Kylan Darnell’s TikTok series teaching women about football goes viral. She Reveals Which Pop Culture Moment ‘Inspired’ Him (Exclusive)

Kylan Darnell tries to make football accessible to everyone.

The University of Alabama student, known for her viral social media videos created during peak sorority season, has once again caught the Internet’s attention after she made a video explaining the rules of football for “ball-savvy mean girls.”

His TikTok video, which has garnered more than 200,000 likes since it was posted on Sept. 5, lays out the rules of the game by comparing quarterbacks to the point guard, tight ends to the outline, and more, while using a slideshow to teach visual learners.

“If you have a father, a brother, a boyfriend, a group of boyfriends who is obsessed with football and you feel left out because you don’t necessarily know everything about it, I will teach you the easiest way to accompany the game,” he began his viral clip. “Because once you know a little bit about it, it’s a lot of fun to watch and you’ll enjoy it.”

Darnell, who often includes a “Roll Tide” under his football videos to support his alma mater, saw so much engagement and enthusiasm for his makeup-based explainer video that he decided to turn the video into a series and has shared several TikToks since.

Speaking to PEOPLE, Darnell talks about how she came up with the idea for the video and why she decided to try to involve more women in soccer culture.

According to the Zeta Tau Alpha member, the idea came about “very casually” and began as many of his days do: with some University of Alabama football.

“It was a football game day in Alabama, and I was sitting with friends and some of them were saying they didn’t want to go to the game because they never understood what was going on,” she tells PEOPLE. “One friend said she felt lost every time her boyfriend yelled about plays she couldn’t follow, and another, who had just started dating a soccer player, said he only talked about soccer and she never knew what he was talking about.”

“I remember thinking, ‘Wait, I can show you this!’ “So I started helping them understand the basics and that’s when it hit me,” he continues. “I thought I can teach so many young women who feel the same way about soccer. Soccer is something I personally love and I wanted to make it fun and relatable to girls. And the best way I knew was to compare it to something in ‘girly terms’ that we all understand, and that was makeup.”

Although Darnell says she’s been a sports fan her entire life, tagging along to her brother’s football practices and playing flag football in high school, there was a period when her online audience didn’t “know that side of me.”

“I specialize in sports broadcasting, it’s something I’ve always been passionate about and seeing such positive feedback from people has been incredible,” she shares, adding that a “dream job” for her in the future would be broadcasting with ESPN and College GameDay. “When people comment things like ‘She should be the next Erin Andrews,’ it just boosts my confidence and makes me even more excited about pursuing this field.”

“Sports media can sometimes seem so male-dominated, and it’s easy to wonder if you’ll be taken seriously, but the response to my videos has really reassured me that I’m on the right path,” adds Darnell.

One of the biggest driving forces in Darnell’s love of sports is his father, who supported his love of football and his time as an athlete from the beginning.

“My dad was a college athlete and my mom was a cheerleader, and he really fostered my love of sports,” she shares. “For me, sports were fun, competitive and a great active outlet, and my dad was always supportive. He made sure I got to practice on time, no matter how busy I was with work, and he loved teaching me the game.”

“I still remember sitting with him on football Sundays as he explained the plays to me. It was never, ‘Oh, you’re a girl, why are you watching this?’ or ‘why are you getting involved in this?’ – it was quite the opposite. My dad loved that I was interested and enjoyed being able to teach me about it. “It became one of our favorite ways to bond.”

According to the TikToker, his father even serves as a consultant and fact-checker for his sports-related explainers.

“Sometimes I’ll send something to my dad and ask, ‘Does this wording sound good?’ and he will give me the go-ahead,” he jokes.

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As for her near-pro-level makeup skills, Darnell says her mother, as well as her time as a pageant contestant, helped her hone her craft to the point where she can use it as a football metaphor.

“I actually grew up doing pageants, so my mom was always the one who did my hair and makeup,” Bama Rush TikToker shares. “I would sit and watch it, but I didn’t really start learning how to do it until I was a freshman in high school.”

“That’s where I saw all the older girls doing their makeup, and that’s when I started practicing. At first, I was honestly pretty bad at makeup; my sister was always better at makeup than me. But with a lot of practice, I eventually got good at it, and now it’s something I love doing.”

Darnell also cites Taylor Swift’s recent appearances and her prominent role at NFL games while supporting her fiancé, Travis Kelce, at Kansas City Chiefs games as another reason he decided to start his explainer series.

“I would see women in the stands or on social media saying, ‘I’m only here for Taylor Swift,’ but then admitting that they didn’t know much about sports. To me, that seemed like a very exciting opportunity and it really inspired me,” she tells PEOPLE.

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“This new level of pop culture has brought a whole new audience to the NFL, and I love that more women are getting involved in it. It makes the game more fun for everyone, and I wanted to help bridge that gap by making it more relatable for them to understand.”

Although he hasn’t heard from anyone as well-known as Swift, several football WAGs (wives and girlfriends) have told him how meaningful the videos have been.

“In fact, a lot of WAGs reached out to me, along with some famous sportscasters. And even NFL players sent me direct messages with funny comments like, ‘This girl knows how to play ball,'” he jokes. “It’s all been super positive feedback, which has been very encouraging.”

Even her friends at the University of Alabama have found use for her videos, coming up to her during a college game and saying, “Oh my gosh, I really got this!” or “That made a lot of sense to me!”

“Hearing that kind of feedback is very rewarding and shows me that the content really clicks and makes a difference,” he says.

As the height of “Bama Rush” mania has passed, Darnell says she is preparing to graduate and hopes to continue making her own path, especially if she becomes a sports broadcaster in the future.

“I would love the opportunity to bring a pop culture and edgy side to the NFL that highlights the ‘female side’ of sports,” she shares. “…Ideally, I want to create my own path, combining sports reporting with culture, style and personality, and showing that sports media can be both informed and fun.”

For now, Darnell says she hopes her TikToks attract more women to football, and the influencer says she has many more ideas in the works.

“Once you understand the basics of the sport, it’s very easy to explain them in a fun and relatable way. I played soccer and softball growing up, and my brother played baseball, so I want to break them down too,” he concludes. “There are endless directions to go and I love that it makes sports accessible to people who previously felt left out of the conversation.”