I am from Australia and I just got espn subscription so I am starting to get into the college football. They play a couple matches each week but its always been different teams. Games Ive seen so far:
Texas v Texas A&M
Clemson v Florida State (yesterday)
Florida v Boise State
Michigan State (spartans?) v someone
I know a bit about football from NFL matches I have seen but I am interested in starting to follow a college team. Then I read there are something like 200 college teams!
Do people only support teams if they went to the college? Can you go to one college but support another college or is this frowned upon?
I like to follow the battlers in sports, people and teams punching well above their weight and try something different in order to get an advantage over richer teams (like swansea in the EPL). Who would be a good team for me to follow?
Also can someone provide me with a simple explanation of how they come up with the finals and the national game?
Most pick the team they support based on either proximity to where they grew up or where they went to school.
At my school (Florida State) there were tons of Miami fans that went to school there, some Florida fans, and a few stragglers from random schools. Not really frowned upon that much unless you are a dick. Miami fans were dicks.
For you, you will want to pick a team that is often on TV so you can watch them more often. There aren't really rich teams in College, since it isn't really a money game. There are teams that are better more often than not, sure, but that has more to do with recruiting power than purely money.
Popular teams that would probably be on TV more often include USC Trojans, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Ohio State Buckeyes, Alabama Crimson Tide, Florida State Seminoles, Florida Gators, LSU Tigers, Michigan Wolverines, Texas Longhorns, Oklahoma Sooners, and Oregon Ducks.
They have all had varying levels of success over the years, but are usually at a baseline decent level of success.
Currently, the top two teams as decided by Computer and Human rankings go to the National Championship game. Starting in a few years, it will be the top four that will go to a playoff. The rankings are a big mess of factors, including records, strength of schedule, weather in Albuquerque, and other such important things.