College football

College football (French: football universitaire) is

gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur College football
student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was
through collegiate competition that gridiron football
first gained popularity in the United States.

Like gridiron football generally, college football is

most popular in the United States and Canada. While
no single governing body exists for college football in
the United States, most schools, especially those at the
highest levels of play, are members of the NCAA. In
Canada, collegiate football competition is governed by Navy fullback Adam Ballard (#22) rushes while
U Sports for universities. The Canadian Collegiate being pursued by Army defenders Cason
Athletic Association (for colleges) governs soccer and Shrode (#54) and Taylor Justice (#42) in the
other sports but not gridiron football. Other countries, 2005 Army–Navy Game, a college football
such as Mexico, Japan and South Korea, also host rivalry in the U.S.
college football leagues with modest levels of support. Governing body NCAA
NAIA
Unlike most other major sports in North America, no
official minor league farm organizations exist for NCCAA
American football or Canadian football. Therefore, NJCAA
college football is generally considered to be the USCAA
second tier of American and Canadian football; ahead CCCAA
of high school competition, but below professional
First played 1869
competition. In some parts of the United States,
especially the South and Midwest, college football is Club competitions
more popular than professional football.[2] For much NCAA:
of the 20th century, college football was generally Division I (FBS)
considered to be more prestigious than professional Playoff National (FBS)
football.
Playoff (FBS)
As the second highest tier of gridiron football Division I (FCS)
competition in the United States, many college football Division II
players later play professionally in the NFL or other Division III
leagues. The NFL draft each spring sees 224 players
NAIA:
selected and offered a contract to play in the league,
with the vast majority coming from the NCAA. Other
National Championship
professional leagues, such as the CFL and UFL,
additionally hold their own drafts each year which see NJCAA:
many college players selected. Players who are not
National Championship
selected can still attempt to obtain a professional roster
spot as an undrafted free agent. Despite these Audience records
opportunities, only around 1.6% of NCAA college Single match 156,990 (Tennessee 45–24
football players end up playing professionally in the Virginia Tech at Bristol
NFL.[3] Motor Speedway), 10 Sep
2016[1]

History
Even after the emergence of the professional National Football League (NFL), college football has
remained extremely popular throughout the U.S.[4] Although the college game has a much larger margin
for talent than its pro counterpart, the sheer number of fans following major colleges provides a financial
equalizer for the game, with Division I programs – the highest level – playing in huge stadiums, six of
which have seating capacity exceeding 100,000 people.[5] In many cases, college stadiums employ
bench-style seating, as opposed to individual seats with backs and arm rests (although many stadiums do
have a small number of chair back seats in addition to the bench seating). This allows them to seat more
fans in a given amount of space than the typical professional stadium, which tends to have more features
and comforts for fans. Only three stadiums owned by U.S. colleges or universities, L&N Stadium at the
University of Louisville, Center Parc Stadium at Georgia State University, and FAU Stadium at Florida
Atlantic University, consist entirely of chair back seating.

College athletes, unlike players in the NFL, are not permitted by the NCAA to be paid salaries. Colleges
are only allowed to provide non-monetary compensation such as athletic scholarships that provide for
tuition, housing, and books. With new bylaws made by the NCAA, college athletes can now receive
"name, image, and likeness" (NIL) deals, a way to get sponsorships and money before their pro debut.[6]

Rugby football in Great Britain and Canada

Modern North American football has its origins in various games, all known as "football", played at
public schools in Great Britain in the mid-19th century. By the 1840s, students at Rugby School were
playing a game in which players were able to pick up the ball and run with it, a sport later known as
rugby football. The game was taken to Canada by British soldiers stationed there and was soon being
played at Canadian colleges.

The first documented gridiron football game was played at University College, a college of the University
of Toronto, on November 9, 1861. One of the participants in the game involving University of Toronto
students was William Mulock, later chancellor of the school. A football club was formed at the university
soon afterward, although its rules of play then are unclear.

In 1864, at Trinity College, also a college of the University of Toronto, F. Barlow Cumberland and
Frederick A. Bethune devised rules based on rugby football. Modern Canadian football is widely
regarded as having originated with a game played in Montreal, in 1865, when British Army officers
played local civilians. The game gradually gained a following, and the Montreal Football Club was
formed in 1868, the first recorded non-university football club in Canada.

American college football

Early games appear to have had much in common with the traditional "mob football" played in Great
Britain. The games remained largely unorganized until the 19th century, when intramural games of
football began to be played on college campuses. Each school played its own variety of football.
Princeton University students played a game called "ballown" as early as 1820.

In 1827, a Harvard tradition known as "Bloody Monday" began, which consisted of a mass ballgame
between the freshman and sophomore classes. In 1860, both the town police and the college authorities
agreed the Bloody Monday had to go. Harvard students responded by going into mourning for a mock
figure called "Football Fightum", for whom they conducted funeral rites. The authorities held firm, and it
was another dozen years before football was once again played at Harvard. Dartmouth played its own
version called "Old division football", the rules of which were first published in 1871, though the game
dates to at least the 1830s. All of these games, and others, shared certain commonalities. They remained
largely "mob" style games, with huge numbers of players attempting to advance the ball into a goal area,
often by any means necessary. Rules were simple, and violence and injury were common.[7][8] The
violence of these mob-style games led to widespread protests and a decision to abandon them. Yale, under
pressure from the city of New Haven, banned the play of all forms of football in 1860.[7]

American football historian Parke H. Davis described the period between 1869 and 1875 as the 'Pioneer
Period'; the years 1876–93 he called the 'Period of the American Intercollegiate Football Association'; and
the years 1894–1933 he dubbed the "Period of Rules Committees and Conferences".[9]

Princeton–Columbia–Yale–Rutgers
The first game

Left: "The Foot-Ball Match", a news article on the first college football game ever played, published in The
Targum, the Rutgers University student newspaper, in November 1869. Right: A plaque on College Avenue
on the campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey commemorating the location where the
first college football game was played.

On November 6, 1869, Rutgers University faced Princeton University, then known as the College of New
Jersey, in the first collegiate football game. The game more closely resembled soccer than football as it is
played in the 21st century. It was played with a round ball, and used a set of rules suggested by Rutgers
captain William J. Leggett, based on The Football Association's first set of rules, which were an early
attempt by the former pupils of England's public schools, to unify the rules of their various public
schools.[7][10][11][12]
The game was played at a Rutgers Field in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Two teams of 25 players
attempted to score by kicking the ball into the opposing team's goal. Throwing or carrying the ball was
not allowed, but there was plenty of physical contact between players. The first team to reach six goals
was declared the winner. Rutgers won by a score of six to four. A rematch was played at Princeton a week
later under Princeton's own set of rules (one notable difference was the awarding of a "free kick" to any
player that caught the ball on the fly, which was a feature adopted from The Football Association's rules;
the fair catch kick rule has survived through to modern American game). Princeton won that game by a
score of 8 – 0. Columbia joined the series in 1870 and by 1872 several schools were fielding
intercollegiate teams, including Yale and Stevens Institute of Technology.[7]

Columbia University was the third school to field a team. The Lions traveled from New York City to New
Brunswick on November 12, 1870, and were defeated by Rutgers 6 to 3. The game suffered from
disorganization and the players kicked and battled each other as much as the ball. Later in 1870,
Princeton and Rutgers played again with Princeton defeating Rutgers 6–0. This game's violence caused
such an outcry that no games at all were played in 1871. Football came back in 1872, when Columbia
played Yale for the first time. The Yale team was coached and captained by David Schley Schaff, who
had learned to play football while attending Rugby School. Schaff himself was injured and unable to play
the game, but Yale won the game 3–0 nonetheless. Later in 1872, Stevens Tech became the fifth school to
field a team. Stevens lost to Columbia, but beat both New York University and City College of New York
during the following year.

By 1873, the college students playing football had made significant efforts to standardize their fledgling
game. Teams had been scaled down from 25 players to 20. The only way to score was still to bat or kick
the ball through the opposing team's goal, and the game was played in two 45-minute halves on fields 140
yards long and 70 yards wide. On October 20, 1873, representatives from Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and
Rutgers met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City to codify the first set of intercollegiate football
rules. Before this meeting, each school had its own set of rules and games were usually played using the
home team's own particular code. At this meeting, a list of rules, based more on the Football Association's
rules than the rules of the recently founded Rugby Football Union, was drawn up for intercollegiate
football games.[7]

Harvard–McGill (1874)
Old "Football Fightum" had been resurrected at Harvard in 1872,
when Harvard resumed playing football. Harvard, however,
preferred to play a rougher version of football called "the Boston
Game" in which the kicking of a round ball was the most
prominent feature though a player could run with the ball, pass it,
or dribble it (known as "babying"). The man with the ball could be
tackled, although hitting, tripping, "hacking" and other
The McGill vs. Harvard football
unnecessary roughness was prohibited. There was no limit to the
game in Cambridge, Massachusetts
number of players, but there were typically ten to fifteen per side. in 1874; Harvard won 3–0.
A player could carry the ball only when being pursued.

As a result of this, Harvard refused to attend the rules conference organized by Rutgers, Princeton and
Columbia at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City on October 20, 1873, to agree on a set of rules and
regulations that would allow them to play a form of football that was essentially Association football; and
continued to play under its own code. While Harvard's voluntary absence from the meeting made it hard
for them to schedule games against other American universities, it agreed to a challenge to play the rugby
team of McGill University, from Montreal, in a two-game series. It was agreed that two games would be
played on Harvard's Jarvis baseball field in Cambridge, Massachusetts on May 14 and 15, 1874: one to be
played under Harvard rules, another under the stricter rugby regulations of McGill. Jarvis Field was at the
time a patch of land at the northern point of the Harvard campus, bordered by Everett and Jarvis Streets to
the north and south, and Oxford Street and Massachusetts Avenue to the east and west. Harvard beat
McGill in the "Boston Game" on the Thursday and held McGill to a 0–0 tie on the Friday. The Harvard
students took to the rugby rules and adopted them as their own,[7][13][14] The games featured a round ball
instead of a rugby-style oblong ball.[14] This series of games represents an important milestone in the
development of the modern game of American football.[15][16] In October 1874, the Harvard team once
again traveled to Montreal to play McGill in rugby, where they won by three tries.

In as much as Rugby football had been transplanted to Canada from England, the McGill team played
under a set of rules which allowed a player to pick up the ball and run with it whenever he wished.
Another rule, unique to McGill, was to count tries (the act of grounding the football past the opposing
team's goal line; there was no end zone during this time), as well as goals, in the scoring. In the Rugby
rules of the time, a try only provided the attempt to kick a free goal from the field. If the kick was missed,
the try did not score any points itself.

Harvard–Tufts, Harvard–Yale (1875)

Harvard quickly took a liking to the rugby game, and its use of the try which, until that time, was not used
in American football. The try would later evolve into the score known as the touchdown. On June 4,
1875, Harvard faced Tufts University in the first game between two American colleges played under rules
similar to the McGill/Harvard contest, which was won by Tufts 1–0.[17] The rules included each side
fielding 11 men at any given time, the ball was advanced by kicking or carrying it, and tackles of the ball
carrier stopped play – actions of which have carried over to the modern version of football played
today[18]

Harvard later challenged its closest rival, Yale, to which the Bulldogs accepted. The two teams agreed to
play under a set of rules called the "Concessionary Rules", which involved Harvard conceding something
to Yale's soccer and Yale conceding a great deal to Harvard's rugby. They decided to play with 15 players
on each team. On November 13, 1875, Yale and Harvard played each other for the first time ever, where
Harvard won 4–0. At the first The Game (as the annual contest between Harvard and Yale came to be
named) the future "father of American football" Walter Camp was among the 2000 spectators in
attendance. Walter, a native of New Britain, Connecticut, would enroll at Yale the next year. He was torn
between an admiration for Harvard's style of play and the misery of the Yale defeat, and became
determined to avenge Yale's defeat. Spectators from Princeton also carried the game back home, where it
quickly became the most popular version of football.[7]

On November 23, 1876, representatives from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia met at the
Massasoit House hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts to standardize a new code of rules based on the
rugby game first introduced to Harvard by McGill University in 1874. Three of the schools—Harvard,
Columbia, and Princeton—formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, as a result of the meeting.
Yale initially refused to join this association because of a disagreement over the number of players to be
allowed per team (relenting in 1879) and Rutgers were not invited to the meeting. The rules that they
agreed upon were essentially those of rugby union at the time with the exception that points be awarded
for scoring a try, not just the conversion afterwards (extra point). Incidentally, rugby was to make a
similar change to its scoring system 10 years later.[19]

Walter Camp: Father of American football

Walter Camp is widely considered to be the most important figure
in the development of American football.[10][11][19] As a youth, he
excelled in sports like track, baseball, and association football, and
after enrolling at Yale in 1876, he earned varsity honors in every
sport the school offered.[19]

Following the introduction of rugby-style rules to American

football, Camp became a fixture at the Massasoit House
conventions where rules were debated and changed. Dissatisfied
with what seemed to him to be a disorganized mob, he proposed
his first rule change at the first meeting he attended in 1878: a
reduction from fifteen players to eleven. The motion was rejected
at that time but passed in 1880. The effect was to open up the
game and emphasize speed over strength. Camp's most famous
change, the establishment of the line of scrimmage and the snap
from center to quarterback, was also passed in 1880. Originally,
the snap was executed with the foot of the center. Later changes
made it possible to snap the ball with the hands, either through the
air or by a direct hand-to-hand pass.[19] Rugby league followed Walter Camp, the "Father of
American Football", then the captain
Camp's example, and in 1906 introduced the play-the-ball rule,
of the Yale University football team,
which greatly resembled Camp's early scrimmage and center-snap
in 1878
rules. In 1966, rugby league introduced a four-tackle rule (changed
in 1972 to a six-tackle rule) based on Camp's early down-and-
distance rules.

Camp's new scrimmage rules revolutionized the game, though not always as intended. Princeton, in
particular, used scrimmage play to slow the game, making incremental progress towards the end zone
during each down. Rather than increase scoring, which had been Camp's original intent, the rule was
exploited to maintain control of the ball for the entire game, resulting in slow, unexciting contests. At the
1882 rules meeting, Camp proposed that a team be required to advance the ball a minimum of five yards
within three downs. These down-and-distance rules, combined with the establishment of the line of
scrimmage, transformed the game from a variation of rugby football into the distinct sport of American
football.[19]

Camp was central to several more significant rule changes that came to define American football. In
1881, the field was reduced in size to its modern dimensions of 120 by 531⁄3 yards (109.7 by 48.8
meters). Several times in 1883, Camp tinkered with the scoring rules, finally arriving at four points for a
touchdown, two points for kicks after touchdowns, two points for safeties, and five for field goals.
Camp's innovations in the area of point scoring influenced rugby union's move to point scoring in 1890.
In 1887, game time was set at two-halves of 45 minutes each. Also in 1887, two paid officials—a referee
and an umpire—were mandated for each game. A year later, the rules were changed to allow tackling
below the waist, and in 1889, the officials were given whistles and stopwatches.[19]
After leaving Yale in 1882, Camp was employed by the New Haven Clock Company until his death in
1925. Though no longer a player, he remained a fixture at annual rules meetings for most of his life, and
he personally selected an annual All-American team every year from 1889 through 1924. The Walter
Camp Football Foundation continues to select All-American teams in his honor.[20]

Scoring table
Historical college football scoring[21]
Field Conversion Conversion Conversion Defensive
Era Touchdown Safety
goal (kick) (touchdown) safety conversion

1883 2 4 1
1883–
4 2
1897 5

1898–
1903

1904– – –
5 4
1908 –
1909–
2
1911
1
1912–
1957
3
1958–
6
1987
2 1
1988–
2
present

Note: For brief periods in the late 19th century, some penalties awarded one or more points for the opposing
teams, and some teams in the late 19th and early 20th centuries chose to negotiate their own scoring system
for individual games.

Expansion
College football expanded greatly during the last two decades of the 19th century. Several major rivalries
date from this time period.

November 1890 was an active time in the sport. In Baldwin City, Kansas, on November 22, 1890, college
football was first played in the state of Kansas. Baker beat Kansas 22–9.[22] On the 27th, Vanderbilt
played Nashville (Peabody) at Athletic Park and won 40–0. It was the first time organized football played
in the state of Tennessee.[23] The 29th also saw the first instance of the Army–Navy Game. Navy won
24–0.

East
Rutgers was first to extend the reach of the game. An intercollegiate game was first played in the state of
New York when Rutgers played Columbia on November 2, 1872. It was also the first scoreless tie in the
history of the fledgling sport.[24] Yale football starts the same year and has its first match against
Columbia, the nearest college to play football. It took place at Hamilton Park in New Haven and was the
first game in New England. The game was essentially soccer with 20-man sides, played on a field 400 by
250 feet. Yale wins 3–0, Tommy Sherman scoring the first goal and Lew Irwin the other two.[25]
After the first game against Harvard, Tufts took its squad to Bates College in Lewiston, Maine for the
first football game played in Maine.[26] This occurred on November 6, 1875.

Penn's Athletic Association was looking to pick "a twenty" to play a game of football against Columbia.
This "twenty" never played Columbia, but did play twice against Princeton.[27] Princeton won both
games 6 to 0. The first of these happened on November 11, 1876, in Philadelphia and was the first
intercollegiate game in the state of Pennsylvania.

Brown entered the intercollegiate game in 1878.[28]

The first game where one team scored over 100 points happened on October 25, 1884, when Yale routed
Dartmouth 113–0. It was also the first time one team scored over 100 points and the opposing team was
shut out.[29] The next week, Princeton outscored Lafayette 140 to 0.[30]

The first intercollegiate game in the state of Vermont happened on November 6, 1886, between
Dartmouth and Vermont at Burlington, Vermont. Dartmouth won 91 to 0.[31]

Penn State played its first season in 1887,[32] but had no head coach for their first five years, from 1887 to
1891.[32] The teams played its home games on the Old Main lawn on campus in State College,
Pennsylvania. They compiled a 12–8–1 record in these seasons, playing as an independent from 1887 to
1890.

In 1891, the Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Football Association (PIFA) was formed. It consisted of
Bucknell University, Dickinson College, Franklin & Marshall College, Haverford College, Penn State,
and Swarthmore College. Lafayette College, and Lehigh University were excluded because it was felt
they would dominate the Association. Penn State won the championship with a 4–1–0 record. Bucknell's
record was 3–1–1 (losing to Franklin & Marshall and tying Dickinson). The Association was dissolved
prior to the 1892 season.[32]

The first nighttime football game was played in Mansfield, Pennsylvania on September 28, 1892,
between Mansfield State Normal and Wyoming Seminary and ended at halftime in a 0–0 tie.[33] The
Army–Navy game of 1893 saw the first documented use of a football helmet by a player in a game.
Joseph M. Reeves had a crude leather helmet made by a shoemaker in Annapolis and wore it in the game
after being warned by his doctor that he risked death if he continued to play football after suffering an
earlier kick to the head.[34]

Middle West
In 1879, the University of Michigan became the first school west of Pennsylvania to establish a college
football team. On May 30, 1879, Michigan beat Racine College 1–0 in a game played in Chicago. The
Chicago Daily Tribune called it "the first rugby-football game to be played west of the Alleghenies."[35]
Other Midwestern schools soon followed suit, including the University of Chicago, Northwestern
University, and the University of Minnesota. The first western team to travel east was the 1881 Michigan
team, which played at Harvard, Yale and Princeton.[36][37] The nation's first college football league, the
Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives (also known as the Western Conference), a
precursor to the Big Ten Conference, was founded in 1895.[38]
Led by coach Fielding H. Yost, Michigan became the first
"western" national power. From 1901 to 1905, Michigan had a 56-
game undefeated streak that included a 1902 trip to play in the
first college football bowl game, which later became the Rose
Bowl Game. During this streak, Michigan scored 2,831 points
while allowing only 40.[39]

Organized intercollegiate football was first played in the state of

Minnesota on September 30, 1882, when Hamline was convinced A 1902 football game between the
to play Minnesota. Minnesota won 2 to 0.[40] It was the first game University of Minnesota and the
west of the Mississippi River. University of Michigan

November 30, 1905, saw Chicago defeat Michigan 2 to 0. Dubbed

"The First Greatest Game of the Century",[41] it broke Michigan's
56-game unbeaten streak and marked the end of the "Point-a-
Minute" years.

South
Organized collegiate football was first played in the state of The University of Wisconsin football
Virginia and the south on November 2, 1873, in Lexington team in 1903
between Washington and Lee and VMI. Washington and Lee won
4–2.[42] Some industrious students of the two schools
organized a game for October 23, 1869, but it was
rained out.[43] Students of the University of Virginia
were playing pickup games of the kicking-style of
football as early as 1870, and some accounts even
claim it organized a game against Washington and
Lee College in 1871; but no record has been found of
the score of this contest. Due to scantiness of records
An 1895 football game between Auburn and
of the prior matches some will claim Virginia v.
Georgia
Pantops Academy November 13, 1887, as the first
game in Virginia.

On April 9, 1880, at Stoll Field, Transylvania University (then

called Kentucky University) beat Centre College by the score of
133⁄4–0 in what is often considered the first recorded game played
in the South.[44] The first game of "scientific football" in the South
was the first instance of the Victory Bell rivalry between North
Carolina and Duke (then known as Trinity College) held on
Thanksgiving Day, 1888, at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds
in Raleigh, North Carolina.[45] An 1894 football game in Staunton,
Virginia between VMI and Virginia
On November 13, 1887, the Virginia Cavaliers and Pantops Tech
Academy fought to a scoreless tie in the first organized football
game in the state of Virginia.[46] Students at UVA were playing
pickup games of the kicking-style of football as early as 1870, and some accounts even claim that some
industrious ones organized a game against Washington and Lee
College in 1871, just two years after Rutgers and Princeton's
historic first game in 1869. But no record has been found of the
score of this contest. Washington and Lee also claims a 4 to 2 win
over VMI in 1873.[42]

On October 18, 1888, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons defeated

the North Carolina Tar Heels 6 to 4 in the first intercollegiate
game in the state of North Carolina.[47] Sewanee's 1899 "Iron Men"

On December 14, 1889, Wofford defeated Furman 5 to 1 in the

first intercollegiate game in the state of South Carolina. The game
featured no uniforms, no positions, and the rules were formulated
before the game.[48]

January 30, 1892, saw the first football game played in the Deep
South when the Georgia Bulldogs defeated Mercer 50–0 at Herty
Field.
The 1904 Vanderbilt team in action;
The beginnings of the contemporary Southeastern Conference and
note the grid pattern on the field
Atlantic Coast Conference start in 1894. The Southern
Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) was founded on
December 21, 1894, by William Dudley, a chemistry professor at Vanderbilt.[49] The original members
were Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Sewanee, and Vanderbilt. Clemson,
Cumberland, Kentucky, LSU, Mercer, Mississippi, Mississippi A&M (Mississippi State), Southwestern
Presbyterian University, Tennessee, Texas, Tulane, and the University of Nashville joined the following
year in 1895 as invited charter members.[50] The conference was originally formed for "the development
and purification of college athletics throughout the South".[51]

The first forward pass in football likely occurred on October 26, 1895, in a game between Georgia and
North Carolina when, out of desperation, the ball was thrown by the North Carolina back Joel Whitaker
instead of punted and George Stephens caught the ball.[52] On November 9, 1895, John Heisman
executed a hidden ball trick using quarterback Reynolds Tichenor to get Auburn's only touchdown in a 6
to 9 loss to Vanderbilt. It was the first game in the south decided by a field goal.[53] Heisman later used
the trick against Pop Warner's Georgia team. Warner picked up the trick and later used it at Cornell
against Penn State in 1897.[54] He then used it in 1903 at Carlisle against Harvard and garnered national
attention.

The 1899 Sewanee Tigers are one of the all-time great teams of the early sport. The team went 12–0,
outscoring opponents 322 to 10. Known as the "Iron Men", with just 13 men they had a six-day road trip
with five shutout wins over Texas A&M; Texas; Tulane; LSU; and Ole Miss. It is recalled memorably
with the phrase "... and on the seventh day they rested."[55][56] Grantland Rice called them "the most
durable football team I ever saw."[57]

Organized intercollegiate football was first played in the state of Florida in 1901.[58] A 7-game series
between intramural teams from Stetson and Forbes occurred in 1894. The first intercollegiate game
between official varsity teams was played on November 22, 1901. Stetson beat Florida Agricultural
College at Lake City, one of the four forerunners of the University of Florida, 6–0, in a game played as
part of the Jacksonville Fair.[59]

On September 27, 1902, Georgetown beat Navy 4 to 0. It is claimed by Georgetown authorities as the
game with the first ever "roving center" or linebacker when Percy Given stood up, in contrast to the usual
tale of Germany Schulz.[60] The first linebacker in the South is often considered to be Frank Juhan.

On Thanksgiving Day 1903, a game was scheduled in Montgomery, Alabama between the best teams
from each region of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association for an "SIAA championship game",
pitting Cumberland against Heisman's Clemson. The game ended in an 11–11 tie causing many teams to
claim the title. Heisman pressed hardest for Cumberland to get the claim of champion. It was his last
game as Clemson head coach.[61]

1904 saw big coaching hires in the south: Mike Donahue at Auburn, John Heisman at Georgia Tech, and
Dan McGugin at Vanderbilt were all hired that year. Both Donahue and McGugin just came from the
north that year, Donahue from Yale and McGugin from Michigan, and were among the initial inductees of
the College Football Hall of Fame. The undefeated 1904 Vanderbilt team scored an average of 52.7 points
per game, the most in college football that season, and allowed just four points.

Southwest
The first college football game in Oklahoma Territory occurred on November 7, 1895, when the
"Oklahoma City Terrors" defeated the Oklahoma Sooners 34 to 0. The Terrors were a mix of Methodist
college and high school students.[62] The Sooners did not manage a single first down. By next season,
Oklahoma coach John A. Harts had left to prospect for gold in the Arctic.[63][64] Organized football was
first played in the territory on November 29, 1894, between the Oklahoma City Terrors and Oklahoma
City High School. The high school won 24 to 0.[63]

Pacific Coast
The University of Southern California first fielded an American
football team in 1888. Playing its first game on November 14 of
that year against the Alliance Athletic Club, in which USC gained
a 16–0 victory. Frank Suffel and Henry H. Goddard were playing
coaches for the first team which was put together by quarterback
Arthur Carroll; who in turn volunteered to make the pants for the
team and later became a tailor.[65] USC faced its first collegiate
opponent the following year in fall 1889, playing St. Vincent's The first USC football team in 1888;
College to a 40–0 victory.[65] In 1893, USC joined the before they were nicknamed the
Intercollegiate Football Association of Southern California (the "Trojans", they were known as the
forerunner of the SCIAC), which was composed of USC, USC Methodists.
Occidental College, Throop Polytechnic Institute (Caltech), and
Chaffey College. Pomona College was invited to enter, but
declined to do so. An invitation was also extended to Los Angeles High School.[66]

In 1891, the first Stanford football team was hastily organized and played a four-game season beginning
in January 1892 with no official head coach. Following the season, Stanford captain John Whittemore
wrote to Yale coach Walter Camp asking him to recommend a coach for Stanford. To Whittemore's
surprise, Camp agreed to coach the team himself, on the condition
that he finish the season at Yale first.[67] As a result of Camp's late
arrival, Stanford played just three official games, against San
Francisco's Olympic Club and rival California. The team also
played exhibition games against two Los Angeles area teams that
Stanford does not include in official results.[68][69] Camp returned
to the East Coast following the season, then returned to coach
Stanford in 1894 and 1895.
The 1893 Stanford University
On December 25, 1894, Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago Maroons football team
agreed to play Camp's Stanford football team in San Francisco in
the first postseason intersectional contest, foreshadowing the
modern bowl game.[70][71] Future president Herbert Hoover was
Stanford's student financial manager.[72] Chicago won 24 to 4.[73]
Stanford won a rematch in Los Angeles on December 29 by 12 to
0.[74]

The Big Game between Stanford and California is the oldest

college football rivalry in the West. The first game was played on The Big Game between Stanford
San Francisco's Haight Street Grounds on March 19, 1892, with and Cal was played as rugby union
Stanford winning 14–10. The term "Big Game" was first used in from 1906 to 1914.
1900, when it was played on Thanksgiving Day in San Francisco.
During that game, a large group of men and boys, who were
observing from the roof of the nearby S.F. and Pacific Glass Works, fell into the fiery interior of the
building when the roof collapsed, resulting in 13 dead and 78 injured.[75][76][77][78][79] On December 4,
1900, the last victim of the disaster (Fred Lilly) died, bringing the death toll to 22; and, to this day, the
"Thanksgiving Day Disaster" remains the deadliest accident to kill spectators at a U.S. sporting event.[80]

The University of Oregon began playing American football in 1894 and played its first game on March
24, 1894, defeating Albany College 44–3 under head coach Cal Young.[81][82][83] Cal Young left after that
first game and J.A. Church took over the coaching position in the fall for the rest of the season. Oregon
finished the season with two additional losses and a tie, but went undefeated the following season,
winning all four of its games under head coach Percy Benson.[83][84][85] In 1899, the Oregon football
team left the state for the first time, playing the California Golden Bears in Berkeley, California.[81]

American football at Oregon State University started in 1893 shortly after athletics were initially
authorized at the college. Athletics were banned at the school in May 1892, but when the strict school
president, Benjamin Arnold, died, President John Bloss reversed the ban.[86] Bloss's son William started
the first team, on which he served as both coach and quarterback.[87] The team's first game was an easy
63–0 defeat over the home team, Albany College.

In May 1900, Yost was hired as the football coach at Stanford University,[88] and, after traveling home to
West Virginia, he arrived in Palo Alto, California, on August 21, 1900.[89] Yost led the 1900 Stanford
team to a 7–2–1, outscoring opponents 154 to 20. The next year in 1901, Yost was hired by Charles A.
Baird as the head football coach for the Michigan Wolverines football team. On January 1, 1902, Yost's
dominating 1901 Michigan Wolverines football team agreed to play a 3–1–2 team from Stanford
University in the inaugural "Tournament East-West football game" what is now known as the Rose Bowl
Game by a score of 49–0 after Stanford captain Ralph Fisher requested to quit with eight minutes
remaining.

The 1905 season marked the first meeting between Stanford and USC. Consequently, Stanford is USC's
oldest existing rival.[90] The Big Game between Stanford and Cal on November 11, 1905, was the first
played at Stanford Field, with Stanford winning 12–5.[67]

In 1906, citing concerns about the violence in American Football, universities on the West Coast, led by
California and Stanford, replaced the sport with rugby union.[91] At the time, the future of American
football was very much in doubt and these schools believed that rugby union would eventually be
adopted nationwide.[91] Other schools followed suit and also made the switch included Nevada, St.
Mary's, Santa Clara, and USC (in 1911).[91] However, due to the perception that West Coast football was
inferior to the game played on the East Coast anyway, East Coast and Midwest teams shrugged off the
loss of the teams and continued playing American football.[91] With no nationwide movement, the
available pool of rugby teams to play remained small.[91] The schools scheduled games against local club
teams and reached out to rugby union powers in Australia, New Zealand, and especially, due to its
proximity, Canada. The annual Big Game between Stanford and California continued as rugby, with the
winner invited by the British Columbia Rugby Union to a tournament in Vancouver over the Christmas
holidays, with the winner of that tournament receiving the Cooper Keith Trophy.[91][92][93]

During 12 seasons of playing rugby union, Stanford was remarkably successful: the team had three
undefeated seasons, three one-loss seasons, and an overall record of 94 wins, 20 losses, and 3 ties for a
winning percentage of .816. However, after a few years, the school began to feel the isolation of its newly
adopted sport, which was not spreading as many had hoped. Students and alumni began to clamor for a
return to American football to allow wider intercollegiate competition.[91] The pressure at rival California
was stronger (especially as the school had not been as successful in the Big Game as they had hoped), and
in 1915 California returned to American football. As reasons for the change, the school cited rule change
back to American football, the overwhelming desire of students and supporters to play American football,
interest in playing other East Coast and Midwest schools, and a patriotic desire to play an "American"
game.[91] California's return to American football increased the pressure on Stanford to also change back
in order to maintain the rivalry. Stanford played its 1915, 1916, and 1917 "Big Games" as rugby union
against Santa Clara and California's football "Big Game" in those years was against Washington, but both
schools desired to restore the old traditions.[91] The onset of American involvement in World War I gave
Stanford an out: In 1918, the Stanford campus was designated as the Students' Army Training Corps
headquarters for all of California, Nevada, and Utah, and the commanding officer Sam M. Parker decreed
that American football was the appropriate athletic activity to train soldiers and rugby union was
dropped.[91]

Mountain West
The University of Colorado began playing American football in 1890. Colorado found much success in
its early years, winning eight Colorado Football Association Championships (1894–97, 1901–08).

The following was taken from the Silver & Gold newspaper of December 16, 1898. It was a recollection
of the birth of Colorado football written by one of CU's original gridders, John C. Nixon, also the school's
second captain. It appears here in its original form:
 At the beginning of the first semester in the fall of '90
the boys rooming at the dormitory on the campus of the
U. of C. being afflicted with a super-abundance of
penned up energy, or perhaps having recently drifted
from under the parental wing and delighting in their
newly found freedom, decided among other wild
schemes, to form an athletic association. Messrs Carney,
Whittaker, Layton and others, who at that time
Colorado's first football team in 1890
constituted a majority of the male population of the
University, called a meeting of the campus boys in the
old medical building. Nixon was elected president and
Holden secretary of the association.

It was voted that the officers constitute a committee to

provide uniform suits in which to play what was called
"association football". Suits of flannel were ultimately
procured and paid for assessments on the members of
the association and generous contributions from Kickoff during the 1916 Colorado –
members of the faculty. ... Utah game

The Athletic Association should now invigorate its base-

ball and place it at par with its football team; and it
certainly has the material with which to do it. The U of
C should henceforth lead the state and possibly the west
in athletic sports. ...

The style of football playing has altered considerably;

by the old rules, all men in front of the runner with the
ball, were offside, consequently we could not send backs
through and break the line ahead of the ball as is done at
The 1905 Utah football team
present. The notorious V was then in vogue, which gave
a heavy team too much advantage. The mass plays being
now barred, skill on the football field is more in demand
than mere weight and strength.

— John C. Nixon, Silver & Gold, December 16,

1898[94]

In 1909, the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference was founded, featuring four members: Colorado,
Colorado College, Colorado School of Mines, and Colorado Agricultural College. The University of
Denver and the University of Utah joined the RMAC in 1910. For its first thirty years, the RMAC was
considered a major conference equivalent to today's Division I, before 7 larger members left and formed
the Mountain States Conference (also called the Skyline Conference).

Violence, formation of NCAA

College football increased in popularity through the remainder of the 19th and early 20th century. It also
became increasingly violent. Between 1890 and 1905, 330 college athletes died as a direct result of
injuries sustained on the football field. These deaths could be attributed to the mass formations and gang
tackling that characterized the sport in its early years.

The 1894 Harvard–Yale game, known as the "Hampden Park Blood

Bath", resulted in crippling injuries for four players; the contest was No sport is wholesome in
suspended until 1897. The annual Army–Navy game was suspended which ungenerous or mean
from 1894 to 1898 for similar reasons.[96] One of the major problems acts which easily escape
was the popularity of mass-formations like the flying wedge, in which detection contribute to
a large number of offensive players charged as a unit against a victory.
similarly arranged defense. The resultant collisions often led to serious
injuries and sometimes even death.[97] Georgia fullback Richard Von Charles William Eliot,
Albade Gammon notably died on the field from concussions received President of Harvard
against Virginia in 1897, causing Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Mercer University (1869–1909)
to suspend their football programs. opposing football in
1905.[95]
The situation came to a head in 1905 when there were 19 fatalities
nationwide. President Theodore Roosevelt reportedly threatened to
shut down the game if drastic changes were not made.[98] However, the threat by Roosevelt to eliminate
football is disputed by sports historians. What is absolutely certain is that on October 9, 1905, Roosevelt
held a meeting of football representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Though he lectured on
eliminating and reducing injuries, he never threatened to ban football. He also lacked the authority to
abolish football and was, in fact, actually a fan of the sport and wanted to preserve it. The President's sons
were also playing football at the college and secondary levels at the time.[99]

Meanwhile, John H. Outland held an experimental game in Wichita, Kansas that reduced the number of
scrimmage plays to earn a first down from four to three in an attempt to reduce injuries.[100] The Los
Angeles Times reported an increase in punts and considered the game much safer than regular play but
that the new rule was not "conducive to the sport".[101] In 1906, President Roosevelt organized a meeting
among thirteen school leaders at the White House to find solutions to make the sport safer for the
athletes. Because the college officials could not agree upon a change in rules, it was decided over the
course of several subsequent meetings that an external governing body should be responsible. Finally, on
December 28, 1905, 62 schools met in New York City to discuss rule changes to make the game safer. As
a result of this meeting, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States was formed in 1906.
The IAAUS was the original rule making body of college football, but would go on to sponsor
championships in other sports. The IAAUS would get its current name of National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA) in 1910,[102] and still sets rules governing the sport.[102][103]

The rules committee considered widening the playing field to "open up" the game, but Harvard Stadium
(the first large permanent football stadium) had recently been built at great expense; it would be rendered
useless by a wider field. The rules committee legalized the forward pass instead. Though it was
underused for years, this proved to be one of the most important rule changes in the establishment of the
modern game.[104] Another rule change banned "mass momentum" plays (many of which, like the
infamous "flying wedge", were sometimes literally deadly).

Modernization and innovation (1906–1930)

As a result of the 1905–1906 reforms, mass formation plays
became illegal and forward passes legal. Bradbury Robinson,
playing for visionary coach Eddie Cochems at Saint Louis
University, threw the first legal pass in a September 5, 1906, game
against Carroll College at Waukesha. Other important changes,
formally adopted in 1910, were the requirements that at least
seven offensive players be on the line of scrimmage at the time of
the snap, that there be no pushing or pulling, and that interlocking
interference (arms linked or hands on belts and uniforms) was not
allowed. These changes greatly reduced the potential for collision
injuries.[105] Several coaches emerged who took advantage of
these sweeping changes. Amos Alonzo Stagg introduced such
innovations as the huddle, the tackling dummy, and the pre-snap
shift.[106] Other coaches, such as Pop Warner and Knute Rockne,
introduced new strategies that still remain part of the game.
A 1906 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Besides these coaching innovations, several rules changes during photograph of Brad Robinson, who
the first third of the 20th century had a profound impact on the threw the first legal forward pass
game, mostly in opening up the passing game. In 1914, the first and was the sport's first triple threat
roughing-the-passer penalty was implemented. In 1918, the rules
on eligible receivers were loosened to allow eligible players to
catch the ball anywhere on the field—previously strict rules were in place allowing passes to only certain
areas of the field.[107] Scoring rules also changed during this time: field goals were lowered to three
points in 1909[11] and touchdowns raised to six points in 1912.[108]

Star players that emerged in the early 20th century include Jim Thorpe, Red Grange, and Bronko
Nagurski; these three made the transition to the fledgling NFL and helped turn it into a successful league.
Sportswriter Grantland Rice helped popularize the sport with his poetic descriptions of games and
colorful nicknames for the game's biggest players, including Notre Dame's "Four Horsemen" backfield
and Fordham University's linemen, known as the "Seven Blocks of Granite".[109]

In 1907 at Champaign, Illinois Chicago and Illinois played in the first game to have a halftime show
featuring a marching band.[110] Chicago won 42–6. On November 25, 1911 Kansas played at Missouri in
the first homecoming football game.[111] The game was "broadcast" play-by-play over telegraph to at
least 1,000 fans in Lawrence, Kansas.[112] It ended in a 3–3 tie. The game between West Virginia and
Pittsburgh on October 8, 1921, saw the first live radio broadcast of a college football game when Harold
W. Arlin announced that year's Backyard Brawl played at Forbes Field on KDKA. Pitt won 21–13.[113]
On October 28, 1922, Princeton and Chicago played the first game to be nationally broadcast on radio.
Princeton won 21–18 in a hotly contested game which had Princeton dubbed the "Team of Destiny".[114]

Rise of the South

One publication claims "The first scouting done in the South was in 1905, when Dan McGugin and
Captain Innis Brown, of Vanderbilt went to Atlanta to see Sewanee play Georgia Tech."[115] Fuzzy
Woodruff claims Davidson was the first in the south to throw a legal forward pass in 1906. The following
season saw Vanderbilt execute a double pass play to set up the touchdown that beat Sewanee in a meeting
of the unbeaten for the SIAA championship. Grantland Rice cited this event as the greatest thrill he ever
witnessed in his years of watching sports.[116] Vanderbilt coach Dan McGugin in Spalding's Football
Guide 's summation of the season in the SIAA wrote "The standing. First, Vanderbilt; second, Sewanee, a
might good second;" and that Aubrey Lanier "came near winning the Vanderbilt game by his brilliant
dashes after receiving punts."[117] Bob Blake threw the final pass to center Stein Stone, catching it near
the goal among defenders. Honus Craig then ran in the winning touchdown.

Heisman shift
Using the "jump shift" offense, John Heisman's Georgia Tech Golden Tornado won 222 to 0 over
Cumberland on October 7, 1916, at Grant Field in the most lopsided victory in college football
history.[118] Tech went on a 33-game winning streak during this period. The 1917 team was the first
national champion from the South, led by a powerful backfield. It also had the first two players from the
Deep South selected first-team All-American in Walker Carpenter and Everett Strupper. Pop Warner's
Pittsburgh Panthers were also undefeated, but declined a challenge by Heisman to a game. When
Heisman left Tech after 1919, his shift was still employed by protégé William Alexander.

Notable intersectional games

In 1906, Vanderbilt defeated Carlisle 4 to 0, the result of a Bob
Blake field goal.[119][120] In 1907 Vanderbilt fought Navy to a 6 to
6 tie. In 1910 Vanderbilt held defending national champion Yale to
a scoreless tie.[120]

Helping Georgia Tech's claim to a title in 1917, the Auburn Tigers

held undefeated, Chic Harley-led Big Ten champion Ohio State to
a scoreless tie the week before Georgia Tech beat the Tigers 68 to Tom Davies runs against
undefeated and unscored upon
7. The next season, with many players gone due to World War I, a
Georgia Tech in the 1918 game at
game was finally scheduled at Forbes Field with Pittsburgh. The
Forbes Field
Panthers, led by freshman Tom Davies, defeated Georgia Tech 32
to 0. Tech center Bum Day was the first player on a Southern team
ever selected first-team All-American by Walter Camp.

1917 saw the rise of another Southern team in Centre of Danville, Kentucky. In 1921 Bo McMillin-led
Centre upset defending national champion Harvard 6 to 0 in what is widely considered one of the greatest
upsets in college football history. The next year Vanderbilt fought Michigan to a scoreless tie at the
inaugural game at Dudley Field (now Vanderbilt Stadium), the first stadium in the South made
exclusively for college football. Michigan coach Fielding Yost and Vanderbilt coach Dan McGugin were
brothers-in-law, and the latter the protégé of the former. The game featured the season's two best defenses
and included a goal line stand by Vanderbilt to preserve the tie. Its result was "a great surprise to the
sporting world".[121] Commodore fans celebrated by throwing some 3,000 seat cushions onto the field.
The game features prominently in Vanderbilt's history.[122] That same year, Alabama upset Penn 9 to
7.[123]

Vanderbilt's line coach then was Wallace Wade, who coached Alabama to the South's first Rose Bowl
victory in 1925. This game is commonly referred to as "the game that changed the south".[124] Wade
followed up the next season with an undefeated record and Rose Bowl tie. Georgia's 1927 "dream and
wonder team" defeated Yale for the first time. Georgia Tech, led by Heisman protégé William Alexander,
gave the dream and wonder team its only loss, and the next year were national and Rose Bowl
champions. The Rose Bowl included Roy Riegels' wrong-way run. On October 12, 1929, Yale lost to
Georgia in Sanford Stadium in its first trip to the south. Wade's Alabama again won a national
championship and Rose Bowl in 1930.

Coaches of the era

Glenn "Pop" Warner

Glenn "Pop" Warner coached at several schools throughout his career, including the University of
Georgia, Cornell University, University of Pittsburgh, Stanford University, Iowa State University, and
Temple University.[125] One of his most famous stints was at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where
he coached Jim Thorpe, who went on to become the first president of the National Football League, an
Olympic Gold Medalist, and is widely considered one of the best overall athletes in history.[126][127]
Warner wrote one of the first important books of football strategy, Football for Coaches and Players,
published in 1927.[128] Though the shift was invented by Stagg, Warner's single wing and double wing
formations greatly improved upon it; for almost 40 years, these were among the most important
formations in football. As part of his single and double wing formations, Warner was one of the first
coaches to effectively use the forward pass. Among his other innovations are modern blocking schemes,
the three-point stance, and the reverse play.[125] The youth football league, Pop Warner Little Scholars,
was named in his honor.

Knute Rockne
Knute Rockne rose to prominence in 1913 as an end for the University of Notre Dame, then a largely
unknown Midwestern Catholic school. When Army scheduled Notre Dame as a warm-up game, they
thought little of the small school. Rockne and quarterback Gus Dorais made innovative use of the forward
pass, still at that point a relatively unused weapon, to defeat Army 35–13 and helped establish the school
as a national power. Rockne returned to coach the team in 1918, and devised the powerful Notre Dame
Box offense, based on Warner's single wing. He is credited with being the first major coach to emphasize
offense over defense. Rockne is also credited with popularizing and perfecting the forward pass, a seldom
used play at the time.[129] The 1924 team featured the Four Horsemen backfield. In 1927, his complex
shifts led directly to a rule change whereby all offensive players had to stop for a full second before the
ball could be snapped. Rather than simply a regional team, Rockne's "Fighting Irish" became famous for
barnstorming and played any team at any location. It was during Rockne's tenure that the annual Notre
Dame-University of Southern California rivalry began. He led his team to an impressive 105–12–5 record
before his premature death in a plane crash in 1931. He was so famous at that point that his funeral was
broadcast nationally on radio.[125][130]

From a regional to a national sport (1930–1958)

In the early 1930s, the college game continued to grow, particularly in the South, bolstered by fierce
rivalries such as the "South's Oldest Rivalry", between Virginia and North Carolina and the "Deep South's
Oldest Rivalry", between Georgia and Auburn. Although before the mid-1920s most national powers
came from the Northeast or the Midwest, the trend changed when several teams from the South and the
West Coast achieved national success. Wallace William Wade's 1925 Alabama team won the 1926 Rose
Bowl after receiving its first national title and William Alexander's
1928 Georgia Tech team defeated California in the 1929 Rose
Bowl. College football quickly became the most popular spectator
sport in the South.[131]

Several major modern college football conferences rose to

prominence during this time period. The Southwest Athletic
Conference had been founded in 1915. Consisting mostly of
schools from Texas, the conference saw back-to-back national
champions with Texas Christian University (TCU) in 1938 and
Texas A&M in 1939.[132][133] The Pacific Coast Conference
(PCC), a precursor to the Pac-12 Conference (Pac-12), had its own
back-to-back champion in the University of Southern California
which was awarded the title in 1931 and 1932.[132] The
Southeastern Conference (SEC) formed in 1932 and consisted
mostly of schools in the Deep South.[134] As in previous decades,
the Big Ten continued to dominate in the 1930s and 1940s, with Don Hutson in 1940
Minnesota winning 5 titles between 1934 and 1941, and Michigan
(1933, 1947, and 1948) and Ohio State (1942) also winning
titles.[132][135]

As it grew beyond its regional affiliations in the 1930s, college football garnered increased national
attention. Four new bowl games were created: the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, the Sun Bowl in 1935, and
the Cotton Bowl in 1937. In lieu of an actual national championship, these bowl games, along with the
earlier Rose Bowl, provided a way to match up teams from distant regions of the country that did not
otherwise play. In 1936, the Associated Press began its weekly poll of prominent sports writers, ranking
all of the nation's college football teams. Since there was no national championship game, the final
version of the AP poll was used to determine who was crowned the National Champion of college
football.[136]

The 1930s saw growth in the passing game. Though some coaches, such as General Robert Neyland at
Tennessee, continued to eschew its use, several rules changes to the game had a profound effect on teams'
ability to throw the ball. In 1934, the rules committee removed two major penalties—a loss of five yards
for a second incomplete pass in any series of downs and a loss of possession for an incomplete pass in the
end zone—and shrunk the circumference of the ball, making it easier to grip and throw. Players who
became famous for taking advantage of the easier passing game included Alabama end Don Hutson and
TCU passer "Slingin" Sammy Baugh.[137]

In 1935, New York City's Downtown Athletic Club awarded the first Heisman Trophy to University of
Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger, who was also the first ever NFL draft pick in 1936. The trophy was
designed by sculptor Frank Eliscu and modeled after New York University player Ed Smith. The trophy
recognizes the nation's "most outstanding" college football player and has become one of the most
coveted awards in all of American sports.[138]

During World War II, college football players enlisted in the armed forces, some playing in Europe during
the war. As most of these players had eligibility left on their college careers, some of them returned to
college at West Point, bringing Army back-to-back national titles in 1944 and 1945 under coach Red
Blaik. Doc Blanchard (known as "Mr. Inside") and Glenn Davis (known as "Mr. Outside") both won the
Heisman Trophy, in 1945 and 1946. On the coaching staff of those 1944–1946 Army teams was future
Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi.[135][139]

The 1950s saw the rise of yet more dynasties and power programs. Oklahoma, under coach Bud
Wilkinson, won three national titles (1950, 1955, 1956) and all ten Big Eight Conference championships
in the decade while building a record 47-game winning streak. Woody Hayes led Ohio State to two
national titles, in 1954 and 1957, and won three Big Ten titles. The Michigan State Spartans were known
as the "football factory" during the 1950s, where coaches Clarence Munn and Duffy Daugherty led the
Spartans to two national titles and two Big Ten titles after joining the Big Ten athletically in 1953.
Wilkinson and Hayes, along with Robert Neyland of Tennessee, oversaw a revival of the running game in
the 1950s. Passing numbers dropped from an average of 18.9 attempts in 1951 to 13.6 attempts in 1955,
while teams averaged just shy of 50 running plays per game. Nine out of ten Heisman Trophy winners in
the 1950s were runners. Notre Dame, one of the biggest passing teams of the decade, saw a substantial
decline in success; the 1950s were the only decade between 1920 and 1990 when the team did not win at
least a share of the national title. Paul Hornung, Notre Dame quarterback, did, however, win the Heisman
in 1956, becoming the only player from a losing team ever to do so.[140][141]

The 1956 Sugar Bowl also gained international attention when Georgia's pro-segregationist Gov. Griffin
publicly threatened Georgia Tech and its President Blake Van Leer over allowing the first African
American player to play in a collegiate bowl game in the south.[142]

Modern college football (since 1958)

Following the enormous success of the 1958 NFL Championship
Game, college football no longer enjoyed the same popularity as
the NFL, at least on a national level. While both games benefited
from the advent of television, since the late 1950s, the NFL has
become a nationally popular sport while college football has
maintained strong regional ties.[143][144][145]

As professional football became a national television

The Virginia Cavaliers (orange and
phenomenon, college football did as well. In the 1950s, Notre blue home uniforms) playing Penn
Dame, which had a large national following, formed its own State Nittany Lions (all-white away
network to broadcast its games, but by and large the sport still uniforms) in 2012 at Scott Stadium
retained a mostly regional following. In 1952, the NCAA claimed
all television broadcasting rights for the games of its member
institutions, and it alone negotiated television rights. This situation continued until 1984, when several
schools brought a suit under the Sherman Antitrust Act; the Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA and
schools are now free to negotiate their own television deals. ABC Sports began broadcasting a national
Game of the Week in 1966, bringing key matchups and rivalries to a national audience for the first
time.[146]

New formations and play sets continued to be developed. Emory Bellard, an assistant coach under Darrell
Royal at the University of Texas, developed a three-back option style offense known as the wishbone.
The wishbone is a run-heavy offense that depends on the quarterback making last second decisions on
when and to whom to hand or pitch the ball to. Royal went on to teach the offense to other coaches,
including Bear Bryant at Alabama, Chuck Fairbanks at Oklahoma and Pepper Rodgers at UCLA; who all
adapted and developed it to their own tastes.[147] The strategic opposite of the wishbone is the spread
offense, developed by professional and college coaches throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Though some
schools play a run-based version of the spread, its most common use is as a passing offense designed to
"spread" the field both horizontally and vertically.[148] Some teams have managed to adapt with the times
to keep winning consistently. In the rankings of the most victorious programs, Michigan, Ohio State, and
Alabama ranked first, second, and third in total wins.

Growth of bowl games

In 1940, for the highest level of college football, there were only five bowl
Growth of bowl
games (Rose, Orange, Sugar, Sun, and Cotton). By 1950, three more had
games 1930–2022[149]
joined that number and in 1970, there were still only eight major college
bowl games. The number grew to eleven in 1976. At the birth of cable Year # of games
television and cable sports networks like ESPN, there were fifteen bowls 1930 1
in 1980. With more national venues and increased available revenue, the
1940 5
bowls saw an explosive growth throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In the
thirty years from 1950 to 1980, seven bowl games were added to the 1950 8
schedule. From 1980 to 2008, an additional 20 bowl games were added to 1960 8
the schedule.[149][151] Some have criticized this growth, claiming that the
1970 8
increased number of games has diluted the significance of playing in a
bowl game. Yet others have countered that the increased number of games 1980 15
has increased exposure and revenue for a greater number of schools, and 1990 19
see it as a positive development.[152] Teams participating in bowl games
2000 25
also get to practice up to four hours per day or 20 hours per week until
their bowl game concludes.[153] There is no limit on the number of 2010 35
practices during the bowl season, so teams that play later in the season 42 (Plus CFP
(usually ones with more wins) get more opportunity to practice than ones national
2022 championship
that play earlier. This bowl practice period can be compared to the spring
game)[150]
practice schedule when teams can have 15 on-field practice sessions.[154]
Many teams that play late in the bowl season use the first few practices for
evaluation and development of younger players while resting the starters.[155]

Determination of national champion

Currently, the NCAA Division I football teams are divided into two divisions – the "football bowl
subdivision" (FBS) and the "football championship subdivision"(FCS). As indicated by the name, the
FBS teams are eligible to play in post-season bowls. The FCS teams, Division II, Division III, National
Junior College teams play in sanctioned tournaments to determine their annual champions. There is not
now, and never has been, an NCAA-sanctioned tournament to determine the champion of the top-level
football teams.
With the growth of bowl games, it became difficult to determine a national champion in a fair and
equitable manner. As conferences became contractually bound to certain bowl games (a situation known
as a tie-in), match-ups that guaranteed a consensus national champion became increasingly rare.

Bowl Coalition
In 1992, seven conferences and independent Notre Dame formed the Bowl Coalition, which attempted to
arrange an annual No. 1 versus No. 2 matchup based on the final AP poll standings. The Coalition lasted
for three years; however, several scheduling issues prevented much success; tie-ins still took precedence
in several cases. For example, the Big Eight and SEC champions could never meet, since they were
contractually bound to different bowl games. The coalition also excluded the Rose Bowl, arguably the
most prestigious game in the nation, and two major conferences—the Pac-10 and Big Ten—meaning that
it had limited success.

Bowl Alliance
In 1995, the Coalition was replaced by the Bowl Alliance, which reduced the number of bowl games to
host a national championship game to three—the Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange Bowls—and the participating
conferences to five—the ACC, SEC, Southwest, Big Eight, and Big East. It was agreed that the No.1 and
No.2 ranked teams gave up their prior bowl tie-ins and were guaranteed to meet in the national
championship game, which rotated between the three participating bowls. The system still did not include
the Big Ten, Pac-10, or the Rose Bowl, and thus still lacked the legitimacy of a true national
championship.[151][156] However, one positive side effect is that if there were three teams at the end of the
season vying for a national title, but one of them was a Pac-10/Big Ten team bound to the Rose Bowl,
then there would be no difficulty in deciding which teams to place in the Bowl Alliance "national
championship" bowl; if the Pac-10 / Big Ten team won the Rose Bowl and finished with the same record
as whichever team won the other bowl game, they could have a share of the national title. This happened
in the final year of the Bowl Alliance, with Michigan winning the 1998 Rose Bowl and Nebraska winning
the 1998 Orange Bowl. Without the Pac-10/Big Ten team bound to a bowl game, it would be difficult to
decide which two teams should play for the national title.

Bowl Championship Series

In 1998, a new system was put into place called the Bowl Championship Series. For the first time, it
included all major conferences (ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10, and SEC) and four major bowl
games (Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta). The champions of these six conferences, along with two "at-
large" selections, were invited to play in the four bowl games. Each year, one of the four bowl games
served as a national championship game. Also, a complex system of human polls, computer rankings, and
strength of schedule calculations was instituted to rank schools. Based on this ranking system, the No.1
and No.2 teams met each year in the national championship game. Traditional tie-ins were maintained for
schools and bowls not part of the national championship. For example, in years when not a part of the
national championship, the Rose Bowl still hosted the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions.[156]

The system continued to change, as the formula for ranking teams was tweaked from year to year. At-
large teams could be chosen from any of the Division I-A conferences, though only one selection—Utah
in 2005—came from a BCS non-AQ conference. Starting with the 2006 season, a fifth game—simply
called the BCS National Championship Game—was added to the schedule, to be played at the site of one
of the four BCS bowl games on a rotating basis, one week after
the regular bowl game. This opened up the BCS to two additional
at-large teams. Also, rules were changed to add the champions of
five additional conferences (Conference USA [C-USA], the Mid-
American Conference [MAC], the Mountain West Conference
[MW], the Sun Belt Conference and the Western Athletic
Conference [WAC]), provided that said champion ranked in the
top twelve in the final BCS rankings, or was within the top 16 of
the BCS rankings and ranked higher than the champion of at least
one of the BCS Automatic Qualifying (AQ) conferences.[156]
Several times since this rule change was implemented, schools
from non-AQ conferences have played in BCS bowl games. In
2009, Boise State played TCU in the Fiesta Bowl, the first time
two schools from non-AQ conferences played each other in a BCS
bowl game. The last team from the non-AQ ranks to reach a BCS The BCS National Championship
bowl game in the BCS era was Northern Illinois in 2012, which trophy on display at Florida State
played in (and lost) the 2013 Orange Bowl. University; the 2013 championship
game marked the end of the BCS
era.
College Football Playoff
The longtime resistance to a playoff system at the FBS level
finally ended with the creation of the College Football Playoff (CFP) beginning with the 2014 season.
The CFP is a multi-team single-elimination tournament (originally four teams; expanded to 12 teams in
the 2024 season) whose participants are chosen and seeded by a selection committee. The initial rounds
are hosted by a group of traditional bowl games, and semifinal winners advance to the College Football
Playoff National Championship, whose host is determined by open bidding several years in advance.

The 10 FBS conferences are formally and popularly divided into two groups:

Power Five – Five of the six AQ conferences of the BCS era, specifically the ACC, Big Ten,
Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC. Each champion of these conferences is assured of a spot in a
New Year's Six bowl, though not necessarily in a semi-final game. Notre Dame remains a
football independent, but is counted among the Power Five because of its full but non-
football ACC membership, including a football scheduling alliance with that conference. In
the 2020 season, Notre Dame played as a full-time member of the conference due to the
effects that COVID-19 had on the college football season, causing many conferences to
play conference-only regular seasons. It has its own arrangement for access to the New
Year's Six games should it meet certain standards.
Group of Five – The remaining five FBS conferences – American, C-USA, MAC, MW, and
Sun Belt. The other three current FBS independents, Army, UConn, and UMass, are also
considered to be part of this group. One conference champion from this group receives a
spot in a New Year's Six game. In the first seven seasons of the CFP, the Group of Five did
not place a team in a semi-final. In 2021, Cincinnati, then a member of The American,
qualified for the Playoff, becoming the first Group of 5 team to qualify. Of the nine Group of
Five teams selected for New Year's Six bowls, four have won their games.

Official rules and notable rule distinctions

Although rules for the high school, college, and NFL games are
generally consistent, there are several minor differences. Before
2023, a single NCAA Football Rules Committee determined the
playing rules for Division I (both Bowl and Championship
Subdivisions), II, and III games (the National Association of
Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) is a separate organization, but
uses the NCAA rules). As part of an NCAA initiative to give each
division more autonomy over its governance, separate rules
A night game at Harvard Stadium
committees have been established for each NCAA division. between Harvard and Brown on
September 25, 2009
A pass is ruled complete if one of the receiver's feet is
inbounds at the time of the catch. In the NFL both feet
must be inbounds.[157]
A player is considered down when any part of his body other than the feet or hands touches
the ground or when the ball carrier is tackled or otherwise falls and loses possession of the
ball as he contacts the ground with any part of his body, with the sole exception of the
holder for field goal and extra point attempts. In the NFL a player is active until he is tackled
or forced down by a member of the opposing team (down by contact).
Before the 2023 season, the clock stopped after the offense completed a first down and
began again—assuming it is following a play in which the clock would not normally stop—
once the referee declared the ball ready for play. Since 2023, this has only been the case in
the last two minutes of a half in NCAA Divisions I and II; Division III will adopt this rule in
2024. In the NFL the clock does not explicitly stop for a first down.
Overtime was introduced in 1996, eliminating most ties except in the regular season. Since
2021, during each of the first two overtime periods, each team is given one possession from
its opponent's 25-yard line with no game clock. The play clock remains in use, and each
team is allowed one timeout per period. Any team that scores a touchdown in double
overtime must attempt a two-point conversion. Beginning with triple overtime, each team
takes possession at the opponent's 3-yard line and can only score by conversion. A coin
toss determines which team will have possession first at the start of each overtime period.
Play continues until one team leads the other at the end of a period. [In the NFL overtime is
decided by a modified sudden-death period of 10 minutes in regular-season games (no
overtime in preseason up to 1973 & since 2021) and 15 minutes in playoff games, and
regular-season games can still end in a tie if neither team scores.[158] Overtime for regular-
season games in the NFL began with the 1974 season; the overtime period for all games
was 15 minutes until it was shortened for non-playoff games effective in 2017. In the
postseason, if the teams are still tied, teams will play multiple overtime periods until either
team scores.]
A tie game is still possible, per NCAA Rule 3–3–3 (c) and (d). If a game is suspended
because of inclement weather while tied, typically in the second half or at the end of
regulation, and the game is unable to be continued, the game ends in a tie. Similar to
baseball, if one team has scored in its possession and the other team has not completed
its possession, the score during the overtime can be wiped out and the game ruled a tie.
Some conferences may enforce a curfew for the safety of the players. If, because of
numerous overtimes or weather, the game reaches the time-certain finish imposed by
the curfew tied, the game is ruled a tie.
Extra point tries are attempted from the three-yard line. Kicked tries count as one point.
Teams can also go for "the two-point conversion" which is when a team will line up at the
three-yard line and try to score. If they are successful, they receive two points, if they are
not, then they receive zero points. Starting with the 2015 season, the NFL uses the 15-yard
line as the line of scrimmage for placekick attempts, but the two-yard line for two-point
attempts. The two-point conversion was not implemented in the NFL until 1994, but it had
been previously used in the old American Football League (AFL) before it merged with the
NFL in 1970.
The defensive team may score two points on a point-after touchdown attempt by returning a
blocked kick, fumble, or interception into the opposition's end zone. In addition, if the
defensive team gains possession, but then moves backward into the end zone and is
stopped, a one-point safety will be awarded to the offense, although, unlike a real safety, the
offense kicks off, opposed to the team charged with the safety. This college rule was added
in 1988. The NFL, which previously treated the ball as dead during a conversion attempt—
meaning that the attempt ended when the defending team gained possession of the football
—adopted the college rule in 2015.
Through 2023, the two-minute warning was not used in college football, except in rare cases
where the scoreboard clock has malfunctioned and is not being used. The NCAA Football
Rules Committee recommended that the two-minute warning (under the name "two-minute
timeout") be adopted for the 2024 season, with said change expected to be approved.
There is an option to use instant replay review of officiating decisions. Division I FBS
schools use replay in virtually all games; replay is rarely used in lower division games. Every
play is subject to booth review with coaches only having one challenge. In the NFL, only
scoring plays, turnovers, the final 2:00 of each half and all overtime periods are reviewed,
and coaches are issued two challenges (with the option for a 3rd if the first two are
successful).
Since the 2012 season, the ball is placed on the 25-yard line following a touchback on either
a kickoff or a free kick following a safety. The NFL adopted this rule in 2018. In all other
touchback situations at all levels of the game, the ball is placed on the 20.
Among other rule changes in 2007, kickoffs were moved from the 35-yard line back five
yards to the 30-yard line, matching a change that the NFL had made in 1994. Some
coaches and officials questioned this rule change as it could lead to more injuries to the
players as there will likely be more kickoff returns.[159] The rationale for the rule change was
to help reduce dead time in the game.[160] The NFL returned its kickoff location to the 35-
yard line effective in 2011; college football did not do so until 2012.
Several changes were made to college rules in 2011, all of which differ from NFL
practice:[161]
If a player is penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct for actions that occurred during a
play ending in a touchdown by that team, but before the goal line was crossed, the
touchdown will be nullified. In the NFL, the same foul would result in a penalty on the
conversion attempt or ensuing kickoff, at the option of the non-penalized team.
If a team is penalized in the final minute of a half and the penalty causes the clock to
stop, the opposing team now has the right to have 10 seconds run off the clock in
addition to the yardage penalty. The NFL has a similar rule in the final minute of the half,
but it applies only to specified violations against the offensive team. The new NCAA rule
applies to penalties on both sides of the ball.
Players lined up outside the tackle box—more specifically, those lined up more than
7 yards from the center—will now be allowed to block below the waist only if they are
blocking straight ahead or toward the nearest sideline.
On placekicks, offensive linemen now can not be engaged by at least three defensive
players. They risk a 5-yard penalty upon violation.
In 2018, the NCAA made a further change to touchback rules that the NFL adopted in 2023;
a fair catch on a kickoff or a free kick following a safety that takes place between the
receiving team's goal line and 25-yard lines is treated as a touchback, with the ball placed at
the 25.
Yards lost on quarterback sacks are included in individual rushing yardage under NCAA
rules. In the NFL, yards lost on sacks are included in team passing yardage, but are not
included in individual passing statistics.
Organization
College teams mostly play other similarly sized schools through the NCAA's divisional system. Division
I generally consists of the major collegiate athletic powers with larger budgets, more elaborate facilities,
and (with the exception of a few conferences such as the Pioneer Football League) more athletic
scholarships. Division II primarily consists of smaller public and private institutions that offer fewer
scholarships than those in Division I. Division III institutions also field teams, but do not offer any
scholarships.

Football teams in Division I are further divided into the Bowl Subdivision (consisting of the largest
programs) and the Championship Subdivision. The Bowl Subdivision has historically not used an
organized tournament to determine its champion, and instead teams compete in post-season bowl games.
That changed with the debut of the four-team College Football Playoff at the end of the 2014 season,
However, the NCAA does not operate that tournament, and its winner is not automatically crowned
National Champion.

Teams in each of these four divisions are further divided into various regional conferences.

Several organizations operate college football programs outside the jurisdiction of the NCAA:

The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics has jurisdiction over more than 80
college football teams, mostly in the Midwest.
The National Junior College Athletic Association has jurisdiction over two-year institutions,
except in California.
The California Community College Athletic Association governs sports, including football, at
that state's two-year institutions. CCCAA members compete for their own championships
and do not participate in the NJCAA.
Club football, a sport in which student clubs run the teams instead of the colleges
themselves, is overseen by two organizations: the National Club Football Association and
the Intercollegiate Club Football Federation. The two competing sanctioning bodies have
some overlap, and several clubs are members of both organizations.
As of the upcoming 2024 season, 16 schools play sprint football, played under standard
NCAA rules but with a requirement that all players must weigh less than the average college
student (that threshold is set, as of 2024, at 178 pounds (81 kg), with the added requirement
of a minimum body fat content of 5%). Nine schools, all in the northeastern quadrant of the
U.S., play in the Collegiate Sprint Football League, which has operated since 1934. The
Midwest Sprint Football League started play in 2022 with six members, all in the Midwest
and Upper South, added two members in that region in 2023, and lost one of its charter
members after the 2023 season due to the school's impending closure.
A college that fields a team in the NCAA is not restricted from fielding teams in club or sprint football,
and several colleges field two teams, a varsity (NCAA) squad and a club or sprint squad (no schools, as
of 2024, field both club and sprint teams at the same time).

Coaching

National championships
College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS – Overview of systems for
determining national champions at the highest level of college football from 1869 to present.
College Football Playoff – Four-team playoff for determining national champions at the
highest level of college football beginning in 2014. After a vote by the College Football
Playoff's Board of Managers, the Playoff will be expanded to 12 teams in 2024.[162]
Bowl Championship Series – The primary method of determining the national champion
at the highest level of college football from 1998 to 2013; preceded by the Bowl Alliance
(1995–1997) and the Bowl Coalition (1992–1994).
NCAA Division I Football Championship[163] – Playoff for determining the national champion
at the second highest level of college football, Division I FCS, from 1978 to present.
NCAA Division I FCS Consensus Mid-Major Football National Championship – Awarded
by poll from 2001 to 2007 for a subset of the second-highest level of play in college
football, FCS.
NCAA Division II Football Championship – Playoff for determining the national champion at
the third highest level of college football from 1973 to present.
NCAA Division III Football Championship – Playoff for determining the national champion at
the fourth highest level of college football from 1973 to present.
NAIA National Football Championship – Playoff for determining the national champions of
college football governed by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
NJCAA National Football Championship – Playoff for determining the national champions of
college football governed by the National Junior College Athletic Association.
CSFL Championship – Champions of the Collegiate Sprint Football League, a conference
that plays the weight-restricted variant of sprint football.
 MSFL Championship – Launched in 2022 as the championship for the Midwest Sprint
Football League, another sprint football league.

Team maps

Map of Division I (A) Map of Division I (AA) Map of NCAA Map of NCAA
FBS FCS Division II Division III

Map of NAIA Map of NJCAA Map of CCCAA

Playoff games
Started in the 2014 season, four Division I FBS teams are selected at the end of regular season to compete
in a playoff for the FBS national championship. The inaugural champion was Ohio State University.[164]
The College Football Playoff replaced the Bowl Championship Series, which had been used as a selection
method to determine the national championship game participants since in the 1998 season. The
Michigan Wolverines won the most recent playoff 34–13 over the Washington Huskies in the 2024
College Football Playoff.

At the Division I FCS level, the teams participate in a 24-team playoff (most recently expanded from 20
teams in 2013) to determine the national championship. Under the current playoff structure, the top eight
teams are all seeded, and receive a bye week in the first round. The highest seed receives automatic home
field advantage. Starting in 2013, non-seeded teams can only host a playoff game if both teams involved
are unseeded; in such a matchup, the schools must bid for the right to host the game. Selection for the
playoffs is determined by a selection committee, although usually a team must have an 8–4 record to even
be considered. Losses to an FBS team count against their playoff eligibility, while wins against a Division
II opponent do not count towards playoff consideration. Thus, only Division I wins (whether FBS, FCS,
or FCS non-scholarship) are considered for playoff selection. The Division I National Championship
game is held in Frisco, Texas.
Division II and Division III of the NCAA also participate in their own respective playoffs, crowning
national champions at the end of the season. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics also
holds a playoff.

Bowl games
Unlike other college football divisions and most other sports—collegiate or professional—the Football
Bowl Subdivision, formerly known as Division I-A college football, has historically not employed a
playoff system to determine a champion. Instead, it has a series of postseason "bowl games". The annual
National Champion in the Football Bowl Subdivision is then instead traditionally determined by a vote of
sports writers and other non-players.

This system has been challenged often, beginning with an NCAA committee proposal in 1979 to have a
four-team playoff following the bowl games.[165] However, little headway was made in instituting a
playoff tournament until 2014, given the entrenched vested economic interests in the various bowls.
Although the NCAA publishes lists of claimed FBS-level national champions in its official publications,
it has never recognized an official FBS national championship; this policy continues even after the
establishment of the College Football Playoff (which is not directly run by the NCAA) in 2014. As a
result, the official Division I National Champion is the winner of the Football Championship Subdivision,
as it is the highest level of football with an NCAA-administered championship tournament. (This also
means that FBS student-athletes are the only NCAA athletes who are ineligible for the Elite 90 Award, an
academic award presented to the upper class player with the highest grade-point average among the teams
that advance to the championship final site.)

The first bowl game was the 1902 Rose Bowl, played between Michigan and Stanford; Michigan won
49–0. It ended when Stanford requested and Michigan agreed to end it with 8 minutes on the clock. That
game was so lopsided that the game was not played annually until 1916, when the Tournament of Roses
decided to reattempt the postseason game. The term "bowl" originates from the shape of the Rose Bowl
stadium in Pasadena, California, which was built in 1923 and resembled the Yale Bowl, built in 1915.
This is where the name came into use, as it became known as the Rose Bowl Game. Other games came
along and used the term "bowl", whether the stadium was shaped like a bowl or not.

At the Division I FBS level, teams must earn the right to be bowl eligible by winning at least 6 games
during the season (teams that play 13 games in a season, which is allowed for Hawaii and any of its home
opponents, must win 7 games). They are then invited to a bowl game based on their conference ranking
and the tie-ins that the conference has to each bowl game. For the 2009 season, there were 34 bowl
games, so 68 of the 120 Division I FBS teams were invited to play at a bowl. These games are played
from mid-December to early January and most of the later bowl games are typically considered more
prestigious.

After the Bowl Championship Series, additional all-star bowl games round out the post-season schedule
through the beginning of February.

Division I FBS National Championship Games

Partly as a compromise between both bowl game and playoff supporters, the NCAA created the Bowl
Championship Series (BCS) in 1998 to create a definitive national championship game for college
football. The series included the four most prominent bowl games (Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar
Bowl, Fiesta Bowl), while the national championship game rotated each year between one of these
venues.[166][167] The BCS system was slightly adjusted in 2006, as the NCAA added a fifth game to the
series, called the National Championship Game. This allowed the four other BCS bowls to use their
normal selection process to select the teams in their games while the top two teams in the BCS rankings
would play in the new National Championship Game.

The BCS selection committee used a complicated, and often controversial, computer system to rank all
Division I-FBS teams and the top two teams at the end of the season played for the national
championship.[168] This computer system, which factored in newspaper polls, online polls, coaches' polls,
strength of schedule, and various other factors of a team's season, led to much dispute over whether the
two best teams in the country were being selected to play in the National Championship Game.

The BCS ended after the 2013 season and, since the 2014 season, the FBS national champion has been
determined[169] by a four-team tournament known as the College Football Playoff (CFP). A selection
committee of college football experts decides the participating teams. Six major bowl games known as
the New Year's Six (NY6)—the Rose, Sugar, Cotton, Orange, Peach, and Fiesta Bowls—rotate on a
three-year cycle as semi-final games, with the winners advancing to the College Football Playoff
National Championship.[170] This arrangement was contractually locked in until the 2026 season, but an
agreement was reached on CFP expansion to 12 teams effective with the 2024 season.[171]

In the new CFP format, no conferences will receive automatic bids. Playoff berths will be awarded to the
top six conference champions in the CFP rankings, plus the top six remaining teams (which may include
other conference champions). The top four conference champions receive first-round byes. All first-round
games will be played at the home field of the higher seed. The winners of these games advance to meet
the top four seeds in the quarterfinals. The NY6 games will host the quarterfinals and semi-finals, rotating
so that each bowl game will host two quarterfinals and one semi-final in a three-year cycle. The CFP
National Championship will continue to be held at a site determined by open bidding several years in
advance.[172]

Controversy
College football is a controversial institution within American higher education, where the amount of
money involved—what people will pay for the entertainment provided—is a corrupting factor within
universities that they are usually ill-equipped to deal with.[173][174] According to William E. Kirwan,
chancellor of the University of Maryland System and co-director of the Knight Commission on
Intercollegiate Athletics, "We've reached a point where big-time intercollegiate athletics is undermining
the integrity of our institutions, diverting presidents and institutions from their main purpose."[175]
Football coaches often make more than the presidents of the universities which employ them.[176]
Athletes are alleged to receive preferential treatment both in academics and when they run afoul of the
law.[177] Although in theory football is an extra-curricular activity engaged in as a sideline by students, it
is widely believed to turn a substantial profit, from which the athletes receive no direct benefit. There has
been serious discussion about making student-athletes university employees to allow them to be
paid.[178][179][180][181] In reality, the majority of major collegiate football programs operated at a financial
loss in 2014.[182]

There had been discussions on changing rules that prohibited compensation for the use of a player's
name, image, and likeness (NIL), but change did not start to come until the mid-2010s. This reform first
took place in the NAIA, which initially allowed all student-athletes at its member schools to receive NIL
compensation in 2014,[183] and beginning in 2020 specifically allowed these individuals to reference their
athletic participation in their endorsement deals.[184] The NCAA passed its own NIL reform, very similar
to the NAIA's most recent reform, in July 2021, after its hand was forced by multiple states that had
passed legislation allowing NIL compensation, most notably California.[185][186]

On June 3 of 2021, "The NCAA's board of directors adopted a temporary rule change that opened the
door for NIL activity, instructing schools to set their own policy for what should be allowed with minimal
guidelines" (Murphy 2021). On July 1 of 2021, the new rules set in and student athletes could start
signing endorsements using their name, image and likeness. "The NCAA has asked Congress for help in
creating a federal NIL law. While several federal options have been proposed, it's becoming increasingly
likely that state laws will start to go into effect before a nationwide change is made. There are 28 states
with NIL laws already in place and multiple others that are actively pursuing legislation" (Murphy 2021).

Charlie Baker called for a ban on all college football betting (and betting on college sports in general)
because of prop bets for student athletes. With past scandals and threats to college athletes, Baker
requested states with sports betting to adjust their regulations to remove these bet types. While some were
quick to do so (including Louisiana, Colorado, Ohio), others rejected the notion and continued to offer
sports betting the same way.[187][188]

College football outside the United States

Canadian football, which parallels American football, is played by university teams in Canada under the
auspices of U Sports. (Unlike in the United States, no junior colleges play football in Canada, and the
sanctioning body for junior college athletics in Canada, CCAA, does not sanction the sport.) However,
amateur football outside of colleges is played in Canada, such as in the Canadian Junior Football League.
Organized competition in American football also exists at the collegiate level in Mexico (ONEFA), the
UK (British Universities American Football League), Japan (Japan American Football Association,
Koshien Bowl), and South Korea (Korea American Football Association).

Injuries
According to 2017 study on brains of deceased gridiron football players, 99% of tested brains of NFL
players, 88% of CFL players, 64% of semi-professional players, 91% of college football players, and
21% of high school football players had various stages of CTE.[189] The study noted it has limitations due
to "selection bias" in that the brains donated are from families who suspected CTE, but "The fact that we
were able to gather so many instances of a disease that was previously considered quite rare, in eight
years, speaks volumes."[189]
Other common injuries include: injuries of legs, arms, and lower back.[190][191][192][193]

Awards

Division I FBS
Heisman Trophy
Maxwell Award
Walter Camp Award
Outland Trophy
Associated Press Player of the Year
Johnny Rodgers Award
Fred Biletnikoff Award
Lou Groza Award
Lombardi Award
Bronko Nagurski Trophy
Dick Butkus Award
Jim Thorpe Award
Doak Walker Award
Campbell Trophy
Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award
Home Depot Award
Ray Guy Award
John Mackey Award
Burlsworth Trophy
Jet Award
Paul Hornung Award
Jon Cornish Trophy
Patrick Mannelly Award

Division I FCS
Walter Payton Award
Buck Buchanan Award
Jerry Rice Award

See also
College football
portal

Concussions in American football

College athletics in the United States
College athletics
 College rugby
College basketball
College baseball
College ice hockey
College soccer
College lacrosse
Helmet stickers
Homosexuality in American football
List of nicknamed college football games and plays
List of sports attendance figures
Sports injury

References
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(PDF). fs.ncaa.org. September 29, 2019. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2019092923
5715/http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/2019/Attend.pdf) (PDF) from the original
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Retrieved November 19, 2017.
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V.; Hydrick, T. C.; Gulbrandsen, M.; Hartigan, D. E.; Chhabra, A. (2019). "Lower Back
Injuries in National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Players: A 5-Season
Epidemiological Study" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6582304).
Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine. 7 (6). doi:10.1177/2325967119852625 (https://doi.
org/10.1177%2F2325967119852625). PMC 6582304 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti
cles/PMC6582304). PMID 31245431 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31245431).
193. "reverehealth.com" (https://reverehealth.com/live-better/10-common-football-injuries/).

Sources
Bennett, Tom (1976). The Pro Style. Prentice-Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-731604-5.
MacCambridge, Michael (1999). ESPN SportsCentury. Hyperion. ISBN 978-0-7868-6471-3.
OCLC 761166567 (https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/761166567).
 Vancil, Mark, ed. (2000). ABC Sports College Football: All Time All America Team. Hyperion.
ISBN 978-0-7868-6710-3.

Further reading
"The Invention Of Football". Current Events, 00113492, November 14, 2011, Vol. 111, Issue
8
Anderson, Christian K., and Amber C. Fallucca, eds. The history of American college
football: institutional policy, culture, and reform (Routledge, 2021) online (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=y74lEAAAQBAJ&dq=football&pg=PT8).
Chiles, Marvin T. "Gideon Edward Smith: The Player and Coach Who Gave Meaning to
Black College Football, 1892–1942". Journal of African American Studies (2023): 1–19.
De Oca, Jeffrey Montez. Discipline and indulgence: College football, media, and the
American way of life during the cold war (Rutgers University Press, 2013) online (https://boo
ks.google.com/books?id=CboKAQAAQBAJ&dq=football&pg=PR7).
Harrison, Emily A. "The first concussion crisis: head injury and evidence in early American
football". American journal of public health 104.5 (2014): 822–833. online (https://www.ncbi.
nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987576/)
Hobson, J. Hardin. "Football Culture at New South Universities: Lost Cause and Old South
Memory, Modernity, and Martial Manhood". in The History of American College Football ed
Christian K. Anderson, and Amber C. Fallucca, (Routledge, 2021) pp. 37–63.
Hunter, Bob. Saint Woody: The History and Fanaticism of Ohio State Football (U of
Nebraska Press, 2022); on Woody Hayes
Ingrassia, Brian M. The Rise of Gridiron University: Higher Education's Uneasy Alliance with
Big-Time Football. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2012.
McGregor, Andrew. "The Anti-Intellectual Coach: The Cultural Politics of College Football
Coaching from the New Left to the Present". Journal of Sport and Social Issues (2022):
01937235221098915.
Nite, Calvin, and Marvin Washington. "Institutional adaptation to technological innovation:
Lessons from the NCAA’s regulation of football television broadcasts (1938–1984)". Journal
of Sport Management 31.6 (2017): 575–590.
Rowley, Christopher. The Shared Origins of Football, Rugby, and Soccer (Rowman &
Littlefield, 2015) [Rowley, Christopher. The Shared Origins of Football, Rugby, and Soccer.
Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. online].
Smith, Ronald A. "American football becomes the dominant intercollegiate national
pastime". International Journal of the History of Sport 31.1–2 (2014): 109–119. online (http
s://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2013.861420)
Tutka, Patrick, and Chad Seifried. "An Innovation Diffusion Ideal-type on the History of
American College Football Stadia". Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics (2020).
online (http://csri-jiia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/RA_2020_15.pdf)
VanOverbeke, Marc A. " 'Out of the Quietness, a Clamor: "We Want Football!"’ The
California State Colleges, Educational Opportunity, and Athletics". History of Education
Quarterly 53.4 (2013): 430–454. online (http://jvlone.com/sportsdocs/CalStateCollegesFootb
all2014.pdf)
Watterson, John Sayle. College football: History, spectacle, controversy (JHU Press, 2000)
online in project MUSE.
 White, Derrick E. Blood, sweat, and tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the history of
black college football (UNC Press Books, 2019).

External links
College football at NCAA (https://www.ncaa.com/sports/football/fbs), NAIA (https://www.naia.
org/sports/fball/index), CCCAA (https://www.cccaasports.org/sports/fball/index), NCCAA (htt
ps://thenccaa.org/sports/football), NJCAA (https://www.njcaa.org/sports/fball/index), USCAA
(https://www.theuscaa.com/sports/fball/index)

Statistics
College Football (https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/) at Sports-Reference.com Archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20180401043509/https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/) April
1, 2018, at the Wayback Machine
Stassen College Football (http://football.stassen.com/), comprehensive college football
database
College Football Data Warehouse (https://web.archive.org/web/20121108223720/http://ww
w.cfbdatawarehouse.com/index.php)

Rules
NCAA Football 2011 and 2012 Rules and Interpretations (http://www.ncaapublications.com/
productdownloads/FR12.pdf)

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