Custom jerseys, glam squads and TikTok: The college WAG has come a long way from tailgating

Hannah Cleveland 's dad was sitting in the stands at Beaver Stadium — home of Penn State's Nittany Lions — during their home game against Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago when he happened to glance at the phone of a woman sitting nearby. There was his daughter, getting her makeup done in a TikTok video .

"That's my daughter on your screen," he told the stranger.

Moments like that happen when you're a college football WAG — as in, the wife or girlfriend of a player — these days. Cleveland falls somewhere in the middle; she's the fiancée of Penn State wide receiver Chase Sowell .

The high school sweethearts spent much of their college years dating long distance, with Cleveland studying at Texas A&M while Sowell played college football out of state. Between classes, friends and her own commitments, she couldn't always make it to his games. Now that she's graduated and living with him during his final college season at Penn State, she has more time to embrace the gameday experience — including the occasional professional glam session.

The makeup artist behind Cleveland's gameday transformation, Allison Kaye , bills herself as the "inventor of Game Day Glam" on Instagram. She typically has NFL WAGs in her chair; this season alone, she's worked her way through the Dallas Cowboys, Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals contingents. But she's recently opened up her "glam suite" to the partners of college football players after noticing that they too were stepping up their sideline style and social media presence.

In an era where the biggest pop star on the planet spends her Sundays at Arrowhead and college coaches' wives are turning up at Paris Fashion Week , cheering on your jock sweetheart doesn't look like it used to.

Scroll through college football TikTok, and the WAG of it all is hard to miss.

Alongside the usual content of students getting ready to tailgate with the masses , you'll find women showing off custom outfits emblazoned with their partners' numbers, documenting pre- and postgame reunions , road-tripping to away games and meeting up with other girlfriends.

Some explicitly call themselves college WAGs. Others are simply participating in rituals that would look right at home on the feed of an NFL wife or girlfriend, who have become a social media genre unto themselves.

The fascination with college football girlfriends isn't exactly new. In 2013, Katherine Webb became a national talking point when television cameras lingered on her cheering for her then-boyfriend (now husband), Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron. But where fans once just caught glimpses of players' girlfriends in the stands, they can now follow along with their lives before, during and after the game.

"It feels new because it is so intimate," Cara Hawkins-Jedlicka , a professor at Washington State University who studies sports and social media, tells Yahoo. "Fans are increasingly following athletes as people rather than performers. And WAG content gives backstage access," often through the everyday rituals of someone close to the player.

The result is a familiar part of college life being repackaged for an audience well beyond the stadium stands. Kaye noticed the evolution and wanted to be a part of it.

"Nobody needs glam for gameday," she tells Yahoo. "It's just all a part of the experience to go along with custom outfits and the girls all hanging out together."

Videos from Kaye's college glam suites at Ohio State and Penn State have drawn hundreds of thousands of views.

Sure, it's not the main event. But for a generation that's grown up documenting its life online, getting ready can be as much a part of the content as the game itself.

"Gen Z really has had to think of themselves as a personal brand for most of their lives," says Hawkins-Jedlicka.

That can make being a college football girlfriend a particularly appealing niche. A gameday GRWM offers a recognizable format, a built-in sports audience and a glimpse into a world that followers might not otherwise see. It's also a point of entry for these women to build their own audiences.

"'Get ready with me for college gameday as a WAG' is going to get your face in front of more viewers than 'Watch me prepare for my midterm exam and how I study,'" Hawkins-Jedlicka points out.

The girlfriends aren't new. It's the WAG culture that's changing.

For women who experienced WAG life before gameday GRWMs and professional glam suites became social media content, the difference is striking.

Tiffany Compton , who is married to former NFL player Tom Compton, recently reflected on how much gameday culture has changed since her husband's league debut in 2013. "I can't stress how different things used to be," she wrote in a TikTok featuring photos from his playing years, which ended in 2022. "The only thing I did prior to game days was make sure my beer bong was in the trunk for the tailgate."

She said it wasn't until 2019 that she even considered what she'd wear to games before Sunday rolled around. After seeing a video of college WAGs getting their makeup done, she concluded, "I fear we have lost the plot entirely."

Amari Hamilton , wife of Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Ty Hamilton, has experienced WAG life at both the college and NFL levels. Ty spent all five seasons of his college career at Ohio State, giving Amari and the other girlfriends years to form a tight-knit community around the same team.

In a recent TikTok , she remembered the college years as simpler. The girlfriends were young, hanging out and going through roughly the same stage of life together. In the NFL, she said, there are marriages, children, careers and families competing for that time.

But college football itself has changed too. Between NIL deals , the transfer portal and social media, players are becoming recognizable personalities long before they reach the pros. And as their profiles grow, so does the visibility of the people beside them.

Hawkins-Jedlicka says players' partners can contribute to that visibility, sometimes providing the kind of relatable, behind-the-scenes content that athletes themselves don't have the time or instincts to create.

"You're getting a secondhand look at what your favorite football player is doing through his girlfriend," she says.

In some cases, she notes, the women may be doing some of the branding work themselves — understanding social media trends, creating content and making their partners more accessible to fans. And while that can amount to unpaid labor, it may also provide opportunities for these women to develop their own audiences and brands.

Even so, some viewers seem to think that college-age women embracing the label "WAG" might be getting ahead of themselves.

"Oh lord help me, this is not the NFL," one viewer commented on Kaye's college glam content. "WAG is crazy, they're kids," wrote another. "This is so cute, but do college guys really have wives??" someone asked.

Others were ready for the young women supporting their athlete partners to have their moment. "Love that the college girls are getting their flowers cause it's not easy!" read one comment.

The reactions raise an interesting question about who gets to claim the WAG identity in the first place. Some sports fans seem uncomfortable with college-age women adopting the label.

Hawkins-Jedlicka understands some of that hesitation. Building an identity around a romantic partner can be risky at any age, she says, but particularly when you're still figuring out who you are.

"It's hard to look at 19-year-olds building their identity around someone else," she says. "I'd say that in general for men and women."

But she also sees another possibility: These women aren't necessarily defining their entire futures around their boyfriends. "A lot of them may be trying to find their own personal brand, their niche to play around with content and see what works," she says.

For the women actually living it, the label doesn't necessarily carry quite so much weight.

Cleveland wasn't even sure what to make of the "WAG" label at first. "I was like, 'What does the title even mean?'" she tells Yahoo. "But now I think it's kind of fun. I think you have to play into it a little bit."

Since Sowell joined Penn State , Cleveland has posted videos that show her putting together a fall camp basket for her fiancé and customizing accessories with his name and number. But she's still prioritizing her own pursuits.

Now working remotely and pursuing a master's degree, Cleveland is finding more time for the fun stuff too — traveling to games, tailgating with other players' partners and, yes, spending a Saturday morning getting glammed.

"It's a whole new ballpark, honestly," she says. "I like embracing it. I think it's fun."

Sharing her experiences online has also connected her with women whose partners play for other schools, but who understand the strange experience of having weekends dictated by a football schedule.

"It's a little bit lonely sometimes," says Cleveland.

Other WAGs, like Chloe Van Berkel , get it.

Her boyfriend, Charlie Sasso , is a senior playing football at Monmouth University, where Van Berkel quickly learned that gameday dressing is serious business. She's seen women spend $200 on custom outfits, with some shopping months before kickoff.

A postgrad herself, Van Berkel makes it to games when she can, though it isn't exactly the NFL WAG lifestyle: She's paying for it herself. One attempt to attend an away game in Nashville cost her and her friends around $700 each before their flight was canceled.

Her boyfriend isn't planning to pursue football professionally, either. That's part of why Van Berkel wants to make something of it now.

When she joked in a TikTok that becoming an NFL wife was "the dream," but "you gotta hold it down in college first," someone told her to "dream bigger." But she went to nursing school, works in social media and has plans of her own . Wearing her boyfriend's number on Saturday doesn't cancel any of that out.

"The whole dream doesn't have to be supporting my boyfriend," she says. "But if someone wants that, who cares?"

Maybe that's the appeal of the college WAG era happening online right now. Nobody needs to know whether a boyfriend is going pro, whether the relationship ends in marriage or whether today's custom jersey will mean anything in five years.

For now, these women are making something of the experience they're having — and bringing the internet along for the ride.

"The best way to enjoy things and enjoy life is to just romanticize it," says Van Berkel. "If you want to romanticize being a college athlete's girlfriend, why not?"