College football, Time machines, American football
College Football
College football is American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies. It was the venue through which American football first gained popularity in the United States. College football remains extremely popular today among students, alumni, and other fans of the sport.
The college football season currently begins Labor Day weekend, one week earlier than the NFL. From 1982 until 2003, the regular season was officially ushered in by the Kickoff Classic (other pre-season games such as the Eddie Robinson Classic and the Pigskin Classic have also been played). Recent NCAA rules changes have eliminated these games. The regular season continues through early December with the season's penultimate weekend holding several conference championship games and rivalry games. Starting in the 2009 season, the regular season finale, the Army-Navy Game, is one week later.
The postseason consists of a series of bowl games that showcase the top 64 college teams. Bowl games generally match two teams of similar standing from different conferences. Division I Bowl Subdivision (still widely known by its former designation of Division I-A) football is the only NCAA sport which does not decide its champion with a playoff. In the past, the unofficial national champion was determined by various polls, such as the AP Poll, Coaches Poll, and the United Press International Poll. This system was problematic because two polls often named different champions and the two highest ranked teams after the regular season were not guaranteed to meet in a bowl game.
American Football or simply "football"
American football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, and often as Gridiron or Tackle football outside North America, is a competitive team sport known for combining strategy with physical play. The objective of the game is to score points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. The ball can be advanced by carrying it (a running play) or by throwing it to a teammate (a passing play). Points can be scored in a variety of ways, including carrying the ball over the opponent's goal line, catching a pass thrown over that goal line, kicking the ball through the goal posts at the opponent's end zone, or tackling an opposing ball carrier within his end zone. The winner is the team with the most points when the time expires.
American football is closely related to Canadian football, but with significant differences. Both sports originated from rugby football. The major forms of football in the United States are collegiate football and professional football. There have been numerous major professional football leagues in the U.S.; the two currently in existence are the National Football League (NFL) and the United Football League.
The sport is also played outside the United States. National professional and collegiate leagues exist in United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Japan, Mexico, Israel, Spain, Austria, and several Pacific Island nations.
The History of American Football
Primitive forms of rugby, then all covered by the name "football", were being played in the USA as far back as the 1840s, at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, stemming partly from Americans who had been educated in English schools.[8] The history of American football can be traced to early versions of rugby football and association football (called soccer in the United States). Both games have their origins in varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, in which a ball is kicked at a goal and/or run over a line.
Walter Camp
American football resulted from several major divergences from rugby football, most notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp, considered the "Father of American Football". Among these important changes were the introduction of the line of scrimmage and of down-and-distance rules. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, game play developments by college coaches such as Eddie Cochems, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Knute Rockne, and Glenn "Pop" Warner helped take advantage of the newly introduced forward pass.
The popularity of collegiate football grew as it became the dominant version of the sport for the first half of the twentieth century. Bowl games, a college football tradition, attracted a national audience for collegiate teams. Bolstered by fierce rivalries, college football still holds widespread appeal in the US.
The origin of professional football can be traced back to 1892, with William "Pudge" Heffelfinger's $500 contract to play in a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. The first Professional "league" was the Ohio League, formed in 1903, and the first Professional Football championship game was between the Buffalo Prospects and the Canton Bulldogs in 1919. In 1920, the American Professional Football Association was formed. The first game was played in Dayton, Ohio on October 3, 1920 with the host Triangles defeating the Columbus Panhandles 14-0. The league changed its name to the National Football League (NFL) two years later, and eventually became the major league of American football. Initially a sport of Midwestern industrial towns in the United States, professional football eventually became a national phenomenon. Football's increasing popularity is usually traced to the 1958 NFL Championship Game, a contest that has been dubbed the "Greatest Game Ever Played". A rival league to the NFL, the American Football League (AFL), began play in 1960; the pressure it put on the senior league led to a merger between the two leagues and the creation of the Super Bowl, which has become the most watched television event in the United States on an annual basis.