The College Football Championship

The College Football Championship
Author: Matt Doeden
Publisher: Millbrook Press
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2015-11-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 146778852X

In 2015, when Ohio State took on the University of Oregon in the first College Football Playoff championship game, millions of sports fans tuned in. But back in 1869, when Rutgers University and Princeton University played the first-ever college football game, no one predicted the national spectacle that a college football championship game would become. Author Matt Doeden takes readers on a journey from the disorganized games of the early years to the most recent playoffs to determine the best college team in the nation. Along the way, discover some of the most incredible moments, games, blunders, and statistics in the history of college football championships.

Who's #1?

Who's #1?
Author: Christopher J. Walsh
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2007
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN:

Walsh takes a comprehensive view of over a century of controversy in America's college football national champions, breaking teams down into one of three categories: perennial powers, contenders, and former greats. He then details the ten most controversial championships, suggests candidates for the best overall football program, and concludes with some thoughts on the future of the BCS along with a complete appendix listing national champions since 1869.

Out of the Pocket

Out of the Pocket
Author: Kirk Herbstreit
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2021-08-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1982171030

This powerfully intimate, plain-spoken memoir about fathers and sons, fortitude, and football from the face and voice of college football—Kirk Herbstreit—is not just “a window into the game, but also a peek into what makes him special: his heart” (David Shaw, head coach, Stanford University). Kirk Herbstreit is a reflection of the sport he loves, a reflection of his football-crazed home state of Ohio, where he was a high school star and Ohio State captain, and a reflection of another Ohio State football captain thirty-two years earlier: his dad Jim, who battled Alzheimer’s disease until his death in 2016. In Out of the Pocket, Herbstreit does what his father did for him: takes you inside the locker rooms, to the practice fields, to the meeting rooms, to the stadiums. Herbstreit describes how a combination of hard work, perseverance, and a little luck landed him on the set of ESPN’s iconic College GameDay show, surrounded by tens of thousands of fans who treat their Saturdays like a football Mardi Gras. He takes you into the television production meetings, on to the GameDay set, and into the broadcast booth. You’ll live his life during a football season, see the things he sees, experience every chaotic twist and turn as the year unfolds. Not to mention the relationships he’s established and the insights he’s learned from the likes of coaches and players such as Nick Saban, Tim Tebow, Dabo Swinney, and Peyton Manning, as well as his colleagues, including Chris Fowler, Rece Davis, and his “second dad,” the beloved Coach Lee Corso. Yes, Kirk Herbstreit is the undeniable face and voice of college football—but he’s also a survivor. He’s the quiet kid who withstood the collapse of his parents’ marriage. The boy who endured too many overbearing stepdads and stepmoms. The painfully shy student who always chose the last desk in the last row of the classroom. The young man who persevered through a frustrating Ohio State playing career. The new college graduate who turned down a lucrative sales job after college to pursue a “no way you’ll make it” dream career in broadcasting. Inspiring and powerful, Out of the Pocket “proves the importance of perseverance and family” (Peyton Manning).

Auburn's Unclaimed National Championships

Auburn's Unclaimed National Championships
Author: Michael C. Skotnicki
Publisher:
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2012-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9780615693682

Because major college football has never had a playoff system to produce a true champion, controversy has surrounded the issue of which team could be declared a National Champion, even as far back as the early years of the last century. The sports media and followers of college football filled that vacuum by creating polls and mathematical systems to name various teams as National Champions, even retroactively naming champions for college football's early years. Some colleges have seized every opportunity to glorify their football teams by claiming a National Championship for every year possible. An exception has been Auburn University, which has not done all it can to celebrate its success on the gridiron and officially claims a National Championship for only two seasons, 1957 and 2010. Auburn even declines to claim a National Championship for its undefeated 1913 team, although that squad is recognized as a National Champion in the Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book. Auburn's Unclaimed National Championships seeks to alter this position of the Auburn University Athletic Department and is perhaps one of the most important books ever written about the Auburn University football program. Author Michael Skotnicki argues that until a playoff system is instituted by the NCAA to establish a true major college football National Champion, multiple teams can make a legitimate claim to a National Championship and the concept of a true single National Champion for any season is mythical. Skotnicki notes that many universities have claimed National Championships for seasons where they were not named such by the two most well-know selectors, the Associated Press and the Coaches Poll, with two universities even adding retroactive National Championship claims to past seasons as recently as this year (2012). This well-researched text brings needed attention to the entire history of Auburn football and makes the case for the position that in addition to the 1957 and 2010 National Championship seasons claimed by the Auburn Athletic Department, there are seven other seasons - 1910, 1913, 1914, 1958, 1983, 1993, and 2004 - for which Auburn should be recognized as a National Champion. Skotnicki, an appellate attorney, provides a history for each of these seasons, brings them to life, and makes the case for why Auburn's claim to recognition as a National Champion for each of those years is as strong or stronger than the teams accepted as national champions in those seasons. Skotnicki argues that in only claiming two National Championship seasons, Auburn University is forsaking much of its great football history, and that it should claim a total of nine National Championships.

Unbeatable

Unbeatable
Author: Jerry Barca
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2013-08-13
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1250024838

An account of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish's unbeaten 1988 season cites the pivotal contributions of such figures as coach Lou Holtz, star quarterback Tony Rice and NFL-bound Ricky Watters, drawing on original reporting and interviews to include coverage of the infamous "Catholics vs. Convicts" game.

The Chase

The Chase
Author: Bill Rabinowitz
Publisher: Triumph Books
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2015-09-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1633193098

This inside look at an unprecedented season follows Ohio State's road to the inaugural College Football Playoff and the national championship In The Chase, Bill Rabinowitz takes readers inside Ohio State's improbable championship season, from the final moments of their 2014 Orange Bowl loss to Clemson to the championship celebration in Arizona a year later. Fans will learn how Ohio State overcame the loss of not one but two quarterbacks—gaining inside perspective behind the dynamic between Miller, J. T. Barrett, and Cardale Jones. Rabinowitz captures the mood of the team in late November following the tragic death of Kosta Karageorge, and profiles other Ohio State stars, including Joey Bosa, Michael Bennett, Ezekiel Elliott, and more.

Sports Illustrated: The College Football Book

Sports Illustrated: The College Football Book
Author: Editors of Sports Illustrated
Publisher: Sports Illustrated
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008-10-14
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9781603200332

Continuing its series of spectacular coffee-table books for the holiday season, Sports Illustrated presents The College Football Book, the ultimate gift for America's most passionate fans. SI launched this series in 2005 with The Football Book, devoted to the professional game. A New York Times best-seller that year, the book has taken root as a perennial, selling more than 200,000 copies to date. Now the editors of Sports Illustrated return to the gridiron, this time to serve the most avid football fans of all. With the best words and pictures SI has to offer, The College Football Book, brings to life the game's unparalleled excitement and pageantry, its legendary players, historic teams and epic rivalries. In 288 pages of the greatest photography and writing available anywhere, The College Football Book spans the sport's history, from its infancy in the 1800s right up to the postseason showdowns of 2008. The book is packed with stunning pictures, award-winning stories, original stats, decade-by-decade all-star teams and iconic artifacts photographed exclusively for this book at the College Football Hall of Fame--the same exciting mix of elements that makes each book in the SI series a must-have for sports fan.

Champions Way: Football, Florida, and the Lost Soul of College Sports

Champions Way: Football, Florida, and the Lost Soul of College Sports
Author: Mike McIntire
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 134
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0393292622

A searing exposé of how the multibillion dollar college sports empire fails universities, students, and athletes. With little public debate or introspection, our institutions of higher learning have become hostages to the rapacious, smash-mouth entertainment conglomerate known, quaintly, as intercollegiate athletics. In Champions Way, New York Times investigative reporter Mike McIntire chronicles the rise of this growing scandal through the experience of the Florida State Seminoles, one of the most successful teams in NCAA history. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his Times investigation of college sports, McIntire breaks new ground here, uncovering the workings of a system that enables athletes to violate academic standards and avoid criminal prosecution for actions ranging from shoplifting to drunk driving. At the heart of Champions Way is the untold story of a whistle-blower, Christie Suggs, and her wrenching struggle to hold a corrupt system to account. Together with shocking new details about prominent sports figures, including NFL quarterback Jameis Winston and former FSU coach Bobby Bowden, Champions Way shines a light on the ethical, moral, and legal compromises inherent in the making of a championship sports program. Beyond the story of Florida State, McIntire takes readers on a journey through the history of college football, from its origins as a roughneck pastime coached by nineteenth-century professors to its current incarnation as a gold-plated behemoth that long ago outgrew its scholastic environs. Illuminated in rich and disturbing detail is the hidden financial ecosystem that nourishes hundred-million-dollar teams, from the hustlers who recruit players for schools and the athletic departments controlled by rich boosters to the universities whose academic mission and moral authority have been undermined. More than pointing out flaws, McIntire examines their causes and offers hope to those who would reform college sports.