College football ‘imperialism map’ shows TCU purple spreading

What if the TCU football team took control of Riley County in Kansas after beating Kansas State in Manhattan on Saturday?

Or there was now a Horned Frog flag planted in Monongalia County in Morgantown after beating West Virginia last week?

That is the point of a reddit thread gaining traction. The map credits college football teams with color-coded land on a U.S. map with each victory and takes it away with each loss.

The latest, Week 6 update of the map shows TCU purple taking control of North Texas, Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. Iowa State’s upset win at Oklahoma last week gave the Cyclones a big chunk of the Sooner state. The map is like an Internet-age version of the board game Risk for college football fans.

It’s the brainchild of 20-year-old University of Tennessee student Nathan Bingham. He is a Volunteers fan, so that could explain the time and dedication he has shown in building and maintaining the map. You know, because the Volunteers are 3-2 and 0-2 in the Southeastern Conference and haven’t won more than nine games in a season in a decade. So he had to do something with all that angst. But big props on the map! It’s pretty cool.

“I have been a Tennessee fan my whole life (even though we haven’t been all that great over most of my life),” Bingham said via email. “I really didn’t [take] any inspiration from Risk directly, but it certainly fits the game well.”

The Washington Huskies lead the nation in territory by square miles, which includes Alaska, according to the map.

Top 6 Schools by square miles

(If Alaska is excluded Washington falls out of top 5)

This story was originally published October 10, 2017 at 1:48 PM with the headline "College football ‘imperialism map’ shows TCU purple spreading."