Football

B

Heisman Trophy and Other Awards

After each college season, the Downtown Athletic Club of New York City presents the Heisman Trophy to the top college football player in the United States. Four players are nominated for the award, and a poll of sportswriters determines the winner. The award is named after John William Heisman, an outstanding early college football coach. The trophy was first awarded in 1935, and although any position player can win it, the Heisman winner is usually a quarterback, running back, or wide receiver. Winners of the Heisman Trophy who went on to excel in professional football include Paul Hornung, Roger Staubach, Earl Campbell, Vinny Testaverde, Tim Brown, and Eddie George.

Several other awards are given to the nation’s best player at specific positions. These include the Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award for the best lineman, the Butkus Award for the best linebacker, and the Thorpe Award for the best defensive back.

C

Bowl Games and National Championship

College teams generally play 11 or 12 games during the fall. The best college teams are awarded trips to so-called bowl games, which match outstanding teams in specially arranged contests. The tradition began in 1902 at Pasadena, California, when Stanford University invited the University of Michigan to come to California for a New Year’s Day contest. This event soon became the celebrated Rose Bowl game. Today, hundreds of thousands of fans travel to bowl games to watch their favorite teams play. In addition to the Rose Bowl, notable bowl games include the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas; the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona; the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida; and the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, Louisiana. Major corporations now sponsor many of the bowls. Most are televised live to large audiences.

The top division of college football remains the only level of any NCAA sport that does not have a national championship tournament. The lucrative bowl system has been the biggest impediment to adopting a championship tournament like those held for lower-division NCAA football and other sports. Before the 1998 college season, the champion college team was selected by national polls of coaches and sportswriters. During some years, several teams posted similar win-loss records, causing debates over which team should be crowned the national champion.

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In 1998 the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was instituted to determine the Division I national champion. The BCS involves using computer programs and other more traditional polls to determine the best teams. The top two teams are placed in the “national championship game,” which rotated among the major bowls from 1999 until 2007. In 2007 the BCS National Championship Bowl was instituted rather than rotating the national championship game among the various major bowls. However, college football fans still debate whether the system fairly selects the national champion.

VIII

Professional Competition

The major professional league in the world is the National Football League (NFL). Over the years, however, several other leagues have formed in North America and Europe, playing regulation football or a modified version of the sport.

A

National Football League

The NFL consists of 32 teams that are divided into two conferences: the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC), each of which has four divisions. The NFL season is played during the late summer, through autumn, and into January. Professional teams play 4 exhibition games, followed by 16 regular-season games. Teams play one game each week, using the time between games to recover, practice, and prepare for the next game. Each team receives one week without a game, known as a bye, during the season.

At the end of the regular season, each conference holds separate playoff games to determine the conference champion. The top team in each division automatically qualifies for the conference playoffs. Two additional teams in each conference, called wild cards, also qualify for playoff berths based on their win-loss record in the conference. During the first round of the playoffs, the wild-card teams play the lowest-ranked division champions. The top two division winners in each league have byes during the first round. The losers are eliminated and the winners advance to play one of the remaining division champions in the semifinals. Semifinal winners advance to the conference finals, and the winner of that game is declared the conference champion.

The Super Bowl is the final contest of the NFL’s season. This contest pits the AFC and NFC champions against each other. The Super Bowl reaches hundreds of millions of viewers around the world. The first Super Bowl took place in 1967, when there were actually two separate football leagues, the NFL and the American Football League (AFL). In this game, the Green Bay Packers of the NFL defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the AFL in what was called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The game was renamed the Super Bowl in 1969.

Every April the NFL conducts its amateur draft, in which each team can select from the best college players. To determine the draft order the NFL goes by the win-loss records of the previous season, so that teams with poorer records draft earlier than those with better records. The NFL draft consists of seven rounds. Those players not selected in the draft can be invited to try out for a team and are sometimes signed to contracts as free agents. NFL rules stipulate that no player can be drafted until he is at least three years out of high school. In 2004 this rule was challenged in a lawsuit by a former college star, Ohio State University’s Maurice Clarett, but the league prevailed and was able to keep Clarett and other young players out of the draft.

The NFL is a big business for players, owners, advertisers, and other industries tied to the sport. NFL franchises generate huge revenues for host cities, in addition to promoting civic pride and national exposure. Thus, cities often compete for teams, offering prospective teams bigger and better stadiums, guaranteed fan support, and various economic incentives. In the 1980s three NFL teams relocated: the Oakland Raiders moved from Oakland, California, to Los Angeles in 1982; the Colts moved from Baltimore, Maryland, to Indianapolis, Indiana, and became the Indianapolis Colts in 1984; and the Cardinals moved from St. Louis, Missouri, to Phoenix, Arizona, and became the Phoenix Cardinals in 1988 (later changed to Arizona Cardinals). Several other moves occurred in the 1990s. In 1995 the Los Angeles Rams became the St. Louis Rams when they moved from Los Angeles to St. Louis, and the Raiders returned to Oakland. The Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1996; the team was renamed the Baltimore Ravens. In 1997 the Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee and became the Tennessee Titans. Other teams have agreed to stay in their home cities only with the promise of new facilities.

New teams are periodically accepted into the NFL, and there is usually fierce competition among cities to be selected as the home for a new team. In 1995 two of these expansion teams began play: the Carolina Panthers, in Charlotte, North Carolina; and the Jacksonville Jaguars, in Jacksonville, Florida. A new Cleveland Browns franchise began play in 1999, and the Houston Texans joined the NFL in 2002.

B

Other Leagues

Besides the NFL, other early professional football leagues in North America included the Canadian Football League (see Football, Canadian); the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), which played from 1946 to 1949; and the American Football League (AFL), which played from 1960 to 1969. The AAFC and the AFL ceased to exist when they merged with the NFL. From 1983 to 1985 the United States Football League (USFL) tried to compete with the NFL by playing in the spring and summer, but it folded after the 1985 campaign.

In 1991 the World League of American Football was formed with the intention of fostering interest in American football and the NFL in Europe. The league had teams in European and North American cities, but suspended play after the 1992 season. It restarted in 1995 as NFL Europe, with teams only from European cities. NFL Europe has proved to be an effective training ground for prospective NFL players, offering valuable playing time that NFL teams cannot provide.

In the late 1990s the Arena Football League gained increased popularity. The league, which began play in 1987, features high-scoring indoor football on a field half the length of an NFL field, with teams of eight players each. There are several other major differences between arena football and regulation NFL football. For example, punting is not allowed—on fourth down teams must go for a first down, a touchdown, or a field goal. Also, the fields have nets set up beyond both end zones. The defensive team can play a missed field goal off the net, and the receiving team on a kickoff can do the same. In addition, a forward pass that bounces off the net is in play until it hits the ground. In the year 2000, the popularity of arena football led to the formation of Arena Football 2, an expansion league. In early 2001 a new NFL rival, the Extreme Football League (XFL), began play. This league used different rules to make the game faster paced and more exciting, but poor television ratings caused it to fold after one season.