The acronym NCAAF means National Collegiate Athletic Association Football. Behind this name we can find the whole ramification of the association who encloses all the football teams under its banner. In the so-called Division I Football Bowl Subdivision there are 10 conferences and 134 teams. Not all of them are on the same level, of course. Nonetheless, NCAAF is highly competitive and unpredictable, especially now that the playoffs have been expanded to 12 teams (until the 2023 season, just 4 teams would get their chance to compete for all the marbles).
The NCAAF season just finished, on the 20th of January, with a brilliant win by the Ohio State Buckeyes against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in Atlanta. Fans and students, however, are already looking forward to next year. The bettors can do just the same. To get a complete overview of the possible bets, it is useful to consult a portal where college football odds are updated in real time, like Oddschecker. The platform contains useful information and insights about players, teams and head coaches. By checking the site out, one can learn a lot about NCAAF and choose whether to bet on a game or not.
It is pretty easy to get used to Oddschecker: it only takes little time and patience to register a personal profile, then anyone can keep in touch with his or her favourite sport, including the ones played at collegiate level.
What Happened This Year
The 2024 season concluded some days ago with a big game between Ohio State University and Notre Dame, but the peculiarity about last year’s tournament has been the all-new playoff format. Until the 2023 season, the NCAAF playoffs were open to the 4 top teams only. This year we had 12 sides. Because of this new rule, the playoffs have been longer and more spectacular than ever. The chase for the trophy began during the winter holidays and kept fans and supporters on the edge of their seats for almost four weeks.
This welcomed change raised the level of the competition, making it more similar to the NFL, the pro league of American football, where franchises are busy for a whole month in the postseason leading to the Super Bowl, usually played on the second Sunday of February. The Buckeyes, fresh champions, were among the favourites since day 1, in a shortlist of powerhouses which featured the Georgia Bulldogs, The Penn State Nittany Lions, the Texas Longhorns and the Oregon Ducks. In the end, though, only OSU cruised to the championship game, against the underdogs from Notre Dame.
The outcome was especially disappointing for Oregon, who lost only a game during the regular season. Notre Dame and Ohio State were tied at 14 wins, even if the Buckeyes play in the highly competitive Big 10 Conference, while the Irish, an independent team, navigates through an easier schedule. In the Southeastern Conference, the Longhorns, believed to be the best college football team in the nation, finished their season with a record of 13 wins and 3 losses, showing some weaknesses that OSU exploited during its memorable playoff run. Ultimately, the results highlighted the unpredictable nature of college football, where even the strongest teams can falter under pressure.
Ncaaf And Its Crazy Revenue
As hard as it could be to understand, college football generates tens of millions of dollars in yearly revenue. The top schools can easily attract several thousands of fans to a rivalry game and usually play in very large stadiums. It’s difficult for a sport enthusiast who doesn’t live in the States to figure out how much passion a college team can drive but this is the magic of NCAAF: people go crazy and can’t stop supporting the superstars of tomorrow and their teammates!
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