History

We are fed so many statistics nowadays that it's easy to take them for granted and assume they've always been there.

But, although major-league baseball began distributing weekly statistical updates early in the twentieth century, football was much slower to follow suit.

The National Football League, founded in 1920, didn't begin compiling official statistics until 1932. And the National Collegiate Athletic Association, founded in 1906, was content simply to oversee collegiate football, primarily regulating eligibility, until 1937.

By then, college football had outgrown regionalism, thanks in large part to the post-season bowl games, and fans were interested in what was happening, not only in their own areas, but elsewhere in the country.

As a result, the NCAA established its first statistical service, receiving weekly reports from member institutions and compiling them to produce listings of statistical leaders.

At first, raw numbers were used to determine "champions" in the various statistical categories. However, in 1970 the NCAA began using per-game averages to determine leaders in most categories, because the number of games scheduled by a given team could vary from 9 to 12.

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