Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Girls' Guide to Football Season

Football season is upon us. I’ve spent the past week reading newspaper and magazine articles and watching countless hours of ESPN (which seems to be the only working channel in my house at the moment) to bring you today’s post to kick the season off.


Let’s be real. Girl's game day priorities are a bit different than the men’s. 


I’m not here to tell you to change that. 


What I am going to say is that there is a little more to football season than what appetizer to bring to your tailgate party or what outfit you’re going to wear to show your team spirit. Yes, those things are important, but for a moment let’s kick off our heels (not that I would wear heels to a football game), pretend to be interested in cleats and learn a thing or two about the season ahead of us.

It’s cool to know what you’re talking about, my dears.

Pre-Season Rankings
Let’s begin with the list of the top 15 teams ranked by the Associated Press:
1
Oklahoma 
2
Alabama
3
Oregon
4
LSU 
5
Boise State 
6
Florida State
7
Stanford
8
Texas A&M
9
Oklahoma State
10
Nebraska
11
Wisconsin
12
South Carolina
13
Virginia Tech
14
TCU
15
Arkansas

If your favorite team is not in the top 15, don’t fret. Much of the pre-season rankings are just a guess.

MVPs
While it’s certainly not necessary to memorize the roster, let’s get to know a little about the best players in the country, as they are most likely to come up in conversation.

The nation’s most valuable player earns the Heisman Trophy at the end of the season. Throughout the season, ESPN follows the top Heisman candidates and ranks them here http://espn.go.com/college-football/heisman11/index. As of now, the frontrunner is Andrew Luck of Stanford. Landry Jones (Oklahoma) and  LaMichael James (Oregon) seem to be important names to know as well.

Conferences
As long as you know the names of each major conference, you will be above the curve. Below is the list of the major conferences as well as the top few teams in each. This will put you in just about every football conversation this season!

Southeastern Conference (SEC): Nations best conference whose best teams this season are Alabama, LSU, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Florida.


Pacific 12: Represents the west coast and its best teams this season are Oregon, Stanford, Southern Cal, and Arizona State.


Big 10 (which actually has 12 teams): The best teams this season should be Nebraska, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Michigan State.



Big 12 (but it actually has 10 teams): This conference has the top ranked team in Oklahoma, and others like Texas A&M, Oklahoma State, and Texas.

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC): Florida State, Virginia Tech, North Carolina State, Miami.


And there you have it. I wish you the best time tailgating, intelligent conversations and an overall football exciting season.

Thanks for visiting today! Be sure to come back each Thursday for my feature game-day recipe.

Cheers to your team!
Christi
WPS

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG! This is so helpful. My favorite part of the whole thing is that the Big 10 has twelve teams and the Big 12 has ten. WTH?

Christi's Chirps said...

Hi, Stephanie! Thank you so much for visiting!

I know, right? Big 10 and Big 12 need to get it straight once and for all! :)

Please visit again soon! Happy game day tomorrow!
Christi