Portal:American football

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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, 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 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. (Full article...)

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

The 2005 Texas Longhorns football team represented the University of Texas at Austin during the 2005 NCAA Division I-A football season, winning the Big 12 Conference championship and the national championship. The team was coached by Mack Brown, led on offense by quarterback Vince Young, and played its home games at Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium.

The team's penultimate victory of the season, the Big 12 Championship Game, featured the biggest margin of victory in the history of that contest. They finished the season by winning the 2006 Rose Bowl against the USC Trojans for the national championship. Numerous publications have cited this victory as standing among the greatest performances in college football history, and ESPN awarded the 2006 ESPY Award for the "Best Game" in any sport to the Longhorns and the Trojans. The Longhorns finished as the only unbeaten team in NCAA Division I-A football that year, with thirteen wins and zero losses. Owing to its overwhelmingly dominant margins of victory, and its perfect record, this Longhorns team is often considered among the best in college football history. (Full article...)

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General images

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

Image 1Jim Thorpe was the first president of the NFL. (from History of American football)
Image 2A 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 3Colorado's first football team in 1890 (from History of American football)
Image 4A game between the Hamilton Tigers and the Ottawa Rough Riders, 1910 (from Canadian football)
Image 51897 Latrobe Athletic Association football team: The first entirely professional team to play an entire season. (from History of American football)
Image 6A moment of the second game between Tufts and Harvard at College Hill, October 1875 (from History of American football)
Image 7Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium, originally built for the 1978 Commonwealth Games, pictured in 2005. (from Canadian football)
Image 8A football signed by the 1974 Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement class (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 9An early American football team, from the turn of the twentieth century (from History of American football)
Image 10High school football stadium in Manhattan, Kansas (from History of American football)
Image 11Morgan Athletic Club (pictured c. 1900), predecessor of the Arizona Cardinals (from History of American football)
Image 12Hanged U-shaped Continental Indoor Football League goalpost (from Arena football)
Image 13Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium with the Hall of Fame in lower right (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 14An arena football goalpost structure featuring the rebound nets on either side of the uprights. (from Arena football)
Image 15One of the two Harvard vs. McGill games played in 1874 (from History of American football)
Image 161906 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 17Don Hutson in 1940. (from History of American football)
Image 18Lehigh 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 19Original entrance to the Pro Football Hall of Fame (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 20The Big Game between Stanford and California was played as rugby union from 1906 to 1914 (from History of American football)
Image 21The Hall is made up of several sections with display of the inductees at its heart (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 22Tom Davies of Pittsburgh runs against undefeated and unscored upon Georgia Tech in the 1918 game at Forbes Field (from History of American football)
Image 23A Native American college football team (from History of American football)
Image 24Sign at the old entrance to the Pro Football Hall of Fame (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 25Diagram of a Canadian football field (from Canadian football)
Image 26Walter 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 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 29A college football game between Colorado State University and the Air Force Academy (from History of American football)
Image 30Footballs and a helmet at a Calgary Stampeders (CFL) team practice (from Canadian football)
Image 31Inside the original structure in 2008 (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 32A 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 33Sewanee's 1899 "Iron Men" (from History of American football)
Image 34Montreal Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo looks down field with the ball during the 93rd Grey Cup game at BC Place. (from Canadian football)
Image 35Touchdown monument outside the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in Hamilton, Ontario (from Canadian football)

Selected image

Cleveland Browns Stadium

Credit: Chris Brown

Cleveland Browns Stadium is a football stadium located in Cleveland, Ohio. Home of the Cleveland Browns National Football League franchise, it sits on 31 acres (13 ha) of land on the shores of Lake Erie and has a capacity of at least 73,200.

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Holtz at 2017 C-USA Media Days

Louis Leo "Skip" Holtz Jr. (born March 12, 1964) is an American football coach who is the head coach for the Birmingham Stallions of the United Football League (UFL). Holtz has led the team to two USFL Championships, in 2022 and 2023, and a UFL Championship in 2024. Previously, he was the head coach for the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, South Florida Bulls, East Carolina Pirates, and the Connecticut Huskies. He has also served as an assistant coach for the South Carolina Gamecocks, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Colorado State Rams, and the Florida State Seminoles.

Skip's father, Lou Holtz, is a former head football coach and worked as a commentator on the television channel ESPN. Due to his father's career as a collegiate football coach, Skip was exposed to football from an early age. He played college football at Notre Dame, where he played mostly on special teams. He joined the coaching ranks immediately upon graduation from college, working initially for Bobby Bowden as an assistant at Florida State. He gradually worked his way through the ranks at various NCAA Division I schools before being named head coach at Connecticut in 1994. He has an overall record of 152 wins and 121 losses as a head coach, including eight bowl wins and two conference championships. (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