America's most impassioned pastime, collegiate gridiron competition, gets the cinematic treatment in our collection of College Football Movies. TCM's own Ben Mankiewicz will serve as host of this parade of pigskin pictures, with co-hosting duties shared by various members of the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, GA.

Ben goes solo for Place Your Bets!, a series of college football films from the 1930s - each of which tells of a student whose participation in football threatens his integrity and his relationship with a girlfriend. The movies are: That's My Boy (1932) starring Richard Cromwell, Gridiron Flash (1934) starring Eddie Quillan, The Big Game (1936) starring Phillip Huston, Over the Goal (1937) starring William Hopper and Saturday's Heroes (1937) starring Van Heflin.

Dennis Adamovich, CEO of the College Football Hall of Fame and Chick-fil-A Fan Experience, co-hosts Football Comedies. These include such classics as The Freshman (1925), the Harold Lloyd silent in which he plays a university freshman who tries to become popular by joining the school's football team; and Horse Feathers (1932), a Marx Brothers vehicle in which Groucho is a college president who hires professional players to beef up a terrible football team. Also screening are Too Many Girls (1940), a musical comedy starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz; and Hold That Line (1952), a Bowery Boys romp.

Ed Marinaro, an inductee into the College Football of Fame in 1991, played football at Cornell University, setting over 16 NCAA records. He later played professional football for the Minnesota Vikings, New York Jets and Seattle Seahawks. He became an actor, appearing as a regular in such series as Laverne and Shirley and Hill Street Blues.

Marinaro co-hosts Most Valuable Players, a trio of films including two biopics, Knute Rockne All American (1940), starring Pat O'Brien as Rockne and Ronald Reagan as George Gipp; and Jim Thorpe -- All American (1951), starring Burt Lancaster. Also in this lineup is the TCM premiere of Return to Campus (1975), writer-director Harold Cornsweet's fantasy about a middle-aged man who returns to college to become a football star.

Lou Holtz, a former football player at Kent State University, served as head football coach at a number of universities including North Carolina State, Notre Dame and the University of South Carolina. He later became an author and a college football analyst for CBS Sports and ESPN.

Holtz co-hosts Love & Football, featuring three films combining the subjects. Two are early-talkie comedies: So This Is College (1929), starring Robert Montgomery and Elliott Nugent; and Eleven Men and a Girl (1930), starring Joan Bennett and Joe E. Brown. The third movie is Good News (1947), a breezy college musical with June Allyson and Peter Lawford.

by Roger Fristoe