29 Facts About NCAA football

1.

College football refers to American or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes.

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2.

Therefore, college NCAA football is generally considered to be the second tier of American and Canadian NCAA football; one step ahead of high school competition, and one step below professional competition.

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3.

On November 6,1869, Rutgers University faced Princeton University in the first game of intercollegiate NCAA football that resembled more the game of soccer than "NCAA football" as it is played today.

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4.

Harvard preferred to play a rougher version of NCAA 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.

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5.

College NCAA football expanded greatly during the last two decades of the 19th century.

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6.

Yale NCAA football starts the same year and has its first match against Columbia, the nearest college to play NCAA football.

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7.

NCAA football then used it in 1903 at Carlisle against Harvard and garnered national attention.

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8.

In 1891, the first Stanford NCAA football team was hastily organized and played a four-game season beginning in January 1892 with no official head coach.

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9.

In 1899, the Oregon NCAA football team left the state for the first time, playing the California Golden Bears in Berkeley, California.

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10.

At the time, the future of American NCAA football was very much in doubt and these schools believed that rugby union would eventually be adopted nationwide.

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11.

However, due to the perception that West Coast NCAA 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 NCAA football.

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12.

California's return to American NCAA football increased the pressure on Stanford to change back in order to maintain the rivalry.

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13.

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.

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14.

Style of NCAA 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 present.

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15.

The mass plays being now barred, skill on the NCAA football field is more in demand than mere weight and strength.

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16.

College NCAA football increased in popularity through the remainder of the 19th and early 20th century.

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17.

NCAA football lacked the authority to abolish football and was, in fact, actually a fan of the sport and wanted to preserve it.

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18.

NCAA football is credited with being the first major coach to emphasize offense over defense.

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19.

NCAA football was so famous at that point that his funeral was broadcast nationally on radio.

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20.

College NCAA football quickly became the most popular spectator sport in the South.

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21.

Several major modern college NCAA football conferences rose to prominence during this time period.

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22.

In 1952, the NCAA football claimed all television broadcasting rights for the games of its member institutions, and it alone negotiated television rights.

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23.

The Big East split into two leagues in 2013; the schools that did not play FBS NCAA football reorganized as a new non-NCAA football Big East Conference, while the FBS member schools that remained in the original structure joined with several new members and became the American Athletic Conference.

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24.

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 squad and a club or sprint squad.

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25.

Division II and Division III of the NCAA football participate in their own respective playoffs, crowning national champions at the end of the season.

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26.

Partly as a compromise between both bowl game and playoff supporters, the NCAA created the Bowl Championship Series in 1998 in order to create a definitive national championship game for college football.

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27.

The BCS system was slightly adjusted in 2006, as the NCAA football added a fifth game to the series, called the National Championship Game.

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28.

College NCAA 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.

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29.

The NCAA football 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.

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