College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS

High school (ages 12+)
Sports & Games

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/college-football-national-championships-in-ncaa-division-i-fbs

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the sporting division?NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)
2. What is the championship designation?Awarded by various independent organizations, not by a singular NCAA-hosted event
3. What does it mean to be the college football national champion?It means a team is named the best in the country for that season. The title is given by different groups that look at games and records. Sometimes more than one team gets the title in the same year.
4. How did people decide who was the champion before there was a playoff?They used polls like the AP Poll and the Coaches Poll. Sports writers and coaches would rank teams each week. The top team at the end of the season was named champion.

NCAA Division I FBS: The highest classification of intercollegiate athletics in the United States, featuring the most prominent football programs.
Selector: An entity or individual that independently determines and declares a national champion in college football.
College Football Playoff (CFP): The current postseason tournament system that selects and ranks the top teams to compete for the national championship.