Tailgating, body paint and lots of smack talk. That's right- college football season is upon us again. Here's what you need to know as the year begins.
Pass the foam finger,
The Last Night's Game Team
THE FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR THE 2018 COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON
1. The Alabama Crimson Tide are the defending National Champions. They are looking good again this year, ranked #1 in the preseason polls for the third straight year. Despite being defending champions, the team doesn’t know who is going to captain the ship as they are embroiled in a quarterback controversy. OH SO SCANDALOUS….
2. ESPN College GameDay is back for its 25th season! It’s like Saturday morning cartoons for grownup sports fans. Each week, the show travels to the campus of the biggest game and does their report from there. If you’re intrigued, check it out. It’s about 70% sports and 30% screwing around- with guest stars and famous alumni. The GameDay crew will start their season off at Notre Dame for the Michigan vs. Notre Dame game. Oh and the first ever College GameDay location was at Notre Dame. COMING FULL CIRCLE
3. Teams are playing to make it to the National Championship, but at the bare minimum, they want to make it to a bowl game because that’s where the money is at. The bowl games take place in December, after the regular season, and have weird names like Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl and the Potato Bowl. Teams must have six regular season wins to qualify, unless there aren’t enough six-win teams; then an exception can be made. WHAT’S NEXT? PARTICIPATION MEDALS?
4. You’ll hear the term "power five conferences," but what does that mean? These are the top five performing conferences in the country. (Almost all teams play in a conference that creates schedules, makes rules and takes revenue.) They are the ACC (east coast teams including Duke, North Carolina, Syracuse), Big Ten (oddly made up of 14 teams), Big 12 (made up of 10 teams - makes sense), Pac-12 (think 12 west coast teams like UCLA, Arizona, Oregon) and SEC (Alabama’s conference). BUT WHO’S COUNTING?
5. It may be all about football, but really it’s all about the Benjamins. With TV contracts, sponsorships and big donors, last season there were two college athletic departments (Texas and Texas A&M) that brought in more than $200 million with 31 schools earning more than $100 million. EVERYTHING IS BIGGER IN TEXAS
THERE'S MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM
We don't have a one-track mind. Here are the top three things happening in the world of sports today to get the conversation started. READ
