Portal:College football

The College football Portal

College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur 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 U Sports for universities. The Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (for colleges) governs soccer and other sports but not gridiron football. Other countries, such as Mexico, Japan and South Korea, also host college football leagues with modest levels of support.

Unlike most other major sports in North America, no official minor league farm organizations exist for American football or Canadian football. Therefore, college football is generally considered to be the second tier of American and Canadian football; ahead of high school competition, but below professional competition. In some parts of the United States, especially the South and Midwest, college football is more popular than professional football. For much of the 20th century, college football was generally considered to be more prestigious than professional football.

As the second highest tier of gridiron football competition in the United States, many college football players later play professionally in the NFL or other leagues. The NFL draft each spring sees 224 players selected and offered a contract to play in the league, with the vast majority coming from the NCAA. Other professional leagues, such as the CFL and XFL, additionally hold their own drafts each year which see many college players selected. Players who are not selected can still attempt to obtain a professional roster spot as an undrafted free agent. Despite these opportunities, only around 1.6% of NCAA college football players end up playing professionally in the NFL. (Full article...)

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The 1966 Liberty Bowl was a post-season American college football bowl game between the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Miami Hurricanes at Memphis Memorial Stadium in Memphis, Tennessee on December 10, 1966. The game was the final contest of the 1966 college football season for both teams, and ended in a 14-7 victory for the Miami Hurricanes. A then-record 39,101 tickets were sold for the game, but due to 36-degree temperatures at game time, only 25,012 spectators attended. The game marked just the second time that Virginia Tech had played in a bowl game since the creation of the team in 1892. The game also marked the second time in each school's history that the two teams had faced each other. The previous meeting, held in 1953, ended in a 26-0 shutout victory for the Hurricanes. Current Virginia Tech head football coach and then-player Frank Beamer participated in the game as a backup cornerback for the Hokies.

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Aerial view of Harvard Stadium in Boston, in the form of a letter U with a capital H in the center of the field and the words Harvard and Crimson at either end

Yale's original mascot, Handsome Dan

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John Edmund "Jack" Fries, suited up for the 1908 Carroll College yearbook photo.

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