Explaining College Football to my Dad

If my Dad (an octogenarian who prefers his sports ball to be of the round variety) ever stumbles across a college football match on Sky Sports one Saturday afternoon, I know I will get a call. He will have been looking for the football final scores and instead, discover a collection of American 21-year-olds and a marching band and want answers…this is what I would say.

The Basics

I know he has a broad idea of American Football, from 80 years on this planet, so I could jump straight into the college bit; yes, what you are watching is essentially university students playing American Football. The game rules are largely the same, apart from a few tweaks here and there. But importantly, the players are all combining study for a degree whilst playing college football. They are, in theory, amateurs although this point has been tested in recent years with the introduction of NIL (Name, Imagine and Likeness) payments opening up routes for money-earning opportunities. 

It is worth noting that most college degrees last 4 years, so the normal lifespan of a college football career will be the same (although this does on occasion end up being longer, injury etc). After this period, a player may decide to enter the draft to try and make a go of it in the NFL but many will graduate and move on to other things. 

If we are saying that college football is basically an intra-university competition then how do they structure it given there are loads of universities in America? Also it stands to reason that not all university sports programmes are created equally. 

Organisation – Acronym Salad

The first organisation to mention is the NCAA. College Football is part of the wider College sports programme overseen by the body called the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association). A lot could be said about the NCAA but amongst other things it sets the framework for college sports in the US and is the main organiser of college football. 

To keep things manageable there are three main divisions and division 1 is the division that gets most of the eyeballs and discussion. That is divided into; the FBS which is the top tier of divisions and the FCS which forms a second tier. The FBS is the one that is most discussed and shown on UK TV and is where I focus my attention.

The FBS is itself then organised into several conferences: 

The Power Five

ACC

SEC

Big Ten

Big 12 

PAC-12 (now really the PAC-2 after realignment at the beginning of the season)

The Group of 5 

AAC

MAC

Conference USA

Mountain West

Sun Belt

There are three independent universities which are not part of the above structure. They are Notre Dame, UConn and UMass. 

So far so good? 

Fixture Lists

Ok, well given the above divisions how do they form a fixture list? 

It’s complicated.

·       It starts with the conferences and a team will normally have 8-10 games from within its conference. 

·       This will leave space for c3 non-conference games which the colleges will arrange. 

·       A lot of the big teams will have a traditional rivalry game each year i.e. Florida plays Florida State annually so that will fill one berth. 

·       The Power five will tend to organise out of conference games against other power five teams as this will improve the strength of their schedule as they get towards the playoffs, more on that in a moment.

Who is the Champion?

In a structure where we have so many conferences in the top divisions, how do we define a champion each year?

This is where the playoffs come in. There is a College Football Playoff Selection Committee and during the second half of the season ranks the top 25 teams across the conferences. This culminates in their final rankings which are used to pick the 12 teams that will compete in the playoffs.

It would stand to reason that you pick the top 12 of the 25 teams and that is your playoff bracket….but it is not quite that simple.

The 5 top ranked conference winners (which should include 1 Group of 5 conference) get an automatic place. The next 7 places are filled by the next highest-ranking teams which are referred to as qualifying “at large”. Complications can arise when one of those conference champions is ranked outside the top 12 (as we had this year with Clemson) and takes the place of a team that were ranked in the top 12 (Alabama).

CFB Playoff Top 12 Rankings and Seedings

	Top 12 in final CFB rankings…….	Became the below seedings for the playoffs
1	Oregon (Big Ten Champions), 13-0	Oregon (Big Ten Champions), 13-0
2	Georgia (SEC Champions), 11-2	Georgia (SEC Champions), 11-2
3	Texas (SEC), 11-2	Boise State (Mtn West Champs), 12-1
4	Penn State (Big Ten), 11-2	Arizona State (Big 12 Champ), 11-2
5	Notre Dame (Independent), 11-1	Texas (At large), 11-2
6	Ohio State (Big Ten), 10-2	Penn State (At large), 11-2
7	Tennessee (SEC), 10-2	Notre Dame (At large), 11-1
8	Indiana (Big Ten), 11-1	Ohio State (At large),10-2
9	Boise State (Mtn West Champs), 12-1	Tennessee (At large), 10-2
10	SMU (ACC), 11-2	Indiana (At large), 11-1
11	Alabama (SEC), 9-3	SMU(At large), 11-2
12	Arizona State (Big 12 Champs), 11-2	Clemson (ACC Champs), 10-3

The CFB rankings are based on a number of factors including record and “strength of schedule” which is where the importance of good scheduling comes in. The top 4 champions will receive automatic byes for the first round.

As a side note, there are additional “Bowl games” across the conferences but we will come back to those another day.

The 12 playoff teams are organised into a bracket format based on the seedings and the final two meet in the National Championship game.

Ok, but who wants to watch a load of university kids?

Quite a lot of people. Michigan averaged over 100,000 in 2024 according to the website D1ticker.com and this is matched by a number of SEC teams. Naturally this tails off as you head down the divisions but the top end of the sport is intensely watched and supported. There is a level of loyalty and support for your college which does not seem to manifest itself in the NFL in the same way. You have the whole campus getting involved as well as the support of college bands and cheerleading squads, keeping alive the various traditions of the universities. Support is not only reflected at the stadiums either with the TV rights deals running into millions of dollars a season.

A Satisfied Octogenarian?

I would hope that summary would be enough to satisfy my Dad and allow him to settle down and watch a game (as well as subscribing to my blog…)