Mid-major
Mid-major is a term used in American NCAA Division I college sports, particularly men's basketball, to refer to athletic conferences that are not among the "Power Five conferences" (the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC), which are alternatively referred to as "high majors". The term "mid-major" was coined in 1977 by Jack Kvancz, the head coach of men's basketball team at Catholic University. NCAA neither acknowledges nor uses the terms "major" or "mid-major" to differentiate between Division I athletic conferences. Some schools and fans consider it offensive and derogatory. Football Because of the development of the now-defunct Bowl Championship Series in 1998, and the lack of a playoff format for the Football Bowl Subdivision prior to the College Football Playoff, the demarcation line between major and mid-major conferences was much clearer in college football than in other sports. The six conferences of the BCS each had guaranteed appearances in one of the four major bo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Bowl Championship Series
The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system that created four or five bowl game match-ups involving eight or ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of American college football, including an opportunity for the top two teams to compete in the BCS National Championship Game. The system was in place for the 1998 through 2013 seasons and in 2014 was replaced by the College Football Playoff. The BCS relied on a combination of polls and computer selection methods to determine relative team rankings, and to narrow the field to two teams to play in the BCS National Championship Game held after the other college bowl games (the game rotated among four existing bowl games from the 1998 to 2005 season, and was a separate game from the 2006 to 2013 seasons). The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) was contractually bound to vote the winner of this game as the BCS National Champion and the contract signed by each confere ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Power Five Conferences
The Power Five conferences are the five most prominent and highest-earning athletic conferences in college football in the United States. They are part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of NCAA Division I, the highest level of collegiate football in the nation, and are considered the most "elite" conferences within that tier. The Power Five conferences have provided nearly all of the participants in the College Football Playoff since its inception,As of the 2021-22 season, the 2021 Cincinnati Bearcats are the only Group of Five conference team to be selected for the Playoff. Notre Dame, an independent team often classified with the Power Five and affiliated with the ACC in other sports, was selected once as an independent team and once during its single season (2020) as an ACC football member. See College Football Playoff: Selections by Year. are guaranteed at least one bid to a New Year's Six bowl game, and have been granted autonomy from certain NCAA rules. The Power ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Bowl Alliance
The Bowl Alliance was an agreement among college football bowl games (specifically the Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta Bowls) for the purpose of trying to match the top two teams in a national championship game and to provide quality bowl game matchups for the champions of its member conferences. The agreement was in place for the 1995, 1996, and 1997 seasons and had replaced the Bowl Coalition. Each participating team in the Bowl Alliance Championship received $8.5 million from the television sponsors. Background In its beginnings, the Bowl Alliance involved the SEC, Big Eight, SWC, ACC, and Big East conference champions, as well as independent Notre Dame. Because of this, only one at-large slot was available for teams to vie for. With the disbanding of the Big Eight and SWC following the 1995 football season and the formation of the Big 12 Conference in its wake, an additional at-large bid became available. The Alliance bowls were held on three successive days in each of the thre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
College Football Playoff
The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level of college football competition in the United States. Four teams play in two semifinal games, and the winner of each semifinal advances to the College Football Playoff National Championship game. The inaugural tournament was held at the end of the 2014 NCAA Division I FBS football season and was won by Ohio State, who defeated Oregon in the championship game with their third-string quarterback. After the first season, the playoff has been largely dominated by Alabama and Clemson; they have faced each other in the championship game three times and also played once in the semifinals. A 13-member committee selects and seeds the four teams to take part in the CFP. This system differs from the use of polls or computer rankings that had pr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine United States Minor Outlying Islands, Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in Compact of Free Association, free association with three Oceania, Pacific Island Sovereign state, sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Palau, Republic of Palau. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders Canada–United States border, with Canada to its north and Mexico–United States border, with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the List of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Perfect Season
A perfect season is a sports season, including any requisite playoff portion, in which a team remains and finishes undefeated and untied. The feat is extremely rare at the professional level of any team sport, and has occurred more commonly at the collegiate and scholastic levels in the United States. A perfect regular season (known by other names outside the United States) is a season ''excluding'' any playoffs, where a team remains undefeated and untied; it is less rare than a complete perfect season but still exceptional. A perfect season may be part of a multi-season winning streak, or even a streak of perfect seasons. Exhibition games are generally not counted toward standings, for or against. For example, the 1972 Miami Dolphins (below) lost three of their preseason ("exhibition" games in 1972 NFL vernacular) games but are considered to have had a perfect season. Perfect season in fantasy sports is defined as follows: The league will declare a franchise to achieve the elite ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
BCS National Championship Game
The BCS National Championship Game, or BCS National Championship, was a postseason college football bowl game, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), first played in the 1998 college football season as one of four designated bowl games, and beginning in the 2006 season as a standalone event rotated among the host sites of the aforementioned bowls. The game was organized by a group known as the Bowl Championship Series, consisting of the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Orange Bowl, which sought to match the two highest-ranked teams in a championship game to determine the best team in the country at the end of the season. The participating teams were determined by averaging the results of the final weekly Coaches' Poll, the Harris Poll of media, former players and coaches, and the average of six computer rankings. The Coaches' Poll was contractually required to name the winner of the game as its No. 1 team on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
American Athletic Conference
The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I, with its football teams competing in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Member universities represent a range of private and public universities of various enrollment sizes located primarily in urban metropolitan areas in the Northeastern, Midwestern, and Southern regions of the United States. The American's legal predecessor, the original Big East Conference, was considered one of the six collegiate power conferences of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) era in college football, and The American inherited that status in the BCS's final season. With the advent of the College Football Playoff in 2014, The American became a "Group of Five" conference, which shares one automatic spot in the New Year's Six bowl games ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
1984 BYU Cougars Football Team
The 1984 BYU Cougars football team represented Brigham Young University (BYU) in the 1984 NCAA Division I-A football season. The Cougars were led by 13th-year head coach LaVell Edwards and played their home games at Cougar Stadium in Provo, Utah. The team competed as a member of the Western Athletic Conference, winning the conference for the ninth consecutive year. The Cougars finished the regular season as the only undefeated team in Division I-A, and secured their first ever national title by defeating Michigan in the 1984 Holiday Bowl. A number of pollsters and coaches were reluctant to name the Cougars as national champion, partly because they believed BYU's schedule was too weak. Only two of BYU's opponents won at least seven games. They had played only one ranked opponent all season, preseason #3 Pittsburgh, a team that would finish 3–7–1 and unranked. No other team in the WAC was even close to being their equal; the Cougars were the only team in the league with fewer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
1984 Holiday Bowl
The 1984 Holiday Bowl was one of the games that determined the national championship in college football for the 1984 season. Played on December 21 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, it pitted the unranked Michigan Wolverines against the top-ranked BYU Cougars. Despite six turnovers and being down by seven in the fourth quarter, BYU rallied and won the game, the attendance of 61,248 on Friday night was a record for Jack Murphy Stadium at that time. To date, the 1984 Holiday Bowl marks the only time that the eventual national champion played their bowl game during the month of December. National championship At the conclusion of the 1984 regular season, BYU was the only undefeated team in As such, BYU was ranked first in the polls and was the leading candidate to be chosen as national champion if it were to win its bowl game. However, BYU, as nine-time defending champion of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), was obligated to play in the Holiday Bowl, in its seventh seaso ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Western Athletic Conference
The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Texas. Due to most of the conference's football-playing members leaving the WAC for other affiliations, the conference discontinued football as a sponsored sport after the 2012–13 season and left the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A). The WAC thus became the first Division I conference to drop football since the Big West in 2000. The WAC then added men's soccer and became one of the NCAA's eleven Division I non-football conferences. The WAC underwent a major expansion on July 1, 2021, with four schools joining. The conference reinstated football at that time and now competes in the Football Championship Subdivision. One year later, on July 1, 2022, one FCS football school ( Lamar) and one non-football school ( Chicago State ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Sugar Bowl
The Sugar Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in New Orleans, Louisiana. Played annually since January 1, 1935, it is tied with the Orange Bowl and Sun Bowl as the second-oldest bowl games in the country, surpassed only by the Rose Bowl Game. The Sugar Bowl was originally played at Tulane Stadium before moving to the Superdome in 1975. When the Superdome and the rest of the city suffered damage due to both the winds from and the flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Sugar Bowl was temporarily moved to the Georgia Dome in Atlanta in 2006. Since 2007, the game has been sponsored by Allstate and officially known as the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Previous sponsors include Nokia (1996–2006) and USF&G Financial Services (1988–1995). The Sugar Bowl has had a longstanding—albeit not exclusive—relationship with the Southeastern Conference (SEC) (which once had a member institution based in New Orleans, Tulane University; another ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |