2011 College Football Season: Inspirational Videos To Carry You into Opening Day

As the football season approaches, players and fans alike can use a little inspiration.  Whether that inspiration comes from a football speech itself, or a compilation that reminds us of the gridiron, we've compiled some of YouTube's best videos to get you ready for the season. 

And, for the grand finale, we offer a compilation of movies and sports that will overwhelm your senses and give you that final dose of inspiration you can use in the last days of summer before fall finally treats us with the game we all know and love.

Without further ado, I present YouTube's most inspirational videos for the 2011 football season.

"Dead Poets Society"

Before you can be a part of a football team or a football program, you have to understand that you're team and your teammates are part of something bigger than you.  When it all comes together, only then can you move forward and realize your true potential.

In this clip you see a group of students recognize the bigger picture.  With that epiphany, they truly come together to become a part of something larger than themselves.

"Rudy"

Disheartened that his efforts will not achieve the results he'd worked so hard to accomplish, Rudy quits the football program before the last game of his senior year.  His boss, however, gives him a lesson in tough love as he opens Rudy's eyes to the bigger picture, telling Rudy he has nothing to prove to anybody, because he's achieved more than most with less potential and talent than those with whom he attends school.

"Any Given Sunday"

The difference between winning and losing, between living and dying, is inches. 

One of the greatest football speeches to date, Al Pacino's character speaks from the heart, telling his players that he's made every mistake a middle-aged man can make.  Even with those mistakes, each player has his teammates to lean on, so long as he chooses to fight for the inches that make the difference in a man's place in the world.

Bob Costas, NBC Intro 1993

In his introduction before one of the greatest games of all time, Bob Costas reminds us how the dreams of children in every small town across the nation come true for a select few. 

Those dreams are realized on college football fields across the country before tens of thousands of fans in some of the biggest games ever played, only to inspire a younger generation to do the same in backyards just around the corner from Main Street.

The Echoes of Our Youth

For those who've played high school football, the sounds in this Nike commercial should evoke the memories of your youth.  It's the sound of the blocking sled, the sounds of locker rooms and the voices of coaches trying to inspire to do our best in front of the hometown crowd. 

Listen to your past through this creatively conceived commercial.

The First of Two

This is the first of two of YouTube's most inspirational videos to prepare you for the 2011 football season.  This video is brief and does not include clips of football, but is a well-cut version of 40 great Hollywood speeches meant to inspire you. 

Take a look before completing this slideshow with the grand finale.

Grand Finale

Combined with inspirational sports clips and quotes, this video should be enough to carry you through the last few days before the football season begins.  It's a montage of background music cut with inspirational movie clips supporting the athletic thread that is seamed throughout the piece. 

The opening alone should excite you.  Take five seconds to watch, and you'll be hooked.