Greg McElroy says 'Hail to the Victors' is the best fight song in college sports

There’s a lot to love about college football, and analyst Greg McElroy took his time to break down what makes the game so great. On a recent episode of his podcast ‘Always College Football‘, McElory listed the 35 things that make college football great, and in the process, tabbed Michigan‘s fight song as the best across all programs in the country.

“I think ‘Hail to the Victors’ is the best fight song in the country,” McElroy said. “Now everybody might feel a little differently, but Hail to the Victors is my number one. It feels collegial.”

Michigan’s fight song being the best is completely subjective, but it’s hard to deny it’s rich history. ‘The Victors’ was written by Michigan student Louis Elbel, who wrote the song on the train ride back from Michigan’s 1898 victory over Chicago that secured the Western Conference championship for the Wolverines.

A new fight song was written for Michigan in 1911, but following an undefeated football season in 1918 ‘The Victors’ became a permanent mainstay.

“Now Notre Dame would be in the mix, there’d be a few others in the mix, but Hail to the Victors to me is about as good as it gets. It’s catchy, it gets stuck in my head every time I call a Michigan game,” McElory said.

Notre Dame‘s fight song also dates back pretty far in their school history, but there’s something about the ‘The Victors’ that McElroy can’t let go of, which could very well be related to his nostalgia towards the song from one of his childhood memories.

“And I think it’s one of the great staples of college football probably dating back to when was playing NCAA Football on Playstation or Xbox, whatever the heck I was playing it on,” McElroy said. “I feel like Hail to the Victors is always the first song up when I was selecting my team, and selecting my uniforms, and all those other aspects.”

Aside from Michigan’s band playing the iconic fight song, there football team sings the song in their locker room after wins. Head coach Jim Harbaugh and his team sang the song regularly last season, winning 13 consecutive games until their College Football Playoff loss to TCU to end the season.

And hopefully for the Wolverines, they’ll be able to sing it again for the first time in a long time on September 2 following their opening game of the season versus East Carolina.