Hi iam a Aussie who is a huge NFL fan i watch all the games on ESPN and follow it on the Net, and i am a hardcore Madden Fan. But i still can't understand the College football system. It seems that their is ranke divisions e.g. division 1 A, Division 1 AA, Division 2, and division 3. what i don't understand is are these divisions ranked in that order like English premier league soccer? if so is it possible to get promoted / demoted from a particular division?
Secondly, as i gather that Division 1 A is the highest division, how do the different comps work e.g. Big ten, Big 12, SEC etc... are these competions basicly like the NFL Divisions where you have Dallas, NY, Phillie, and Washington in one division all competing against each other to make the playoffs? Or are they competiotions within themselves?
Lastly What is with the numerous "Bowls" e.g. Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl, and orange Bowls etc? are these actual chapionship games? how do you know who is beter if they don't even get a chance to play each other e.g. Florida Hurricanes or Oaklahoma?
how do you know who is beter if they don't even get a chance to play each other e.g. Florida Hurricanes or Oaklahoma?
Ahhh... good question.
As for our divisions (1-A, etc), those are determined primarily by size. If you have a student body that is small, you'll belong to a smaller division. The BIG schools are pretty much all 1-A. It is theoritically possible to move up, but rarely happens.
The conferences started out long ago as regional things. The SEC, or Southeastern Conference, was composed of team from the southeastern United States. The Pac-10, or Pacific Ten, was composed of ten teams from the Pacific coast. They still hold pretty much true today, but exceptions are being made. The Big Ten is eleven schools scattered from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania. Go figure.
The Bowl games are post-season games. You have to qualify to get to one, but qualifying for some bowls is just not having a losing record. You have a lower tier set of bowls that invite mediocre teams to play in a mediocre game. The Humanitarian Bowl comes to mind. The 'Big' Bowls normally have some kind of impact to the season. College football has what is called the BCS, or Bowl Championship Series, where a computer takes many multiples and spits out the top teams. (Multiples like strength of schedule, strength of opponets schedule, common opponets win / loss record, home wins, etc). At the end of the season, the teams ranked #1 and #2, as ranked by the BCS computers, play each other in one of the BCS Bowls, the Sugar, Orange, etc, for the National Championship. But sometimes, the computer will rank the teams weird. A computer can't distinguish a loss early in the season when you had a few injuries to a team that wasn't very good at the time from a loss late in the year to a very good team. Let's say Miami, usually a very good team, lost their starting QB for a few games. They travel up north and play a so-so team that has a losing record. But due to the weather and the injury, they lose. The BCS computers will show that as a loss to a team with a losing record and severly penalize Miami, while us humans will see it somewhat differently and will give Miami the benefit of the doubt. And say Miaimi was undefeated and it was their last game. The computers may knock them to #3 and they won't be able to play in the Championship game because of it.
Us humans, a lot of us anyhow, have been clamoring for a play-off format, but the powers-that-be se the BCS and the hundreds of meaningless bowl games as a better way to make $$$ and thus a better system.
I hope that helps. I'm sure someone will chip in what I may have missed or screwed up. But thats the basics...
Its rare for a 1st round pick to come from a division 2 school. They mostly come from division 1-A schools because of more exposure and because the level of play is higher than at division 2 school
As for the bowl format I know the answer but can't properly explain it so I will wait till Harty comes back on to answer that part.
each bowl has a "purse" or money and some bowls have bigger purses i.e. the sugar or orange bowl might have a purse of $11 million as compared to the humanitarin bowl that might have a purse of $600,000, so you basically are aiming to get into a bowl game that has a bigger purse, with more money. so they arent really ranked but we can distinguish which bowls are better than others. Hopefully that helps somewhat. Like Pmoney said, we will wait for harty
But other than the BSC Championship game I thought they the people who host the bowl get to pick who they want in it of course theirs an order of who picks firts and its by money and they pick who ever will is more popular in that region to get the most out of ticket sales
but that now raises two more questions, are the bowls ranked in any order? or are theyjust four championship bowls for say north east, south east etc?
And also is it common for firdt round draft picks to come out of Sivision 1 -AA or division 2 etc, or are they all basicly from division 1 - A
Bowls aren't really 'ranked', but some are more important than others. There are currently four BCS Bowls, the Nokia Sugar Bowl (in New Orleans, LA), the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl (in Tempe, AZ), the FedEx Orange Bowl (in Miami, FL) and the Rose Bowl (in Pasadena, CA). Note that they all have sponsors except for the Rose Bowl. The BCS Championship game rotates between the four. The other three will host teams ranked 3-8. On a side note, the BCS agreed last month that the bowl hosting the National Championship Game will also host it's traditional match-up a week before the championship game. Traditional match-ups are old school games that the bowls USED to host before the BCS got involved. (The Rose Bowl traditional hosted the Big Ten-Pac Ten champions, the Sugar Bowl would host the SEC champ plus another team, etc, but that all went away when the BCS got involved...). Saying that, I have probably just confused you. But thats what the BCS does. Confuse us... Suffice to say, one of the four bowls listed above will host the Championship game, the other three will host teams 3-8. And every year it rotates.
As for the second questions, it was answered quite well above. The top picks usually come from 1-A schools. The better high school players will normally go to the top (1-A) colleges and thus the best players will come from there. Also, exposure plays a big part. Also, level of competition. If a guy is AWESOME at a small school, experts may think he is so good because he is playing against weaker competition. And even is he IS that good, a lot od people don't hear about him.
But other than the BSC Championship game I thought they the people who host the bowl get to pick who they want in it of course theirs an order of who picks firts and its by money and they pick who ever will is more popular in that region to get the most out of ticket sales
thats true but if you play a pretty tough schedule and go undefeated or just lose 1, most likely and hopefully you chosen by something other than teh humanitarain bowl
and noddy harty said it all the BCS does is confuse, whch is true, no one really understands it
Thanks heaps guys i now have a better understanding of how it all works, if that is possible! it sounds like the BCS make things very confusing. Isn't there a big outcry for a more simplified system?
Also has their ever been any first round picks to come out of the lower division Colleges that spring to mind? perhaps one that may now be a NFL starter?
Thanks heaps guys i now have a better understanding of how it all works, if that is possible! it sounds like the BCS make things very confusing. Isn't there a big outcry for a more simplified system?
Also has their ever been any first round picks to come out of the lower division Colleges that spring to mind? perhaps one that may now be a NFL starter?
Randy Moss and Chad Pennington were at Marshall and they were a Division AA school in their junior years, but then the team was so good that they got moved up into Division A for football.
Some guy named Jerry Rice springs to mind... and a guy named Walter Payton... also, Steve McNair... I'm sure I'm missing some.
As far as the BCS system, I hate it. I would really like to see a play-off system implemented. Maybe just 16 teams. Single elimination. There would be 15 Bowl games with the Championship rotated yearly, somewhat like the BCS has it now. The 16 teams would work a lot like the NCAA basketball tourny. The conferences would all send their champs (there are 12 conferences). That would leave four open invitation spots for the other teams that had good seasons, but couldn't win the conference championship, or for the four independent schools (Notre Dame comes to mind). These four open invite teams would give the 'power conferences' (SEC with 12 teams, Big 12 with 12) to have possibly two representatives. I can't see why they wouldn't do this. It makes sense to me... Anyone?
it makes sense but what hppens when you have the Big 12, that might have oklahoma win it, then texas gets teh invitational spot, what happens to kansas state and oklahoma state that may have been ranked higher than other teams that got it. secondly of those 12 conferences some dont have top 25 teams so you may have a 50 seed from 1 conference get in where as a #9 seed may not make it. and lastly some star players may not want to play 3 extra games (if there team was one headed to the championship) because of injuries i do agree with you on one front, they do need a playoof system but it needs to be fair also. but that may be hard to do becaause if you inclued all the top teams which is what i would like some conferences would not be represented and if you expanded it to more games there would simply be just too many games, so I think we my be stuck wiath the BCS for awhile........
Suffice to say, one of the four bowls listed above will host the Championship game, the other three will host teams 3-8. And every year it rotates.
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