How College Football Works?

Huntergonzo

Ok so I'm new to Boards so my apologies if this topic comes up often or has only recently come up. I'm a pretty casual NFL fan, I don't follow it religiously but I do enjoy the game, I love the NFL playoffs and I have a good understanding of how the professional season is structured.

But College football remains pretty much a mystery to me, so I'll cut to the chase and ask a few questions because I'm very curious about it.

1. How do College teams pick their players, presumably it's from high schools teams but is there a draft similar to NFL? do they offer scholarships to the better players? or do players just decide to go to the bigger colleges themselves?

2. Is it very popular in America? I only ask because some of the stadiums look enormous.

3. Are all the players amateur or would there be a certain amount of under the counter payments going on?

4. How many divisions are there and when does the season start and finish?

5. How do players enter the draft, have they to declare themselves? does their team declare them? or does it automatically happen after a certain amount of time?

6. Finally and most importantly, how on earth does the season actually work? I have no idea how they choose the playoff teams (assuming there are playoffs), also what's with all the Bowl games? and do they crown a national champion?

adrian522

I'm far from an expert on all this but from my understanding I'll answer as best I can.

1. How do College teams pick their players, presumably it's from high schools teams but is there a draft similar to NFL? do they offer scholarships to the better players? or do players just decide to go to the bigger colleges themselves?

Teams go directly to High school prospects and try and recruit them. They give the best prospects scholarships. Each team has a certain amount of sports scholarships they can give each year.

2. Is it very popular in America? I only ask because some of the stadiums look enormous.

Yes in parts of America it is hugely popular.

3. Are all the players amateur or would there be a certain amount of under the counter payments going on?

It is amateur but there are also a lot of "under the table" benefits going on. These tend to be punished fairly severely when they are discovered though.

4. How many divisions are there and when does the season start and finish?

There are quite a lot of conferences, which are basically standalone competitions based a particular region. I've no idea how many there are though. Season pretty much goes September to DEcember with Bowl games after that.

5. How do players enter the draft, have they to declare themselves? does their team declare them? or does it automatically happen after a certain amount of time?

Players declare for the draft themselves. I think they need to have played for 2 years in college before they can enter the draft. There is a mximum number of seasons they can play in college too (may be 5 but I'm not sure).

6. Finally and most importantly, how on earth does the season actually work? I have no idea how they choose the playoff teams (assuming there are playoffs), also what's with all the Bowl games? and do they crown a national champion?

They had a new system last year in which the top 4 teams in the country went into a playooff system. How those teams are decided can be quite controversial as it's done via a committee I think. There are a few bowl games that are very prestigious, that are linked to particular conferences. Most of the bowl games are not that important though. It can get quite confusing, but yes they do eventually crown a champion, based off a title game.

Huntergonzo

Ok thanks very much for the response adrian522, that's certainly cleared up a number of things I was having trouble with. The committee system for picking the top 4 teams sounds very interesting, it's hard to imagine how that could be done without bias and corruption, surely they could come up with a better playoff system to declare a national champion or is it a case that College playoffs aren't all that popular in America unlike the NFL playoffs?

adrian522

Well in the NFL all the teams play 16 games, 6 within their division, play 2 other divisions etc. So it's possible to compare records.

In college some teams play a much "tougher" schedule of games, some teams play an easier schedule of games so you need some way to decide how to rank the teams.

In years past there were no playoffs and just the top 2 played against each other, which would make it very difficult if for example 4 teams went unbeaten and you have to select 2 to play for the championship. You can't just use points difference as teams with a weaker schedule would have a big advantage. So they also look at the difficulty of the games played and things like that.

It's certainly not the case that the college playoffs are unpopular, they are in fact incredibly popular games.

HigginsJ

The FBS divisions are (Division 1-A Conferences)

AAC
ACC
Big 12
Big 10
C-USA
Mid-American
Mountain West
PAC - 12
SEC
Sun Belt
FBS Independents

To give you an idea of quality the following is the breakdown of players drafted from each conference this year.

SEC (54) led all conferences with most players drafted. 2. ACC with 47; 3. Pac-12 with 39. 4 Big Ten with 35. 5. Big 12 with 25.

Huntergonzo

adrian522 wrote: »

Well in the NFL all the teams play 16 games, 6 within their division, play 2 other divisions etc. So it's possible to compare records.

In college some teams play a much "tougher" schedule of games, some teams play an easier schedule of games so you need some way to decide how to rank the teams.

In years past there were no playoffs and just the top 2 played against each other, which would make it very difficult if for example 4 teams went unbeaten and you have to select 2 to play for the championship. You can't just use points difference as teams with a weaker schedule would have a big advantage. So they also look at the difficulty of the games played and things like that.

It's certainly not the case that the college playoffs are unpopular, they are in fact incredibly popular games.

Fair enough, I can see it's quite an awkward thing to resolve if certain teams have much tougher schedules than others.

Huntergonzo

mikemac1 wrote: »

To fill time before the draft I got a book about college football. It's called The System - The Glory and Scandal of big time college football.

Covers athletic directors, coaches, recruiting, law enforcement, cheerleaders, conference finances and more.

Amazing book! http://www.amazon.com/The-System-Scandal-Big-Time-Football/dp/0345803035

Its an audio book so if you want a copy to listen on your commute I can email it somehow if tjhat would work.

Great book anyway

Ye maybe so, that would be great cheers, I just picked up Friday Night Lights recently aswell, hoping to get started on it soon, heard it's a good read to.

JaMarcusHustle

Huntergonzo wrote: »

4. How many divisions are there and when does the season start and finish?

...

6. Finally and most importantly, how on earth does the season actually work? I have no idea how they choose the playoff teams (assuming there are playoffs), also what's with all the Bowl games? and do they crown a national champion?

Just to answer these two.

Conferences:

• AAC (formerly Big East) - split into 2 divisions, Eastern and Western. 6 teams in each.
  
• ACC - split into 2 divisions, Atlantic and Coastal. 7 teams in each.
  
• Big Ten - split into 2 divisions, 7 teams in each.
  
• Big 12 - one division, 10 teams.
  
• Conference USA - split into 2 divisions, Eastern (7 teams) and Western (6 teams).
  
• Mid-American Conference (aka MAC) - split into 2 divisions, Eastern (7 teams) and Western (6 teams).
  
• Mountain West - split into 2 divisions, Mountain and West. 6 teams in each.
  
• Pac-12 - 2 divisions, Northern and Southern. 6 teams in each.
  
• Southeastern Conference (SEC) - 2 divisions, Eastern and Western. 7 teams in each.
  
• Sun Belt - one division, 11 teams.
  
• Then there are 3 independent teams who don't belong to any conference - Notre Dame, BYU and Army.

Schedule:

Most teams play 12 regular season games, or 13 if their conference has a Championship Game and they make it. Every conference with 2 divisions has a Championship Game between the winner of each division.

The 12 games are generally made up of 8 games against teams in your conference (9 games in the case of Pac-12 and Big 12, and 10 games in the case of Sun Belt). This will always include the teams in your division, and the remainder made up of teams from the other division if applicable. For Big 12 and Sun Belt, they have only one division so they all play each other.

The remainder of the games are out of conference, you can play who you like, though teams generally have agreements and these games can be scheduled up to 10 years in advance.

Bowl Games

These are reward games for the end of the season, and basically give teams a chance at silverware. Some of them have the added bonus of being in desirable, exotic locations (i.e. the Hawaii Bowl). Others don't (I'm looking at you Famous Idaho Potato Bowl). They all offer cash payouts too. There are 40 bowl games next year.

The main, prestigious bowls are the New Years Six - Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl.

Starting from last year, 2 of the New Years Six will serve as the College Football Playoffs Semi-Finals where #1 will face #4, and #2 will face #3. The two winners then play in the last game of the season, the College Football Playoff National Championship, i.e. last year the semi finals were Rose/Sugar, next year it will be Orange/Cotton and the year after it will be Fiesta/Peach.

Bowl Tie-Ins

Some Bowl Games have tie-ins. That is, certain conferences will always have a representative playing in that game. They are as follows:

• In the year that it is not serving as CFP Semi-Final, the Rose Bowl will always be between the Big Ten and Pac-12 Champions, unless one (or both) of them are in the semi-finals. If they are, replacements are picked by the commitee from the automatic qualifiers/at-large teams.
  
• In the year that it is not serving as CFP Semi-Final, the Sugar Bowl will always be between the SEC and Big 12 Champions, unless one (or both) of them are in the semi-finals. If they are, replacements are picked by the commitee from the automatic qualifiers/at-large teams.
  
• In the year that it is not serving as CFP Semi-Final, the Orange Bowl will always be between the ACC Champion and the SEC Runner-Up/Big Ten Runner-Up/Notre Dame. The latter is chosen by the committee. Replacements are picked by the committee from the automatic qualifiers/at-large teams if the automatic qualifiers aren't available (i.e. they've made the semi-finals). There's also a ridiculous add-on that Notre Dame can only be in it twice every 8 years, and the SEC/Big Ten are guaranteed 3 appearances each every 8 years, and other stipulations that I can't be bothered with.
  
• If the Orange Bowl is serving as a CFP Semi-Final, then the ACC Champion is guaranteed a place in either the Peach Bowl or Fiesta Bowl. Otherwise, these along with the Cotton Bowl have no automatic tie-ins, though a lot of the time they will consist of the spillover from the above games when CFP Semi Finals are taking place.

There are many, many, many more notes to the above which make it really difficult to grasp. Champions of the lesser conferences are guaranteed a spot if they've won a minimum of 9 games and have achieved a ranking in the top 12 in the country. I've said it before, but they pretty much throw a lot of shít at the wall, and what sticks is the schedule.

Rankings

This is where the shít hits the fan. Previously, there were a few different polls and a computer ranking system that determined the rankings on a weekly basis. At the end, #1 and #2 played each other in the Championship. This was highly controversial and highly scrutinized. So they replaced with a Playoff system. But not just any Playoff, they replaced it with a controversial and highly scrutinized playoff system. Who didn't see that coming?

All the polls are defunct now, and though you'll still see Coaches Polls, AP Polls etc. - the only one that matters is the College Football Playoff Rankings, which come out on a weekly basis beginning the last week of October. At the end, #1 - #4 go to the CFP Semi Finals. These rankings are determined by a committee of 13, which is pretty controversial as it includes the Athletic Directors of some colleges (USC, Texas Tech, Clemson etc.) and Condoleeza Rice, for some reason.

D9Male

Great post, JaMarcus. But this bit:

Big Ten - split into 2 divisions, 7 teams in each.
Big 12 - one division, 10 teams.

Holy moley.

Huntergonzo

Yes thank you very much for that JaMarcus, very comprehensive explanation of the system, but I'm going to have to take a sit down now, try and get my poor little head around it :-)

johnmcdnl

adrian522 wrote: »

5. How do players enter the draft, have they to declare themselves? does their team declare them? or does it automatically happen after a certain amount of time?

Players declare for the draft themselves. I think they need to have played for 2 years in college before they can enter the draft. There is a mximum number of seasons they can play in college too (may be 5 but I'm not sure).

The NFL has a "three year rule" meaning that players must wait at least 3 years after completing high school before entering the NFL. All of the other major sports in America, NBA, Baseball and Hockey all draft from high school though, which is one little difference about football.

This means that the earliest most players will enter the NFL is after there 3rd year in college.


Players are allowed 4 years playing in college. There is a concept called "redshirting" that allows a player to have 5 years in college.
Basically, usually in their first year at college, the team will declare a player as a Redshirt.
The player is not allowed to actually play a snap of football, but they train and whatnot with the team. This gives them an extra year of eligibility and gives them a year to learn the system, bulk up in size or whatever else in the meantime.

There is a scenario where a player can play 6 years in college too! Case Keenum for the Houston Cougars, played 6 years at Houston.

The NCAA grants a sixth year of eligibility only if a player has missed two seasons because of an injury or circumstances beyond the player's control. Keenum was granted a medical redshirt in 2006 because of a separated shoulder sustained late in his senior season in high school.

He then got injured in his senior (4th year of eligibility, 5th year in Houston) season.

Keenum was nearing several NCAA career records when he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee while attempting a tackle in a 31-13 loss at UCLA on Sept. 18. That came a week after a mild concussion in a win over UTEP.

ESPN Report

Houston reached out to the NCAA and they then agreed to let him play a 6th year as he had been injured for 2 years, i.e. circumstances out of his control. Had he chosen to be a redshirt rather than getting injured in his first year he wouldn't have been allowed this benefit, but as it was an injury that forced him out in his very first season he was given the extra year.


Naturally - this is a very very rare occurrence though - but it can happen!




The opposite end of the spectrum is a player who was a Redshirt, then players 2 years on the team and then declares for the NFL (Johnny Manziel). He may only have played 2 years of college football - but as he redshirted, he was still 3 years out of high school before entering the draft.

slimpickens

Huntergonzo wrote: »

3. Are all the players amateur or would there be a certain amount of under the counter payments going on?

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/4/10/5594348/college-football-bag-man-interview

jack presley

adrian522 wrote: »

5. How do players enter the draft, have they to declare themselves? does their team declare them? or does it automatically happen after a certain amount of time?

Players declare for the draft themselves. I think they need to have played for 2 years in college before they can enter the draft. There is a mximum number of seasons they can play in college too (may be 5 but I'm not sure).

You need to be three years out of high school (or 3 years past the year your class would have graduated if you're home schooled or left early) before you can enter the draft.

And you can only play 4 seasons of college sports which in most cases must be across a 5 year timeframe. There is the odd exception made for players to have their 4th year of playing in their 6th year of college, e.g. for exceptional medical reasons etc.

A lot of players take what is called a 'redshirt' year where they practice with the team but don't play in a game so they use up one of their 5 years that they can be on the team but they maintain their 4 years of eligibility where they can actually play


EDIT - Ignore as I see John above answered this already (and answered it better too)

jack presley

Huntergonzo wrote: »

2. Is it very popular in America? I only ask because some of the stadiums look enormous.

Down south, college football is more popular than the NFL especially in states that don't have NFL teams. And even in states like Georgia, Tennessee whose teams are 'relatively' new I'd say college ball is more popular. And you could argue that the college teams in Florida and LSU in Louisiana are more popular than the pro teams in those states.

slimpickens

Map of most supported College Football teams.

slimpickens

This is really cool.
You can see where the highest rated recruits from 2002 to 2014 came from and where they went.
You can pick any year, or combo of years and choose the rating designation of recruits.

http://www.cornnation.com/2014/2/12/5404912/college-football-recruits-2002-2014-map-location

jack presley

slimpickens wrote: »

Map of most supported College Football teams.

I know they're hated as much as they're loved but I would have thought Notre Dame's area of influence would have spread further than the immediate area around South Bend

Huntergonzo

jack presley wrote: »

Down south, college football is more popular than the NFL especially in states that don't have NFL teams. And even in states like Georgia, Tennessee whose teams are 'relatively' new I'd say college ball is more popular. And you could argue that the college teams in Florida and LSU in Louisiana are more popular than the pro teams in those states.

That's pretty impressive, how did college football become so popular, I mean from an outsider point of view and someone who doesn't know much about american football, CF is essentially just an amateur game where you don't have your players for too long, so it doesn't seem natural that it would be more popular than NFL, which is appears to be in many places.

Now that isn't meant to be a slight on CF at all it's just how a layman may interpret it, so I'm pretty impressed with how popular CF is, is it actually good quality to watch though?

Realt Dearg Sec

jack presley wrote: »

I know they're hated as much as they're loved but I would have thought Notre Dame's area of influence would have spread further than the immediate area around South Bend

They have supporters everywhere but aren't the most popular anywhere else. In southern Ohio and northern Kentucky, where it was all Ohio state, I always saw lads of nd gear on sale as well. It's like packers, they just have loads of fans everywhere.

jack presley

Huntergonzo wrote: »

That's pretty impressive, how did college football become so popular, I mean from an outsider point of view and someone who doesn't know much about american football, CF is essentially just an amateur game where you don't have your players for too long, so it doesn't seem natural that it would be more popular than NFL, which is appears to be in many places.

Now that isn't meant to be a slight on CF at all it's just how a layman may interpret it, so I'm pretty impressed with how popular CF is, is it actually good quality to watch though?

Don't take my word about CF popularity in the south as gospel though. It's just my opinion and could be way off the mark.

The reasons for it's popularity are historical though. College football has much more tradition and has been going for much longer. The Dolphins are only around since the mid 60s, the Saints since

jack presley

Huntergonzo wrote: »

That's pretty impressive, how did college football become so popular, I mean from an outsider point of view and someone who doesn't know much about american football, CF is essentially just an amateur game where you don't have your players for too long, so it doesn't seem natural that it would be more popular than NFL, which is appears to be in many places.

Now that isn't meant to be a slight on CF at all it's just how a layman may interpret it, so I'm pretty impressed with how popular CF is, is it actually good quality to watch though?

Don't take my word about CF popularity in the south as gospel though. It's just my opinion and could be way off the mark.

The reasons for it's popularity are historical though. College football has much more tradition and has been going for much longer. The Dolphins, Saints and Falcons are only around since the mid 60s so before that all they had in those areas were college teams.

Realt Dearg Sec

Huntergonzo wrote: »

That's pretty impressive, how did college football become so popular, I mean from an outsider point of view and someone who doesn't know much about american football, CF is essentially just an amateur game where you don't have your players for too long, so it doesn't seem natural that it would be more popular than NFL, which is appears to be in many places.

Now that isn't meant to be a slight on CF at all it's just how a layman may interpret it, so I'm pretty impressed with how popular CF is, is it actually good quality to watch though?

It's very exciting, there's loss more crazy stuff in a game than in nfl, for various reasons. The crowds at the games are mad too, lots of colleges have crazy traditions and things, it's bananas. The "feel" if watching a college game is totally different. Hard to explain why.

Dodge

jack presley wrote: »

I know they're hated as much as they're loved but I would have thought Notre Dame's area of influence would have spread further than the immediate area around South Bend

It does, but they're spread around the world. Being the only team with a national network TV deal has helped (and kinda proves they're still a big deal, even without much recent success)

jack presley

Like anything, college football when it's good it's good but it can be very poor as well. My big issue is that there are too many blowouts. A top ranked team will play a lot of patsies and hammer them 67-7 or something and there are too many of those games for my liking.

But as I said, a good tight game between two top teams is nearly as good as watching any NFL game in my opinion.

slimpickens

But there are so many games you don't have to watch the turkey shoots.

I love the hatred between the big rivals. Especially the way they go off on other schools when a big player is arrested or in trouble (as happens regularly). They must know full well that their schools turn is possibly coming the next week.

D9Male

This thread is really, interesting, thanks all.

What is the best way to watch the games over here? I wouldn't mind watching a few of the big games next winter.

JaMarcusHustle

D9Male wrote: »

This thread is really, interesting, thanks all.

What is the best way to watch the games over here? I wouldn't mind watching a few of the big games next winter.

ESPN and BT Sports as part of Sky/UPC Sports packages show games every Thursday/Saturday (and later in the season once games start occuring on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays).

There's also ESPN Player, which is sort of like Game Pass except it doesn't show all the games. It will only show games that the American ESPN channels have license to show (so you'll often miss the bigger games that are on Fox, SEC Network etc). But there's still a great selection and it'll add maybe 15/20 games for you to choose from every Saturday.

D9Male

Brilliant, that is good to know.

I am going to re-organise my sports subscriptions shortly.

At present, I have Sky Sports, Eurosport and nothing else. I was considering cancelling Sky Sports, getting NFL Game Pass and keeping Eurosport (I watch loads of cycling), but I might need to have a look at ESPN and see what makes sense.

Saturday evenings would work for me.

slimpickens

D9Male wrote: »

This thread is really, interesting, thanks all.

What is the best way to watch the games over here? I wouldn't mind watching a few of the big games next winter.

If you are going to watch Alabama v Auburn, watch this first:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6nWHtpa50

JaMarcusHustle

D9Male wrote: »

Brilliant, that is good to know.

I am going to re-organise my sports subscriptions shortly.

At present, I have Sky Sports, Eurosport and nothing else. I was considering cancelling Sky Sports, getting NFL Game Pass and keeping Eurosport (I watch loads of cycling), but I might need to have a look at ESPN and see what makes sense.

Saturday evenings would work for me.

I did that before, and I also wanted them in HD, but it was costing me well over €100 a month to get all the sports channels in HD and to be honest, it was just too much.

Thankfully, there are other ways to get every channel (HD and PPV included) either UPC or Sky have to offer for a lot cheaper if you know the right people

D9Male

I'll be doing it by the book. NFL and darts aside, I am not sure how much I will miss Sky Sports.