Whether you like it or not this weekend is the first full-blown weekend of college football. Hence today’s five things to know about college football.
There goes the neighborhood,
The Last Night’s Game Team
Five Things To Know About College Football
- The college football regular season consists of 12 games. There are 10 conferences that encompass most of the 128 of the top programs in college football. These 10 conferences and the four independent teams (don't belong to any league) are eligible for the national championship. The conference names are referred to in a bunch of acronyms - ACC, AAC, Big 10, Big 12, Conference USA, MWC, MAC, Pac 12, Sun Belt and SEC.
- The sport of college football is big business with some head coaches making as much if not more than NFL coaches. Sponsorships are a source of revenue and the University of Michigan recently inked a deal with Jordan, a Nike brand. The deal runs through 2027 with an option to go to 2031. If it runs its full course, the school will pocket a minimum of $173 million including $85 million in Nike apparel/products.
- The perfect cheer isn’t only reserved for Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri on Saturday Night Live. Plenty of icons once ran the sidelines. Samuel L. Jackson, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Meryl Streep and three former U.S.A. Presidents all had spirit. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the marching band. In college you would’ve found Halle Barry, Steven Spielberg, Alan Greenspan and Lionel Richie entertaining you in formation at halftime.
- You can watch a game with 100,000 of your closest friends at the biggest stadiums in college football. That’s a whole lot of foam fingers.
- University of Michigan (the Big House) 107,601
- Penn State (Beaver Stadium) 106,572
- Ohio State (The Horseshoe) 105,944
- The deep-seated passion for college football goes back generations, giving us some incredible rivalries. Rivalries are typically built on proximity and recruiting battles. Three of the biggest and longest lasting rivalries include:
- Michigan/Ohio State- The neighboring states have a fierce rivalry and two of the biggest stadiums in the country.
- Army/Navy- This game is the only game played in week 15 of the season and it is built more on tradition and respect than the other rivalries.
- Oklahoma/Texas- “Red River Rivalry” takes place in the historic Cotton Bowl during the Texas state fair. The Red River separates the two bordering states where apparently the rivalry was born.
NCAA Football (College)
- Didn’t bring their A game. ESPN made a huge deal about kicking off the college football season last week with Cal-Hawaii playing in Australia. Like Kevin in Home Alone, it appears they forgot someone. Oh yeah, the guys broadcasting the game. Turns out this isn’t the first time that ESPN didn’t fork out the dough to send the crew. They instead called the game from the ESPN HQ in Connecticut. Queue the controversy. Fans were disappointed with the broadcast’s lack of knowledge about the teams as well as the disconnect in the play-by-play.
NFL (National Football League)
- That's no good. Minnesota Vikings starting quarterback Teddy Bridgewater suffered a knee injury and initial reports say he’s out for the season. Hope he wasn’t on your fantasy football team.
Overtime
- The lineup for the next season of Dancing with the Stars has been announced and there is no shortage of high profile athletes who will be competing for the mirror ball trophy. They include:
- Laurie Hernandez aka the Human Emoji – U.S.A. Olympic gymnastics gold medalist and member of the “Final Five”
- Calvin Johnson - recently retired Detroit Lions receiver
- Ryan Lochte – U.S.A. Olympic swimming gold medalist (who allegedly agreed to do the show before the bathroom fiasco in Rio)
- James Hinchliffe – An IndyCar driver who was in a crash in May 2015 that almost killed him
The show starts on September 12 on ABC and in case those athletes didn’t entice you to watch, Vanilla Ice and Babyface are also in the lineup.
Sideline stat
- He may have held an impressive exhibition workout for 28 of 30 MLB teams but former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow has zero MLB (Major League Baseball) contract offers. He does however have offers to play in an independent league and in Venezuela.
Coaches’ corner
- Former NBA superstar and hall of famer, Shaquille “Shaq” O’Neal found a new coach - adventure and outdoor guru Bear Grylls. The two went into the wild and it was hilarious. The 7’ 1” star rappelled walls with his size 22 feet, slept under the cover of leaves and ate a very interesting dinner. If you didn’t see it, check out this clip for a Wednesday laugh.
