College Football Season Ticket: The Ultimate Fan Guide
Highly anticipated games can fill stadiums with more than 100,000 screaming fans TV audiences can reach tens of millions We marvel at the agility speed and strength of the athletes We’re captivated by the unpredictable drama that can unfold during any given game There’s the unmistakable allure too of the intensity and any competition But what if we weren’t sure exactly who the winner was That used to be an issue for major college football Until the 2014 season when Ohio State beat Oregon to win the first College Football Playoff the sport crowned a surrounds tension that
a often unique and champion in frustrating way Top-level college football teams are based all around the country There’s no way every team can play all the others during the regular season So the sport long ago turned to opinion polls Instead of settling the score on the field coaches or sports reporters voted to determine the best team Whoever received the most votes was named national champion Of course this system could never last right In fact it did for many decades One reason for this was bowl games These iconic postseason games such as the Rose Bowl and Orange Bowl have long histories of their own Teams with winning records
are invited to participate Some bowl games have a great deal of prestige and tradition For example winning the Big Ten Conference and earning a berth in the Rose Bowl was and still is a big deal Bowl games also brought in a lot of money to the schools However this bowl system meant there was no guarantee that the best two teams would meet on the field That’s where the polls came in In many years polls did produce a clear national champion The Associated Press AP writers poll which was created in 1936 often agreed with the coaches poll and crowned the same team However the system also had its share of flaws
For example the two main polls didn’t always agree When this happened two teams ended the season claiming they were national champion Another problem was that until 1969 the final rankings were released before the bowl games Several times a team finished the regular season ranked No 1 only to lose a bowl game yet that team was still considered the national champ And then there was the issue of perception Was an undefeated team in a weaker conference more deserving than a one-loss team from a power conference Only the voters could decide The controversy increased through the years to the point where Congress became
