You have found a college football magazine unlike any other, a site where the game is studied and savored, discussed and enjoyed, loved and celebrated. TCFA, you will find, truly is for the intelligent college football fan.

TCFA started in 1998 as a single email, sent by Your Editor Tim Hyland to six close friends. It evolved into a weekly email newsletter, and soon gained a following across the nation. TCFA’s unique combination of news, wit and college football discussion has made it a must-read for fans who care less about statistics and more about the things that make college football our favorite American pastime.

Welcome again to The College Football Athenaeum. We hope you'll find something to enjoy, and hope you'll come back again.

Your Editor

Tim Hyland

Timothy Hyland is founder and editor of The College Football Athenaeum and host of the TCFA Podcast. A 1998 graduate of Penn State, Tim spent eight years slaving away as a staff writer and editor at newspapers in Pennsylvania and Maryland before earning his M.A. in American Studies (in other words, literature) from the University of Maryland and quickly abandoning the newsroom culture. His writing has appearned in such publications as Fast Company magazine, Philadelphia City Paper, GO magazine, SmartCEO magazine, the Penn Stater magazine, the Washington Times and numerous others. Raised in Cleveland but schooled in State College, Tim's beliefs are at the heart of TCFA: He believes in the genius of Joe Paterno, the sanctity of Yuengling Lager and the words Ernest Hemingway; he believes in the precision of "Script Ohio," the music of Willie Nelson and the beauty of Mount Nittany; he also believes college football is more interesting than any other American sport. He lives in the Wissahickon Valley, near Philadelphia, with his wife Erin, his 7-year-old son (and future linebacker?) Young Jack, his 4-year-old daughter, The Ever-Demanding Anna and his 2-year-old daughter, Princess Leah, and his baby boy, Younger Joey.

'southern' correspondent

Mike Unger

Mike Unger has been writing nonstop since he picked up the pencil as a 3-year-old. Only his bank-teller-thick glasses prevented him from piercing his own eye with the lead. He hopes he’s gotten better since then. His work has appeared in magazines including Washingtonian, Maryland Life, American, Wharton, Blues Revue, and Baltimore, for which he is a regular contributor. Football of the Sunday variety was Mike’s passion during his childhood in Rockville, Maryland, where he fanatically pulled for the last truly lovable professional sports franchise, Joe Gibbs’ Washington Redskins. When they won Super Bowl XXII, he made a giant “Skins No. 1” hand using red and yellow construction paper, a black magic marker, and a stapler. It fell apart on the bus to school. From there it was onto Indiana University, where his love for bourbon (but not college football) was hatched. It wasn’t until he spent two years staring at the back of the head of Your Editor, Tim Hyland, in the The (Annapolis) Capital newsroom that he was awakened to the superiority of the college game.

Now Mike lives for fall Saturdays, which he generally welcomes with a bloody mary, College GameDay, and some southern rock, both new (Drive-By Truckers) and old (Allman Brothers Band). He lives in Baltimore with his girlfriend, Michele, and (t)he(i)r dog, Stella.