Girl’s Guide to College Football Basics

Posted by Stiletto Jen 1,507 views

The 2009-10 college football season is well under way! I’ve already given you 13 Reasons Why You Should Watch College Football, now we are going to start breaking down how to watch it!

Before we being I recommend reading older posts such as:

Those pieces are awesome refreshers on the basics of all football–including college! Also, don’t forget to check out The 7 Differences Between NFL and College Football (coming tomorrow!) which is a great supplement to this post. There I really break down a lot of key elements to college football.

College Football Basics

The Team

There are two teams in each game: Home & Visitor.
Each team is allowed 11 players on the field at a given time
The teams are actually comprised of 46 players
Teams are allowed to substitute players pretty much whenever they want—and as many as they want! They can change their whole field as long as they do it in the time allowed. Sometimes all 46 players play in a game!

The Players

Offense: The guys running down the field with the football trying to score points.
Defense: The guys trying to kill stop the offense from scoring.
Special Teams: More about these guys a little bit later.

-Each team alternates between Offense and Defense. This changes when

- A goal is scored (touchdown or field goal)
- There is fumble and other team takes possession of the football
- The quarter ends
- There is a pass interception (wrong team caught the ball!)
- The team failed to do what it needed to do in its allowed four tries and they have to kick the ball back to the other team. Very sad.

The Game

is broken down into four 15 minute quarters. However, it’s not just your imagination that they drag on forever. In football math: 4 x 15 minutes = 3 hours
After the second quarter there is a half-time intermission.
If the game is tied after all four quarters, the game goes into Overtime (we’ll go more in depth on this in the 7 differences Between NFL & College post)

The Season

The Regular Season begins Labor Day Weekend, one weekend earlier than the NFL
The teams are allowed to schedule up to 12 regular games a season
Although games take place all week long, the high profile/highly anticipated match-ups take place mostly on Saturdays.
The college season post-season is not a tournament or playoff like most other sports. Instead, they use “bowl games” to showcase the top 64 teams in the country. The bowl games match the best ranked teams from different conferences. (See A Girl’s Guide to the Bowls: Super, Rose, Orange…Cereal for more on the bowls!)

Obviously there is a lot more to college football than what’s listed above, but I’m going to direct you back to the links at the top of the page because they contain tons of vital into about the objective of the game, what player/position does what, how scoring works and what the heck the yellow flag on the field is all about!

Additional Key Terms to Know:

Red Shirt Freshman vs. True Freshman
You will hear those terms a lot during a college game and I was always perplexed by it. A “red shirt” freshman means the player is actually in his second year in college but during his first year, he only practiced with the team, he didn’t play in the games.

Why? In the NCAA you only have four years of eligibility. Players “red shirt” to gain a year of experience with the team: learning the plays, bonding with players and coaches, and developing from high school star to college player, without wasting a year of eligibility.
A true freshman means they start right playing in the games right out of high school in their freshman year. True Freshmen college quarterbacks are extremely rare and coveted.

A walk-on player
If a player is not receiving a scholarship to play football, he is considered a walk-on.

Questions about college football? Shoot us an email and we’ll find the answer for you!