College football refers to gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football first gained popularity in the United States.
Sir Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish is a Scottish former football player and manager. He is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time as well as one of Liverpool's and Britain's greatest ever players. During his career, he made 338 appearances for Celtic and 515 for Liverpool, playing as a forward, and earned a record 102 caps for the Scotland national team, scoring 30 goals, also a joint record. Dalglish won the Ballon d'Or Silver Award in 1983, the PFA Players' Player of the Year in 1983, and the FWA Footballer of the Year in 1979 and 1983. In 2009, FourFourTwo magazine named Dalglish the greatest striker in post-war British football, and he has been inducted into both the Scottish and English Football Halls of Fame. He is very highly regarded by Liverpool fans, who still affectionately refer to him as King Kenny, and in 2006 voted him top of the fans' poll "100 Players Who Shook the Kop".
The quarterback, colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern American football, the quarterback is usually considered the leader of the offense, and is often responsible for calling the play in the huddle. The quarterback also touches the ball on almost every offensive play, and is almost always the offensive player that throws forward passes. When the QB is tackled behind the line of scrimmage, it is called a sack.
Eric Daniel Pierre Cantona is a French actor, singer and former professional footballer. A large, physically strong, hard-working and tenacious player, Cantona combined technical skill and creativity with power and goalscoring ability. Widely occupied as a deep-lying forward, he was also capable of playing as a centre-forward, as an out-and-out striker, as an attacking midfielder, or as a central midfielder on occasion. In 2004, he was named by Pelé in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players.
Joseph Clifford Montana Jr. is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. Nicknamed "Joe Cool" and "the Comeback Kid", Montana is widely regarded as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. After winning a national championship at Notre Dame, Montana began his NFL career in 1979 at San Francisco, where he played for the next 14 seasons. With the 49ers, Montana started and won four Super Bowls and was the first player to be named the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player (MVP) three times. He also holds Super Bowl career records for most passes without an interception and the all-time highest passer rating of 127.8. In 1993, Montana was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs, where he played for his last two seasons and led the franchise to its first AFC Championship Game. Montana was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2000.
Jerry Lee Rice is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver for 20 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He won three Super Bowl titles with the San Francisco 49ers before two shorter stints at the end of his career with the Oakland Raiders and Seattle Seahawks. Nicknamed "World" because of his superb catching ability, his accomplishments and numerous records, Rice is widely regarded as the greatest wide receiver of all time and one of the greatest players in NFL history. His biography on the official Pro Football Hall of Fame website names him "the most prolific wide receiver in NFL history with staggering career totals". In 1999, The Sporting News listed Rice second behind Jim Brown on its list of "Football's 100 Greatest Players". In 2010, he was chosen by NFL Network's NFL Films production The Top 100: NFL's Greatest Players as the greatest player in NFL history.
George Best was a Northern Irish professional footballer who played as a winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United. A skillful dribbler, he is considered one of the greatest players of all time, along with being considered one of the most talented to play. He was named European Footballer of the Year in 1968 and came fifth in the FIFA Player of the Century vote. Best received plaudits for his playing style, which combined pace, skill, balance, feints, goalscoring and the ability to get past defenders. His style of play captured the public's imagination, and in 1999 he was on the six-man short-list for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Century. He was also an inaugural inductee into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
Randy Gene Moss is an American former professional football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons with the Minnesota Vikings, Oakland Raiders, New England Patriots, Tennessee Titans and the San Francisco 49ers. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wide receivers of all time, he holds the NFL single-season touchdown reception record, as well as the NFL single-season touchdown reception record for a rookie. All-time, Moss ranks second in career touchdown receptions as well as fourth in career receiving yards. In addition to possessing extraordinary speed at his size and superior leaping ability, he was famously known for often securing spectacular contested catches in tight coverage by physically overpowering defenders. The term "mossed", referring to this ability, has since become a common term in the football lexicon.
Reginald Howard White was an American professional football defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons during the 1980s and 1990s. White played college football for the Tennessee Volunteers, earning recognition as a unanimous All-American. After playing two professional seasons for the Memphis Showboats of the United States Football League (USFL), he was selected in the first round of the 1984 Supplemental Draft, and then played for the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers, and Carolina Panthers, becoming one of the most awarded defensive players in NFL history.
Arena football is a variety of eight-man indoor gridiron football. The game is played indoors on a smaller field than American or Canadian football, designed to fit in the same surface area as a standard North American ice hockey rink, resulting in a faster and higher-scoring game that can be played on the floors of indoor arenas. The sport was invented in 1981, and patented in 1987, by Jim Foster, a former executive of the National Football League and the United States Football League. The name is trademarked by Gridiron Enterprises and had a proprietary format until its patent expired in 2007.
Jesse James Palmer is a Canadian television personality, sports commentator, and former professional football player who was a quarterback for five seasons in the National Football League (NFL) in the early 2000s. Palmer played college football for the Florida Gators under coach Steve Spurrier, and thereafter, he played professionally for the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers in the NFL before spending half of the 2006 season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League (CFL).
Kazuyoshi Miura, often known simply as Kazu, is a Japanese professional footballer who plays as a forward for Liga Portugal 2 club Oliveirense, on loan from J1 League club Yokohama FC. He is the oldest professional footballer in history and the oldest player to score in a professional match.
Shannon Sharpe is an American former football tight end who played 14 seasons in the National Football League (NFL), primarily with the Denver Broncos. Regarded as one of the greatest tight ends of all time, he ranks third in tight end receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns. He was also the first NFL tight end to amass over 10,000 receiving yards. He was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011.
Deion Luwynn Sanders is an American football coach and former professional football and baseball player. Sanders serves as the head football coach at the University of Colorado Boulder. Nicknamed "Neon Deion" and "Prime Time" during his playing career and "Coach Prime" during his coaching career, he played in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, the San Francisco 49ers, the Dallas Cowboys, the Washington Redskins, and the Baltimore Ravens as a cornerback, wide receiver, and return specialist making him a triple threat. He is the original "shutdown corner". Sanders also played nine seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the New York Yankees, the Atlanta Braves, the Cincinnati Reds, and the San Francisco Giants. He won two Super Bowl titles and made a World Series appearance in 1992, making him the only athlete to play in both a Super Bowl and a World Series.
Lee Robert Clark is an English football manager and former professional footballer, who was most recently the manager of Al-Merrikh in the Sudan Premier League.
Aaron Charles Rodgers is an American football quarterback for the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the California Golden Bears, before being selected in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers, spending 18 seasons with the team. He is regarded among the greatest and most talented quarterbacks of all time.
Robert James Gronkowski is an American former football tight end who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons. Nicknamed "Gronk", Gronkowski played nine seasons for the New England Patriots, then played his final two seasons for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Regarded as one of the greatest tight ends of all time, he is a four-time Super Bowl champion, a five-time Pro Bowl selection, a four-time First Team All-Pro selection, and was selected in the NFL 2010s All-Decade Team and NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly called football include association football ; Australian rules football; Gaelic football; gridiron football ; International rules football; rugby league football; and rugby union football. These various forms of football share, to varying degrees, common origins and are known as "football codes".
Hendrik Johannes Cruijff, commonly known as Johan Cruyff, was a Dutch professional football player and manager. Regarded as one of the greatest players in history and as the greatest Dutch footballer ever, he won the Ballon d'Or three times, in 1971, 1973, and 1974. Cruyff was a proponent of the football philosophy known as Total Football developed by Rinus Michels, which Cruyff also employed as a manager. Because of the far reaching impact of his playing style and his coaching ideas, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in modern football. For his achievements as a manager, he is also viewed as one of the greatest managers of all time.
Johnathan Paul Manziel, nicknamed "Johnny Football", is an American former football quarterback who played two seasons with the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL). He also played for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League (CFL) in 2018, the Memphis Express of the Alliance of American Football (AAF) in 2019, and in Fan Controlled Football from 2021 to 2022.
