1.
College football
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It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. No minor league farm organizations exist in American football and it is in college football where a players performance directly impacts his chances of playing professional football. The best collegiate players will declare for the professional draft after 3 to 4 years of collegiate competition. Those not selected can still attempt to land an NFL roster spot as a free agent. Even after the emergence of the professional National Football League, college football remained extremely popular throughout the U. S, in many cases, college stadiums employ bench-style seating, as opposed to individual seats with backs and arm rests. This allows them to more fans in a given amount of space than the typical professional stadium. 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. Modern North American football has its origins in various games, all known as football, 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 match was a game played at University College, a college of the University of Toronto, November 9,1861. One of the participants in the game involving University of Toronto students was William Mulock, a football club was formed at the university soon afterward, although its rules of play at this stage are unclear. In 1864, at Trinity College, also a college of the University of Toronto, F. Barlow Cumberland, 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, early games appear to have had much in common with the traditional mob football played in England. The games remained largely unorganized until the 19th century, when 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. A Harvard tradition known as Bloody Monday began in 1827, 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. The Harvard students responded by going into mourning for a figure called Football Fightum. The authorities held firm and it was a dozen years before football was again played at Harvard. Dartmouth played its own version called Old division football, the rules of which were first published in 1871, all of these games, and others, shared certain commonalities
2.
Oregon Ducks football
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The Oregon Ducks football program is a college football team for the University of Oregon, located in the U. S. state of Oregon. The team competes at the NCAA Division I level in the FBS and is a member of the Pac-12 Conference, known as the Ducks, the team was commonly called the Webfoots until the mid-1960s. The first football team was fielded in 1894, Oregon plays its home games at the 54,000 seat Autzen Stadium in Eugene, its main rivals are the Oregon State Beavers and the Washington Huskies. The Ducks and Beavers historically end each regular season with the Civil War rivalry game in late November, the football program began in 1894 and played its first game on March 24,1894, defeating Albany College 44–3 under head coach Cal Young. 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 losses and a tie, but went undefeated the following season, winning all four of its games under head coach Percy Benson. In 1899, the team left the state for the first time, playing the California Golden Bears in Berkeley. Oregons largest margin of victory came in 1910 when they defeated the University of Puget Sound 115–0, Bezdek, Oregons first truly professional coach, led the team from 1913 through 1917. A versatile motivator of athletes, during his tenure Bezdek was also the West Coast scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates, in the 1916 season, Oregon went undefeated with seven wins and one tie under Bezdek, shutting out all their opponents except California. They opened the season against Willamette University, defeating them 97–0, the game against Washington ended in a 0–0 tie. The Oregon football team defeated the heavily favored University of Pennsylvania Quakers 14–0, in 1918 Bezdek quit Oregon to become general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was succeeded by Shy Huntington, one of the heroes of the 1917 Rose Bowl, Oregon lost the 1920 Rose Bowl to Harvard University, 7–6. This would be the teams last bowl appearance until the 1948 Cotton Bowl, prince G. Prink Callison, Oregon native, alumnus, former player and coach of the freshman team, took over from Spears in 1932. Behind standout back Mike Mikulak and a defense, Callison led the 1933 Webfoots to a 9–1 mark and Pacific Coast Conference co-championship. This record would stand as the best in history until 2001. After the homegrown Callison retired in 1937, Oregon again hired a head coach. Oliver returned as coach after the war, eventually posting a mediocre 23–28–3 cumulative record. His 71–7 loss at Texas in 1941 on the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor stands as the most points allowed by any Oregon team, Oliver, in 1945, is the only coach to see his team lose twice to Oregon State in the same season
3.
Kansas State Wildcats football
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The Kansas State Wildcats football program is the intercollegiate football program of the Kansas State University Wildcats. The program is classified in the NCAA Division I Bowl Subdivision, historically, the team has an all-time losing record, at 518–635–41 after the conclusion of the 2016 season. However, the program has had some stretches of winning in its history, most recently, since 1968, the team has played in Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium in Manhattan, Kansas. The Kansas State University Marching Band, also known as the Pride of Wildcat Land, performs at all home games, according to most sources, Kansas States football team began play on Thanksgiving Day 1893. A team from Kansas State defeated St. Marys College 18–10 on that date, other sources name Kansas States first game as a 24–0 victory over a team from Abilene, Kansas, on November 3,1894. However, the first official game recorded in the history is a 14–0 loss to Fort Riley on November 28,1896. In its earliest years, the program had a different coach every year—generally, often, the coaches also played with the team during the games. The pattern changed when Mike Ahearn became the first long-term coach in 1905, Ahearn coached for six seasons, leading the team to winning records each year, and concluding in the 1910 season with a 10–1 mark. Ahearn also won two championships in the Kansas Intercollegiate Athletic Association, in 1909 and 1910. Ahearn was followed by Guy Lowman, who led Kansas State to another championship in 1912. Kansas State was invited into the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1913, after a few years adjusting to a higher level of competition, the school experienced sustained success in the 1920s and 1930s. These athletes were coupled with a series of Hall of Fame coaches, the first of these coaches was Z. G. Clevenger, who arrived in 1916 when Kansas State essentially swapped head coaches with Tennessee, clevenger is in the College Football Hall of Fame for his playing abilities, but he was also recognized as a brilliant coach and administrator. Clevenger was followed as football coach in 1920 by Charlie Bachman, Bachman was also responsible for permanently endowing Kansas States sports teams with the nickname of Wildcats. After McMillin left, Kansas State hired Lynn Pappy Waldorf, who was later enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach. With this combination of coaches and players, Kansas State enjoyed what would be its last streak of sustained success on the field for 60 years. In 1931, the team was on track for a potential bid to the Rose Bowl. In 1934, Kansas State won its first major conference football championship and that same year, the New York Times referred to Kansas State as an established Middle Western leader
4.
Wisconsin Badgers football
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The Wisconsin Badgers football team is the intercollegiate football team of University of Wisconsin–Madison. The Badgers have competed in the Big Ten Conference since its formation in 1896 and they play their home games at Camp Randall Stadium, the fourth-oldest stadium in college football. Wisconsin has had two Heisman Trophy winners, Alan Ameche and Ron Dayne, and have had nine former players inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, as of January 2,2017, the Badgers have an all-time record of 685–489–53. The teams nickname originates in the history of Wisconsin. In the 1820s and 1830s, prospectors came to the looking for minerals. Without shelter in the winter, the miners had to live like badgers in tunnels burrowed into hillsides, the first Badger football team took the field in 1889, losing the only two games it played that season. In 1890, Wisconsin earned its first victory with a 106–0 drubbing of Whitewater Normal School, however, the very next week the Badgers suffered what remains their most lopsided defeat, a humiliating 63–0 loss at the hands of the University of Minnesota. Since then, the Badgers and Gophers have met 122 times, upon the formation of the Big Ten conference in 1896, Wisconsin became the first-ever conference champion with a 7–1–1 record. Over the next ten years, the Badgers won or shared the title three more times, and recorded their first undefeated season, going 9–0–0. With the exception of their undefeated season in 1912, in which they won their fifth Big Ten title. The 1912 season would be their last conference title until 1952, the team posted mostly winning seasons over the next several seasons however. 1942 was an important year for Wisconsin football, on October 24, the #6 ranked Badgers defeated the #1 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes at Camp Randall, catapulting Wisconsin to the #2 spot in the AP poll. Unfortunately for the Badgers, their championship hopes were dashed in a 6–0 defeat by the Iowa Hawkeyes the following week. Nevertheless, Wisconsin won the remainder of its games, finishing the season 8–1–1 and #3 in the AP, afterwards, the Badgers struggled to regain their momentum, with their efforts hampered by many of their star players leaving as a result of World War II. In the late 1940s, fans began insisting that head coach Harry Stuhldreher resign, many times chanting Goodbye Harry, especially during 1948, Stuhldreher stepped down as head coach, while keeping his duties as athletic director. Stuhldreher then named Ivy Williamson as head coach The Badgers experienced great success during the 1950s under Williamson, in one stretch, from 1950-1954, the Badgers went 26-8-3. In 1952, the received its first #1 ranking by the Associated Press. That season, the Badgers again claimed the Big Ten title, there they were defeated 7–0 by the Southern California, and would finish the season ranked #11 in the AP
5.
Pittsburgh Panthers football
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The Pittsburgh Panthers football is the intercollegiate football team of the University of Pittsburgh, often referred to as Pitt, located in Pittsburgh. As of the 2013 season, Pitt competes as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, Pitt has claimed nine national championships and is among the top 20 college football programs in terms of all-time wins. The Panthers are currently coached by Pat Narduzzi, a 130-pound WUP student, Bert Smyers, along with senior student John Scott, assembled a football team that year composed of only three players who had previously witnessed the sport. The team played in one game, a loss against Shady Side Academy, in which Smyers made himself quarterback. In Smyers case, his uniform was pieced together by his mother and sister, the first official game for the university was played on October 11,1890, when the Allegheny Athletic Associations opponent, Shadyside Academy, failed to appear for its game at Exposition Park. Allegheny A. A. called Smyers who brought the WUP team as a replacement, in an inglorious start to Pitt football history, WUP was defeated 38–0. Smyers team next faced Washington and Jefferson College, losing 32–0, the following season saw the university collect more losses en route to a 2–5 record. Smyers suffered a nose in a 40–6 loss to Washington and Jefferson. Perhaps the most important development for the season of football was Smyers recruitment of Joseph Trees from Normal University of Pennsylvania. The 210 pound Trees became WUPs first subsidized athlete and, later in life, made millions in the oil industry and became an important benefactor for the university and athletic department. Today, Trees Hall, a facility on the University of Pittsburghs main campus in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. The first winning record for the university came in the season of competition in 1892. The following season in 1893, the team had its first official coach, Anson F. Harrold, who led the team to an unremarkable 1–4 record. However, during that season the first contest was played in what would become a 96-game series versus Penn State, in 1895, the school suffered a 1–6 season under coach J. P. Linn. The 1895 season was notable for the first Backyard Brawl on October 26,1895, with WUP losing to West Virginia 8–0 in Wheeling, the university did not see another winning season until Fred Robinson led WUP to a 5–2–1 record in 1898. In 1899, Robinson continued his success with a 3–1–1 record and this was followed by two more consecutive winning seasons, including a record seven-win season in 1901 under coach Wilbur Hockensmith. That season, Hockensmith led the school to its first victory over West Virginia, in the early years of the 20th century, interest in college football grew both in Pittsburgh and throughout the nation. In 1903, Arthur St. Leger Texas Mosse was hired away from the University of Kansas, other players were recruited from surrounding Western Pennsylvania colleges, including star half back Joseph H. Thompson
6.
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium
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Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, popularly known as The Swamp, is the football stadium for the University of Florida and the home field of the universitys Florida Gators football team. It is located on the universitys Gainesville, Florida campus, the stadium was originally built in 1930, and has been regularly expanded, renovated and improved since then. It is the 12th largest stadium in American college football, as measured by its seating capacity of 88,548 – though it has often held in excess of 90,000 for the Gators home football games. The stadium is located on the edge of the University of Florida campus near the center of Gainesville. The stadium and its approach are bordered by West University Avenue on the side, Gale Lemerand Drive on the west. Just west of the stadium across Gale Lemerand Drive is the Stephen C, OConnell Center, which is the home arena for the Florida Gators mens basketball, womens basketball, gymnastics, volleyball, and swimming and diving teams. Just beyond the OConnell Center are the teams practice facilities and Alfred A. McKethan Stadium. Prior to the 2015 Season a new practice facility was added just north of the baseball field. However, the surface remained Florida Field, and the facilitys full name was Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at Florida Field from 1990 until 2016. On September 3,2016, the surface was renamed in honor of former Florida quarterback. As UF athletic director Jeremy Foley explained, Coach Spurrier did more than win a Heisman Trophy, a championship. Coach Spurrier changed the culture of Florida athletics, as a result, the facilitys official name is now Steve Spurrier-Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The facility may be best known as simply The Swamp, a nickname which was coined by Spurrier in the early 1990s, in describing Floridas home-field advantage, Spurrier noted that a swamp is where Gators live. We feel comfortable there, but we hope our opponents feel tentative, a swamp is hot and sticky and can be dangerous. Both the nickname and the only Gators get out alive tagline quickly became popular and have commonly used ever since. The university built a field in the summer of 1911. A grove of trees along University Avenue was cleared and leveled, a single bank of low wooden bleachers were built. Larger bleachers were installed by 1915, when the facility was rechristened Fleming Field in honor of former Florida governor Francis P. Fleming
7.
Rose Bowl Game
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The Rose Bowl Game is an annual American college football bowl game, usually played on January 1 at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California. When New Years Day falls on a Sunday, the game is played on Monday, the Rose Bowl is nicknamed The Granddaddy of Them All because it is the oldest bowl game. It was first played in 1902, and has played annually since 1916. Since 1945, it has been the highest attended college football bowl game and it is a part of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Associations Americas New Year Celebration, which also includes the historic Rose Parade. Beginning with the 2015 game, the name for sponsorship reasons is the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual. Vizio was the sponsor from 2012, prior sponsors included AT&T, Sony. In 2015, the game was officially known as the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual. In 2002 and 2006, under the Bowl Championship Series system, the Rose Bowl was designated as its championship game, beginning in 2015, the Rose Bowl has been part of the College Football Playoff system and hosts one of its semi-final games every three years. During non-Playoff years, the Rose Bowl reverts to a Pac-12/Big Ten matchup, originally titled the Tournament East–West football game, the first Rose Bowl was played on January 1,1902, starting the tradition of New Years Day bowl games. The football game was added in 1902 to help fund the cost of the Rose Parade, the inaugural game featured Fielding H. Michigan finished the season 11–0 and was crowned the national champion, yost had been Stanfords coach the previous year. The game was so lopsided that for the next 13 years, the Tournament of Roses officials ran chariot races, ostrich races, and other various events instead of football. But, on New Years Day 1916 football returned to stay as The State College of Washington defeated Brown University in the first annual Rose Bowl with that explicit name. Tournament Park was determined to be unsuitable for the larger and larger crowds gathering to watch the game, the Rose Bowl stadium, designed after the Yale Bowl in New Haven, then hosted the first Rose Bowl game in 1923. The name of the stadium was alternatively Tournament of Roses Stadium or Tournament of Roses Bowl, the stadium seating has been reconfigured several times since its original construction in 1922. For many years, the Rose Bowl stadium had the largest football stadium capacity in the United States, the maximum stated seating capacity was 104,594 from 1972 to 1997. Capacity was lowered following the 1998 Rose Bowl, the 2006 Rose Bowl game, which was also the BCS championship game, had a crowd of 93,986, and a crowd of 94,118 saw the 2011 Rose Bowl game between TCU and Wisconsin. The Rose Bowl is also the only BCS bowl game that is held in a non-NFL stadium. S, during the last two years of World War I, teams from military bases met in the Rose Bowl
8.
Pac-12 Conference
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The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that operates in the Western United States. It participates in 22 NCAA sports in the NCAAs Division I, its teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The conferences 12 members are located in Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Utah and they include each states flagship public university, four additional public universities, and two private research universities. It became the Pac-12 in 2011 with the addition of the University of Colorado, with Arizona States softball title in 2011, the conference won its 400th NCAA Championship. The current commissioner of the conference is Larry Scott, Scott replaced Thomas C, hansen, who retired in July 2009 after 26 years in that position. Prior to joining the Pac-10, Scott was Chairman and CEO of the Womens Tennis Association, the Pac-12 has twelve full member institutions. Football currently is the sport where the conference is divided evenly into two geographic divisions, the North Division and the South Division. The Pac-12 spans six states in the Western United States, Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. Unusual for a conference, the Pac-12s members are spread evenly between 3 regions, with 4 schools each in California, the Pacific Northwest, and the Four Corners region. The Pac-12 has four affiliate member institutions, three in California and Boise State University in Idaho, the school will maintain its Pac-12 affiliation in wrestling, which the WAC does not sponsor. No school has left the Pac-12 since its founding as the AAWU in 1959, two members of the PCC were not invited to join the AAWU or its successors. As private schools, Stanford and USC are not obligated to publish employees salaries, Eight of the twelve member schools are members of the Association of American Universities, including all of the conferences California schools. The only FBS conference with more AAU members is the Big Ten with 13 out of 14 member institutions having AAU membership, in 2014, of the twelve member schools, nine were ranked in the top 100 universities in the world. Total revenue includes ticket sales, contributions and donations, rights/licensing, student fees, school funds and all sources including TV income, camp income, food. Updated to show institutional reporting to the Department of Education as shown on the DOE Equity in Athletics website for the 2013-14 academic year, the national ranking of revenue is based on 2075 institutions reporting to the Department of Education that year. The roots of the Pac-12 Conference go back to December 2,1915, charter members were the University of California, the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and Oregon Agricultural College. The conference began play in 1916, one year later, Washington State College joined the league, followed by Stanford University in 1918. In 1922, the PCC expanded to eight teams with the admission of USC, Montana joined the Conference in 1924, and in 1928, the PCC grew to 10 members with the addition of UCLA
9.
Bowl Championship Series
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The system was in place for the 1998 through 2013 seasons and in 2014 was replaced by the College Football Playoff. The BCS was created to end split championships and for the champion to win the title on the field between the two selected by the BCS. The system also selected match-ups for four other prestigious BCS bowl games, the ten teams selected included the conference champion from each of the six Automatic Qualifying conferences plus four others. The BCS was created by agreement by those six conferences. For the 1998 through 2005 seasons eight teams competed in four BCS bowls and it had been in place since the 1998 season. The BCS replaced the Bowl Alliance, in place from 1995 to 1997, prior to the Bowl Coalitions creation in 1992, the AP Polls number one and two teams had met in a bowl game only 8 times in 56 seasons. The APs top two teams met 13 out of the 16 seasons the BCS was in place, in the 2014 season, the BCS was discontinued and replaced by the College Football Playoff, which organizes a four-team playoff and national championship game. The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision is the only NCAA-sponsored sport without an officially organized NCAA tournament to determine its champion, instead, the postseason has historically consisted of individual bowl games. The bowl system began in 1902 with the first ever East-West game in Pasadena, California and this game was an exhibition game pitting a highly rated team from the west coast against a team from east of the Mississippi River. This was a time for a postseason game, as fans could take off work or school during this holiday period to travel to the game. In the first game, the University of Michigan Wolverines represented the east, due to the lopsided victory the game did not resume until 1916. The game was renamed the Rose Bowl in the 1920s when play shifted to the Rose Bowl stadium, by the 1930s, the Cotton Bowl Classic, Orange Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl were also held on January 1 to showcase teams from other regions of the country. By the 1940s, college football conferences began signing contracts that tied their team to a particular bowl. This system raised the possibility that the two top-ranked teams in the poll would not play each other in a bowl game. Under these circumstances, it was not uncommon to have the Coaches Poll crown a different national champion than the AP Poll and this situation arose a total of ten different seasons before BCS was formed. For example, in 1991, the University of Miami Hurricanes, since the Huskies were locked into the Rose Bowl as the Pac-10 Conference champion against Big Ten champion Michigan, they could not play then-independent Miami, who played in the Orange Bowl. Both teams won their bowl games convincingly and shared the championship, Miami winning the Associated Press poll. A split national championship has happened on occasions since then as well
10.
Fiesta Bowl
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The Fiesta Bowl is an American college football bowl game played annually at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. Between its origination in 1971 and 2006, the game was hosted in Tempe, as of November 2016, it is sponsored by PlayStation. From 1996 through the January 2014 game, Frito-Lay was the title sponsor through its Tostitos tortilla chip brand. Other previous sponsors include Sunkist and IBM, in 1998, the Fiesta Bowl became part of the Bowl Championship Series, and before 2006 every four years was the designee for the national championship game. The Fiesta Bowl was born from the Western Athletic Conferences frustrated attempts to obtain bowl invitations for its champions, in 1968 and 1969 respectively, champions Wyoming and Arizona State failed to secure any bowl selection. The next year, undefeated Arizona State was bypassed by the bowls and had to settle for an appearance in the less prestigious Peach Bowl. The Fiesta Bowl therefore initially provided a berth for the WAC champion. In its first decade of existence, the Fiesta Bowl was played in the last week of December, the 1971 inaugural game featured another top-ten Arizona State squad against top-twenty opponent Florida State. The 1974 game featured WAC champ BYU and their new coach, BYU was in control until BYUs first All-American quarterback Gary Sheide went down with a leg injury and eventually lost 16–6. By 1975, the game was able to attract Big Eight co-champion Nebraska to play undefeated Arizona State in a matchup of top-five teams. In 1977, the game was able to attract a top-five opponent in Penn State, despite WAC champion #16 BYU refusing to play in the bowl due to its being held on Sunday. In 1978, Arizona and Arizona State both joined the Pac-10 Conference and the Fiesta Bowls tie-in with the WAC ended. The game continued to attract high quality matchups, so beginning with the 1981 game the Fiesta Bowl shifted to New Years Day alongside the major bowl games—the Cotton, Orange, Sugar, and Rose. The Fiesta Bowl was the first bowl game to acquire a title sponsor when it became the Sunkist Fiesta Bowl starting with the 1986 game. A major breakthrough occurred after the 1986 season when the top two teams in the country, Miami and Penn State, agreed to play for the de facto national championship in the Fiesta Bowl. At the time, the four major bowl games granted automatic bids to their conference champions. Both Miami and Penn State were independents at that time, and were free to choose a bowl. The Fiesta Bowl won the bidding and the game was set to be played on January 2, Penn State won 14–10 over Miami, and the game drew the largest television audience in the history of college football at the time
