College football is an American love affair that can confuse foreigners. Here’s a beginner’s guide to condoms, bowls, and more
There are 124 teams in the FBS, divided into 11 conferences – Notre Dame, Brigham Young University, Army and Navy are the only four schools in the FBS not affiliated with a conference. Six of those 11 leagues – the Southeastern Conference, Big XII, Big 10, Pac-12, Big East and Atlantic Coast Conference – are considered major.
The Southeastern Conference or SEC is made up largely of public institutions from the old federation. It has earned a reputation as the best football conference in the country, thanks to a member institution winning national championships in each of the past six seasons.
The Big XII is primarily based in the Great Plains states and Texas – the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns are its traditional powers. The league, while still a powerhouse, has lost four members in the past two years to other conferences, while adding only two schools, hence the discrepancy between the conference’s name and its membership. its pellets.
The Big 10, the nation’s oldest conference, gathers primarily major land-grant institutions from the upper Midwest, with Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska and Penn State representing the top programs. Known as the Big 10 since 1917, the conference has retained that name despite the additions of Penn State in 1993 and Nebraska in 2011.
The Pac-12 includes schools from the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain regions – Southern Cal, Oregon and Stanford lead the way. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) stretches from Boston College in the north to Miami in the south, with Miami, Virginia Tech and Florida State claiming top honors. Finally, the Big East — which will soon include teams as far away as San Diego — has been home to major college programs along the East Coast. Recent defections have turned it into a major conference in name only.
No school outside of these six conferences has ever played for a national championship during the era of the Bowl Championship Series, which began in 1998 when these six conferences and Notre Dame formed an alliance, intended to create a national championship. real national champion.
How are champions determined?
The goal of each team is to finish the regular season in first or second place in the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) standings and thus be selected to play in the BCS national championship game. During the regular season, teams play the majority of their games against other members of their conference (the Big XII and Pac-12 play nine conference games each season while the ACC, SEC, and Big 10 play eight. Teams in the Big East, which has only eight football members, can only play seven games against their league opponents.)
At the end of each regular season, a conference champion is crowned. In the case of the Pac-12, Big 10, SEC and ACC, the champion is determined in a winner-take-all tournament championship game. The Big XII and Big East championships are awarded to the team with the best record in regular season intramural games.