There's this sport that begins in September and ends around the beginning of January called **...drumroll please...** College Football! This is something that I was practically raised on, I have family in the football community and I have some of the best memories from these games. I know of a lot of people who have never even been to a college football game, which seriously baffles me. That's just so strange for me to hear because I've easily lost count as how many football games, regardless of High School, College, or NFL, I have attended. Since we are around Week 6 in College Football, putting a start to more conference games (will explain what those are later), I felt the need to write this article for those people who still have a hard time understanding the rules and regulations of college football.
The Conference
The definition from the wonderful Wikipedia is this: "An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other at the professional, collegiate, or high school level. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Conferences often, but not always, include teams from a common geographic region." Most of the conferences that are well known are the ACC, BIG10, SEC, PAC12, and so on. If you really want a list of all the conferences in the NCAA click here.
The Point System
Repeat after me: a Touchdown is six points, and an Extra-Point is just one point. A lot of people think that if a team scores a touchdown they are always going to be awarded seven points, but that is not the case. A team can opt out of making the extra-point-kick and go for a two-point-conversion to possibly get ahead of a team they might be tied up against. A touchdown is awarded to the team who can bring the football across the plane of the touchdown line for the opposite team. A player does not have to go across the line for it to count, the ball just has to graze the plane of the line. Another way to score points is if the kicker kicks the football in between the goal posts, which is called a Field Goal and the team is awarded three points. Another way to earn points is a semi-rare way, which is called a Safety. There are a couple of reasons to get a safety, but the main one that could happen is if one team tackles the other team inside that team's own goal line.
How Football Is Played
The object of the game is literally to get the football into the other team's goal line. There are many things that happen on your way to getting the football there, so lets start from the beginning. The team is given four tries, these are called Downs, to move the football 10 yards. This may seem like a simple task, but if a semi-okay Offense goes up against a very good defense, this becomes very hard. If the team is able to move the ball 10+ yards in less than four downs they are able to keep on moving closer and closer to the goal line. Most of the times if a team is not able to move the ball in three downs they will use the fourth down to punt the ball away to the other team.
Some Things That Happen On The Field
Interception: when Team A's quarterback throws the ball to his receivers, but a defender from Team B catches the ball instead
Fumble: When a RunningBack from Team A drops the ball. When this happens both Team A and Team B throw themselves on the field to hold onto the football.
Yellow "Flags" Are Thrown Onto the Field: These symbolize a foul that has happened in play. Though I will not describe all of the flags that a team is able to get, I will go over the main ones.
These include:
false starts- which are when someone on the team moves before the ball is snapped.
pass interference- when a defender shoves the intended receiver out of the way too early or makes it so the receiver is not able to attempt to catch the ball (this is a very complicated situation, that I can only notice sometimes, if you don't understand this, that's totally fine).
offsides- this is the same for most sports in this nature, but it is when a player is on the wrong side of the line of scrimmage when the ball is snapped.
