Clemson Wins College Football National Championship

The recipient of a doctor of medicine from UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dr. Anthony Amoroso completed his emergency medicine residency at St. John Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, in 2003, and has been working in Texas ever since. When he isn't treating patients, Dr. Anthony Amoroso enjoys watching college football. 

For the third time in four years, Clemson met Alabama in the College Football Playoff national championship game and, for the second time in three years, Clemson emerged victorious. The South Carolina university won the game 44-16 and finished the season with a perfect 15-0 win-loss record to become the first team to perform the feat since the 1800s. Moreover, it was the first team to beat Alabama by more than 14 points since Nick Saban became the Roll Tide's head coach in 2007. 

Building upon an impressive performance during Clemson's semi-final win over Notre Dame, wide receiver Justyn Ross registered six catches for 153 yards and scored a 74-yard touchdown in the third quarter that gave the Tigers a 37-16 advantage. True freshman Trevor Lawrence, meanwhile, threw 3 touchdown passes and accumulated 347 yards passing. The 6-foot-5 quarterback finished the season with 3,280 passing yards to go along with 30 touchdowns, 4 interceptions, and a passing efficiency rating of 157.2.

NCAA College Football Subdivisions Explained

Anthony Amoroso, MD, has practiced emergency medicine post-residency for 15 years. In his free time, Dr. Anthony Amoroso enjoys watching college football.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) classifies all member institutions’ athletic programs into three divisions, the highest of which is Division I. When a Division I school has a football program, the NCAA categorizes that program as either Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly known as Division I-A, or Football Championship Subdivision, formerly known as Division I-AA.

Football Bowl Subdivision, or FBS, is the highest level of college football. Teams in this division play 12 regular season games and a weekend-long conference championship. In general, FCS teams only play 11 games in the regular season as well as a 24-team playoff sponsored by the NCAA. An FBS team is also eligible to play in the four-team College Football Playoff, which is played after the regular season independently of the NCAA.

FBS teams have a higher scholarship allowance as well. An FBS team can hand out 85 full scholarships. An FCS team has an allotment of 63 scholarships or fewer, depending on the conference, and can divide these among as many as 85 players.

To qualify as an FBS team, a school must draw an average of 15,000 attendees per home game. The school must meet this benchmark at least once per rolling two-year term. FCS schools do not have attendance requirements, but the average for an FCS home game in 2014 was calculated at less than 8,000 attendees.