Portal:American football

The American Football Portal

American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with possession of the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with the ball or throwing it, while the defense, the team without possession of the ball, aims to stop the offense's advance and to take control of the ball for themselves. The offense must advance the ball at least ten yards in four downs or plays; if they fail, they turn over the football to the defense, but if they succeed, they are given a new set of four downs to continue the drive. Points are scored primarily by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.

American football evolved in the United States, originating from the sports of soccer and rugby. The first American football game was played on November 6, 1869, between two college teams, Rutgers and Princeton, using rules based on the rules of soccer at the time. A set of rule changes drawn up from 1880 onward by Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", established the snap, the line of scrimmage, eleven-player teams, and the concept of downs. Later rule changes legalized the forward pass, created the neutral zone, and specified the size and shape of the football. The sport is closely related to Canadian football, which evolved in parallel with and at the same time as the American game, although its rules were developed independently from those of Camp. Most of the features that distinguish American football from rugby and soccer are also present in Canadian football. The two sports are considered the primary variants of gridiron football.

American football is the most popular sport in the United States in terms of broadcast viewership audience. The most popular forms of the game are professional and college football, with the other major levels being high school and youth football. As of 2022^[update], nearly 1.04 million high-school athletes play the sport in the U.S., with another 81,000 college athletes in the NCAA and the NAIA. The National Football League (NFL) has one of the highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world. Its championship game, the Super Bowl, ranks among the most-watched club sporting events globally. In 2022, the league had an annual revenue of around $18.6 billion, making it the most valuable sports league in the world. Other professional and amateur leagues exist worldwide, but the sport does not have the international popularity of other American sports like baseball or basketball; the sport maintains a growing following in the rest of North America, Europe, Brazil, and Japan.

Unlike most other ball sports, like basketball, baseball, and soccer, players of American football are not expected to play both offense and defense- usually, each player is assigned to either offense or defense, not both. As such, each individual player usually only plays for, at most, about half of the game. In modern professional American football, it is very rare, although not unheard of, for players to play both offense and defense. Players who play on both sides of the ball are more common in high school and college football. (Full article...)

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Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

The 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl was a post-season college football bowl game between the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Kansas Jayhawks on January 3, 2008, at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Spread bettors favored Virginia Tech by three points, but in a game dominated by defensive and special teams play, Kansas defeated Virginia Tech 24–21. The game was part of the 2007–08 Bowl Championship Series (BCS) of the 2007 NCAA Division I FBS football season and was the concluding game of the season for both teams. This 74th edition of the Orange Bowl was televised in the United States on Fox and was watched by more than eight million viewers.

The game between the fifth-ranked ACC champion Virginia Tech Hokies and the eighth-ranked Kansas Jayhawks from the Big 12 Conference (Big 12) was played at neutral-site Dolphins Stadium. Tech served as the home team in the contest. Virginia Tech automatically qualified for the Orange Bowl by virtue of the ACC's tie-in with the bowl, while the Orange Bowl selected Kansas over West Virginia, which had been upset by then 4–7 Pittsburgh, and conference rival Missouri. Two weeks after Kansas's selection, controversy erupted when a deal was revealed to put 4th-ranked Oklahoma against Virginia Tech. The deal was vetoed by BCS commissioners, and the selection of Kansas was upheld. (Full article...)

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General images

The following are images from various American football-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A modern down indicator box is mounted on a pole and is used to mark the current line of scrimmage. The number on the marker is changed using a dial. (from Canadian football)
Image 21906 St. Louis Post-Dispatch photograph of Brad Robinson, who threw the first legal forward pass and was the sport's first triple threat (from History of American football)
Image 3Sign at the old entrance to the Pro Football Hall of Fame (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 4Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", pictured here in 1878 as the captain of the Yale University football team (from History of American football)
Image 5Montreal Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo looks down field with the ball during the 93rd Grey Cup game at BC Place. (from Canadian football)
Image 6High school football stadium in Manhattan, Kansas (from History of American football)
Image 7Morgan Athletic Club (pictured c. 1900), predecessor of the Arizona Cardinals (from History of American football)
Image 8A moment of the second game between Tufts and Harvard at College Hill, October 1875 (from History of American football)
Image 9An arena football goalpost structure featuring the rebound nets on either side of the uprights. (from Arena football)
Image 10Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium with the Hall of Fame in lower right (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 11A game between the Hamilton Tigers and the Ottawa Rough Riders, 1910 (from Canadian football)
Image 12A Native American college football team (from History of American football)
Image 13A football signed by the 1974 Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement class (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 14A college football game between Colorado State University and the Air Force Academy (from History of American football)
Image 15Diagram of a Canadian football field (from Canadian football)
Image 16Lehigh Valley Steelhawks (gold jerseys with black accents) vs. Triangle Torch (black jerseys with red and yellow accents) play an American Indoor Football game at Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, March 25, 2016 (from Arena football)
Image 17The Big Game between Stanford and California was played as rugby union from 1906 to 1914 (from History of American football)
Image 18Hanged U-shaped Continental Indoor Football League goalpost (from Arena football)
Image 19Touchdown monument outside the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in Hamilton, Ontario (from Canadian football)
Image 20The Hall is made up of several sections with display of the inductees at its heart (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 21Don Hutson in 1940. (from History of American football)
Image 22Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium, originally built for the 1978 Commonwealth Games, pictured in 2005. (from Canadian football)
Image 23A game between the 4th Canadian Armoured Division Atoms and First Canadian Army Red and Blue Bombers, in Utrecht, Netherlands, October 1945 (from Canadian football)
Image 24Original entrance to the Pro Football Hall of Fame (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 25Colorado's first football team in 1890 (from History of American football)
Image 26Jim Thorpe was the first president of the NFL. (from History of American football)
Image 27Indoor Football League (from Arena football)
Image 281902 football game between the University of Minnesota and the University of Michigan (from History of American football)
Image 29An early American football team, from the turn of the twentieth century (from History of American football)
Image 30Tom Davies of Pittsburgh runs against undefeated and unscored upon Georgia Tech in the 1918 game at Forbes Field (from History of American football)
Image 311897 Latrobe Athletic Association football team: The first entirely professional team to play an entire season. (from History of American football)
Image 32Footballs and a helmet at a Calgary Stampeders (CFL) team practice (from Canadian football)
Image 33Inside the original structure in 2008 (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 34Sewanee's 1899 "Iron Men" (from History of American football)
Image 35One of the two Harvard vs. McGill games played in 1874 (from History of American football)

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Commander in Chief's Trophy

Credit: Naval Academy Athletic Association

The Commander in Chief's Trophy is a college football rivalry traveling trophy presented annually since 1972 to the side from the United States Military Academy Black Knights, United States Naval Academy Midshipmen, and Air Force Academy Falcons to win the round-robin series played amongst the three.

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Shaughnessy as Maryland coach in 1942

Clark Daniel Shaughnessy (born Clark Daniel O'Shaughnessy; March 6, 1892 – May 15, 1970) was an American football coach and innovator. He is sometimes called the "father of the T formation" and the original founder of the forward pass, although that system had previously been used as early as the 1880s. Shaughnessy did, however, modernize the obsolescent T formation to make it once again relevant in the sport, particularly for the quarterback and the receiver positions. He employed his innovations most famously on offense, but on the defensive side of the ball as well, and he earned a reputation as a ceaseless experimenter.

Shaughnessy held head coaching positions at Tulane University, Loyola University New Orleans, the University of Chicago, Stanford University, the University of Maryland, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Hawaii, and in the National Football League with the Los Angeles Rams. Shaughnessy also served in advisory capacities with the Chicago Bears and the Washington Redskins. (Full article...)

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Calendar

2023 season: NFL • NCAA FBS (Bowl games)
Jan 8	College Football National Championship: #1 Michigan vs #2 Washington
Jan 13-15	NFL: Wild Cards
Jan 20-21	NFL: Divisional games
Jan 28	NFL: Conference games
Feb 4	NFL: Pro Bowl Games
Feb 11	NFL: Super Bowl LVIII

Selected quote

“

My thoughts just before the first real college game of my life: The honor of my race, family, and self is at stake. Everyone is expecting me to do big things. I will. My whole body and soul are to be thrown recklessly about the field tomorrow. Every time the ball is snapped, I will be trying to do more than my part.

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— Jack Trice

Iowa State College Cyclones offensive tackle, in a letter to his family one day prior to his sustaining fatal injuries in a game betwixt his team and the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers in Minneapolis, Minnesota

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