Howdy! It isn’t quite 2021 yet, but I wanted to sort out some plans for this newsletter as we enter the new year and I wanted to do so in a free post rather than a premium one, so I’m running this a couple days early. If you’d like to get on board for premium posts, you have about 48 hours left to grab this 30-day free trial.
Anyway, usually when a writer does one of these, they do so to announce some sort of unholy advertising alliance, or to let you know that while the CIA will be taking over the reigns moving forward, you’ll still be getting the same great content!!!! that you were before.
I have no plans to do either of those things. The Outside Zone newsletter is advertiser-free and will remain that way, because you folks pay good money for this and frankly, I don’t think that you should be advertised to when you pay good money for something. No spon-con, nothing like that. While I don’t imagine that CIA has any interest in this newsletter, I also will not be passing the sticks to them.
No, this is more a state of the newsletter designed to outline what I’m hoping to do with this damn thing in the upcoming year, as well as the core, long-term goal of turning this into an actual, viable path for full-time writing that I enjoy doing and that I’m at least sometimes fairly proud of.
I’ll start with that, because I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly talked about what I would like this to be, primarily because I didn’t really know until the latter half of the college football season, into December. I started this as a way to write more about college football scheme, which I enjoy doing and don’t frequently get to do at my day job. That’s still the theme here, though my view of what this newsletter can be has changed. In July when it launched, I saw it as little more than a fun side-gig for writing that I enjoyed doing.
Then, I went and fell in love with a side of the sport that I had never seriously paid attention to before. I watched more Sun Belt, MAC and Mountain West games than I did power five matchups. I realized that covering and defending the little guys is quite a bit more rewarding than breaking down Alabama’s latest game-breaking play, which was honestly what I expected to be doing when I started this newsletter. I’ve spent four years covering one of the best teams in America, a team that I grew up following (but have since lost all affection for), and writing about Coastal Carolina and BYU and Cincinnati this season was infinitely more rewarding than writing about anything that Ohio State has done in the past four years.
I would like to be able to do that indefinitely, with my full focus and effort. I would like to be able to cover the little guys in college football from all over the country, with offerings including but certainly not limited to the kind of film studies I was running this season. In other, simpler words, it would be a dream to operate this newsletter full-time as a sort of hub for G5 and FCS football coverage, both as a scheme writer and as an actual honest to God, on the ground journalist, embedding with programs and covering games. There’s not really a place for that right now in the modern college football landscape. I’d like this to be that place.
To do that, however, I have to ask a favor of you all, specifically those of you who are either free subscribers or folks who have either happened upon this newsletter from my Twitter or from a message board that posted one of my articles. If you like my writing, would like more of it, or have any sort of interest in quality journalist about the half of college football that doesn’t frequently get the shine it deserves, please considering becoming a premium subscriber. You’ll get all three posts per week for now, and when the money is there for this to be a full-time gig, that number will absolutely shoot up to five or six posts a week, including quite a bit that goes beyond that film study model.
If you are a premium subscriber, firstly, I cannot thank you enough. The reception to this newsletter has been amazing, and I could not be prouder of this little community we’ve built here. Seeing many of you discover new teams and stories in college football this season as a direct result of this newsletter has reduced me to tears several times this year.
Secondly, if you think that you know someone who might be into this sort of thing, either as a fan of a smaller school or as a college football fan that may just be looking for something a little new, I’d really appreciate it if you send them over my way. If I can figure out how to, I’ll gladly comp your subscription and the subscription of that someone you recommended for a month, just shoot me a direct message on Twitter at @patrick_mayhorn.
So, that’s the long-term goal. I don’t think that it’s entirely out of the realm of possibility and while it’s still quite a ways away from being attainable, it seems just as realistic a path as any other in sports writing right now, especially for a degree-less 21-year-old with an authority problem and a prose that doesn’t exactly fit in the New York Times. I believe quite a bit in writers having complete control over their own writing, be it in a worker-owned outlet or a newsletter like this, and would really love to be able to deliver content completely free of corporate control to you all on a full-time basis. If that sounds like something that you would enjoy, again, I ask that you give some consideration to The Button.
Alright, onto the more concrete things that you can expect to see from the Outside Zone newsletter in the coming year.
Writing
As I mentioned, I would like to branch out a little bit and start doing a more on-the-ground reporting. Obviously that can’t actually happen on the ground right now, but don’t be surprised if you start seeing a few more stories with quotes rather than game clips, especially as we enter the offseason. This is still primarily a film study outlet, but it isn’t only going to be that without a ton of football to talk about (though there will be lots of FCS spring ball content, don’t you worry about that).
I’m also going to start throwing out calls for the occasional mailbag, likely in the comment section, walled off to premium subscribers only. Again, this isn’t going to be all the time, but I think that a once-monthly look at the answers to some of your college football scheme and program building questions would be a good time, and I’d like to generate some more commenter engagement anyway.
Video
As soon as I get my act together and purchase a webcam, I’m going to start doing a thrice-weekly Twitch stream on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The plan is that I’ll start each day by talking generally about whatever the day’s article covered, before moving wherever the wind/comment section takes me for CFB topics, for about an hour. Nothing especially structured or detailed, just a chill stream to hang out and talk about some college football. I frequently have college football thoughts and takes bouncing around in my skull, and figure that this will be a fun way to flesh those out without having to do a ton of research or actual work.
These are going to be free for everyone and archived on a podcast feed, so if you’re not up to date with Twitch, you’ll still be able to consume these as a stand-alone thing.
Audio
Speaking of podcasts, this isn’t affiliated with the Outside Zone in any way, but I’m going to be launching a college football podcast with my buddy Ryan Donnelly in February. We’re both extremely fed up with the way that college football is covered and talked about by the [Alex Jones voice] mainstream media, so this show will essentially be a repudiation of that.
We’re going to talk about the entire sport, not just the best teams, and talk specifically about the kind of minutiae in program building, scheme and recruiting that doesn’t really get play in most national outlets. Essentially, if you like this newsletter, you’ll probably like the podcast. Again, it isn’t affiliated, but it’ll be good stuff and I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend it to the exact demographic that it’s targeted towards: college football weirdos.
To make a very long-winded post a bit more concise: there’s a lot of cool stuff coming in 2021. If everything breaks right, there will be even more cool stuff coming later. I’m very happy with the first five months of like for this newsletter, and have become quite a attached to it.
Oh, and thank you all again for trusting me enough to toss me some cash, or even just for letting me fill out your inbox once a week if you’re a free subscriber. It really, truly means the world to me that there’s an audience for this, and that I’m lucky enough to write things that that audience seems to enjoy. Here’s hoping that I can keep entertaining you and putting you on to fun college football stories in the new year. Thanks for reading.