Top 10 College Football Traditions - Part 2

Now that you’ve had a taste of the rich and significant history of College Football, these next five traditions are sure to get you going. After sifting through stacks and stacks of college information and analyzing hundreds of millions of college reviews, here is what our panel has decreed as the best traditions in College football:

5. Painting the Helmets Gold - Notre Dame is perhaps the most storied and well-known team in College Football. Because of that, you better believe that the Fighting Irish have their fair share of traditions and rituals. And although most people think that this story is merely mythical - the helmets get a real coat of 24 karat gold before every week’s big game.

4. Howard’s Rock and the Hill - It’s a sight to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. For roughly 40 years, the Clemson Tigers have made their raucous entrance into Memorial Stadium after touching Howard’s Rock and storming down the hill. Symbolizing the players’ intentions to play with everything they’ve got, this awesome arrival never fails to get 83,000 screaming fans to their feet.

3. Dotting the “I” - Ohio State is a perennial powerhouse and competes for a spot in the National Championship Game each and every season. The half-time festivities at Ohio Stadium culminate with the sousaphone player, rambunctiously and fanatically dotting the “I” after the marching band spells out “Ohio” on the field. The display sends 102,000 fans into thunderous and gaudy applause and cheering that lasts the entire second half.

2. Chief Osceola and the Flaming Spear — At Florida State University, they have one of the best pregame traditions in the entire country. Representing the Seminole Tribe, Chief Osceola mounts his faithful steed, Renegade, and plants a flaming spear into the ground at the 50-yard-line. With the players watching from the sideline, Chief Osceola spikes the fiery weapon on the logo at mid-field and then stares the opposing captains down as they make their way to the center of the field for the coin toss.

1. UGA the Bulldog - So it’s not the special affects or fierce animals that get the top spot here today. Instead, it’s the loveable little pooch from the University of Georgia named Uga. The bulldog is the seventh in a long line of real dogs to don the Georgia jersey and represent the school on the sideline of every game. Fans and players alike share a special bond with Uga as he even travels to certain away games in order to cheer on his fellow Bulldogs. After 50 years, the university still gets its dogs from the same lineage and family. Don’t let his cute exterior fool you though - he has a tendency to go after members of the opposing team.

Well, there you have it folks - the Top 10 College Football Traditions. From buffaloes to bulldogs, the search for college info and superiority continues. I hope this list helps you find colleges with deep and intense traditions…and a good party scene also!

The Olympics are over. Sigh. Eighteen months and counting until the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

The Beijing Olympics were an overwhelming success for Team USA, who won more medals here than at any other non-boycotted Olympics. But according to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, the elimination of many sports teams at colleges and universities across the country will threaten USA’s medal count in future Olympiads.

In the past, well-funded scholarship programs allowed colleges to recruit some of the best talent for their teams, but just as many other funding sources are being eliminated in this harsh economy, athletics departments have been forced to lose some of the very teams that have spawned Olympians in the past. Just last year, Rutgers University lost its fencing and rowing teams, along with four other sports that recruited Olympic hopefuls. In 2006, James Madison University said goodbye to ten teams, including its swim team.

For many athletes and their coaches, however, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Privately raised funds often keep programs going as club sports after they are officially cut from the school’s roster. After the men’s gymnastics team was cut from Arizona State University a few years ago, coach Scott Barclay took out a personal loan and built a personal gym for his team to continue training.

Some blame college football teams for hogging all the cash. Others say it’s due to more women competing; sports programs have had to recruit fewer men in order to be equitable with scholarships for female athletes. In any case, schools large and small have been forced to trim the fat in their athletics departments.

Is your academic future at the mercy of sports budget cuts? What are your alternatives to funding your degree if there are fewer sports scholarships available? Submit your comments and questions below.

Yesterday’s blog post discussed the differences among the various divisions of college sports. What about conferences? you might have wondered. They’re not nearly as easy to count as the divisions. There are dozens of college athletic conferences that are formed according to sport, division, and region.

The oldest conference in Division I is called The Big Ten. The Big Ten is such a well-known conference that people who don’t even like sports have heard of it. The funny thing is that there are actually 11 schools in The Big Ten; if you check out the Big Ten logo, there’s the number 11 hidden in the middle. The Big Ten schools are:

University of Illinois
University of Iowa
University of Indiana
University of Michigan
Michigan State University
University of Minnesota
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
Penn State University
Purdue University
University of Wisconsin

These schools have incredible academic programs in addition to their highly-ranked sports teams. Is there a Big Ten school on your application list? You’ll be able to find out your chances of getting in when CampusCompare launches its What Are My Chances? tool next week, so be sure to check back with us!