College football in the context of "Big Ten Conference"

Gridiron football (/ˈɡrɪdaɪ.ərn/ GRID-eye-ərn), also known as North American football, or in North America as simply football, is a family of team sports derived from rugby football (and football, by extension) primarily played in the United States and Canada.

American football, which uses 11 players, is the form played in the United States and the best known form of gridiron football worldwide, while Canadian football, which uses 12 players, predominates in Canada. Other derivative varieties include arena football, flag football and amateur games such as touch and street football. Football is played at professional, collegiate, high school, semi-professional, and amateur levels.

Oracle Park is a ballpark in the South Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, California, United States. Since 2000, it has been the home of the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball (MLB). The stadium stands along San Francisco Bay; the section of the bay beyond Oracle Park's right field wall is unofficially known as McCovey Cove, in honor of former Giants player Willie McCovey. Previously named Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park, and AT&T Park, the stadium's current name was purchased by Oracle Corporation in 2019.

Oracle Park has also hosted professional and college football games. The stadium was the home of the annual college postseason bowl game now known as the Redbox Bowl from its inaugural playing in 2002 until 2013, and also served as the temporary home for the California Golden Bears football team in 2011. Professionally, it was the home of the San Francisco Demons of the XFL and the California Redwoods of the United Football League.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and 1 in Canada. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and helps over 500,000 college student athletes who compete annually in college sports. The headquarters is located in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Until the 1956–57 academic year, the NCAA was a single division for all schools. That year, the NCAA split into the University Division and the College Division. In August 1973, the current three-division system of Division I, Division II, and Division III was adopted by the NCAA membership in a special convention. Under NCAA rules, Division I and Division II schools can offer athletic scholarships to students. Division III schools may not offer any athletic scholarships. Generally, larger schools compete in Division I and smaller schools in II and III. Division I football was further divided into I-A and I-AA in 1978, while Division I programs that did not have football teams were known as I-AAA. In 2006, Divisions I-A and I-AA were, respectively, renamed the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). In its 2022–23 fiscal year, the NCAA generated $1.28 billion in revenue, $945 million (74%) of which came from airing rights to the Division I men's basketball tournament.

Alabama (/ˌæləˈbæmə/ AL-ə-BAM-ə) is a state in the Southeastern and Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th largest by area, and the 24th-most populous of the 50 U.S. states.

Alabama is nicknamed the Yellowhammer State, after the state bird. Alabama is also known as the "Heart of Dixie" and the "Cotton State". The state has diverse geography, with the north dominated by the mountainous Tennessee Valley and the south by Mobile Bay, a historically significant port. Alabama's capital is Montgomery, and its largest city by population and area is Huntsville. Its oldest city is Mobile, founded by French colonists (Alabama Creoles) in 1702 as the capital of French Louisiana. Greater Birmingham is Alabama's largest metropolitan area and its economic center. Politically, as part of the Deep South, or "Bible Belt", Alabama is a predominantly conservative state and is known for its Southern culture. Within Alabama, American football, particularly at the college level, plays a major part of the state's culture.

The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference of eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. It participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, and in football, in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The term Ivy League is used more broadly to refer to the eight schools that belong to the league, which are globally renowned as elite colleges associated with academic excellence, highly selective admissions, and social elitism. The term was used as early as 1933, and it became official in 1954 following the formation of the Ivy League athletic conference. At times, they have also been referred to as the "Ancient Eight".

The eight members of the Ivy League are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. The conference headquarters is in Princeton, New Jersey. All of the "Ivies" except Cornell were founded during the colonial period and therefore make up seven of the nine colonial colleges. The other two colonial colleges, Queen's College (now Rutgers University) and the College of William & Mary, became public institutions.

Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, commonly known as RFK Stadium and originally known as District of Columbia Stadium, was a multi-purpose stadium in Washington, D.C.. It was located along the Anacostia River on East Capitol Street in the city's Hill East neighborhood. The stadium was in operation from 1961 to 2019, with deconstruction commencing in 2025 ahead of a $3.7 billion stadium to replace it at the site. RFK Stadium was one of the first large stadiums designed to host both baseball and football, and was among the first to use what became known as the cookie-cutter design.

RFK Stadium was home to a National Football League (NFL) team, two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, five professional soccer teams, two college football teams, and a USFL team. It hosted college football, college soccer, baseball exhibitions, boxing matches, a cycling race, an American Le Mans Series auto race, marathons, and dozens of concerts. Significant events hosted include five NFC Championship Games, two MLB All-Star Games, several FIFA World Cup matches, nine 1996 Olympic soccer matches, three MLS Cups, and two MLS All-Star Games.

High school football is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries. It is the level of tackle football that is played before college football in the United States and U Sports football in Canada.

In Northern America, a football (also called a pigskin) is a ball, roughly in the form of a lemon, used in the context of playing gridiron football. Footballs are often made of cowhide leather, as such a material is required in professional and collegiate football, although footballs used in recreation and organized youth leagues may be made of rubber, plastic or composite leather (high school football rule books still allow inexpensive all-rubber footballs, though they are less common than leather).