Expert: Vic Winnek - 1/21/2008

Question
Can you tell me what is the regulation size for a college football and an NFL football?  Thank you!!!!!

Answer
Stacy,

My expertise is in the NCAA Rules and not the NFL rules.  The following information hopelully answers your question.
Technically the shape of the ball is a prolate spheroid.

The NCAA rule regarding the college ball is as follows:
RULE 1-3-1
SECTION 3. The Ball Specifications

ARTICLE 1. The ball shall meet the following specifications:
a. New or nearly new. (A nearly new ball is a ball that has not been altered and retains the properties and qualities of a new ball.)
b. Cover consisting of four panels of pebble-grained leather without corrugations other than seams.
c. One set of eight equally spaced lacings.
d. Natural tan color.
e. Two 1-inch white stripes that are three to three and one-quarter inches from the end of the ball and located only on the two panels adjacent to the laces.
f. Conforms to maximum and minimum dimensions and shape indicated in the accompanying diagram.
g. Inflated to the pressure of 12-1/2 to 13-1/2 pounds per square inch (psi).
h. Weight of 14 to 15 ounces.
i. The ball may not be altered. This includes the use of any ball-drying substance. Mechanical ball-drying devices are not permitted near the sidelines or in the team area.
j. Professional football league logos are prohibited.
k. Advertising is prohibited on the ball [Exceptions: (1) Ball manufacturer’s name or logo, and (2) AFCA]


Generally the ball which is used to play American football or Canadian football (both of which developed from Rugby football) is also referred to as a "pigskin", due to their early use of pig hide to cover the ball. However, when the United States and Asian governments realized how uneconomical it was to manufacture the balls from this material, a movement was sparked by the AATUPS in 1932 arguing that the cruelty towards the pigs was inhumane.

Nearly a prolate spheroid, the ball is slightly pointed at the ends, unlike the more elliptical rugby ball. The Canadian football is slightly less prolate than the American ball and has a closer resemblance to a rugby ball.

Generally, the ball is about 11 inches (28 cm) long and about 22 inches (56 cm) in circumference at the center. The exterior of the ball is made of leather, which is required in professional and collegiate football. Footballs used in recreation may be made of rubber or plastic materials.

Leather panels are usually tanned to a natural brown color, which is usually required in professional leagues and collegiate play. At least one manufacturer uses leather that has been tanned to provide a "tacky" grip in dry or wet conditions.

The leather is usually stamped with a pebble-grain texture to help players grip the ball. Some or all of the panels may be stamped with the manufacturer's name, league or conference logos, signatures, and other markings.

Four panels or pieces of leather or plastic are required for each football. After a series of quality control inspections for weight and blemishes, workers begin the actual manufacturing process.

Two of the panels are perforated along adjoining edges, so that they can be laced together. One of these lacing panels receives an additional perforation and reinforcements in its center, to hold the inflation valve.

Each panel is attached to an interior lining. The four panels are then stitched together in an "inside-out" manner. The edges with the lacing holes, however, are not stitched together. The ball is then turned right side out by pushing the panels through the lacing hole.

A polyurethane or rubber lining called a bladder is then inserted through the lacing hole.

Polyvinyl chloride or leather laces are inserted through the perforations, to provide a grip for holding, hiking and passing the football.

Before play, the ball is inflated to an air pressure of 12.5–13.5 psi (86–93 kPa). The ball weighs 14–15 ounces (397–425 g).

According to nfl.com: The home club shall have 36 balls for outdoor games and 24 for indoor games available for testing with a pressure gauge by the referee two hours prior to the starting time of the game to meet with League requirements. Twelve (12) new footballs, sealed in a special box and shipped by the manufacturer, will be opened in the officials’ locker room two hours prior to the starting time of the game. These balls are to be specially marked with the letter "k" and used exclusively for the kicking game.

Regardless of the material used in manufacturing, the ball is sometimes colloquially referred to as a pigskin

ARTICLE FROM USA TODAY REGARDING NFL FOOTBALLS

Wilson factory making a stamp on football
By Michael Hiestand, USA TODAY
ADA, Ohio — The Wilson Sporting Goods factory was open Sunday night, as it is one Sunday each year.

Workers often wonder if the footballs they laced up are the ones in play during the Super Bowl.  
By Jay LaPrete for USA TODAY

As soon as the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles had played their way into Super Bowl XXXIX, the factory's three stamping machines began putting the teams' names on $120 collectible footballs. Monday, the machines went to work on the 72 balls available for the big game.

But machines don't tell the story behind America's most famous footballs. In his trips to eight Super Bowls, Charles Moore has met fans who figure perfect spirals originate with somebody hitting a button: "Some people think you just put leather in a machine and out pops a football."

Hardly. Super Bowl footballs come from workers such as Moore, who used his bare and bandaged hands Monday to twist 600 balls. As a "ball turner," Moore grapples with balls that are inside out, so they can be stitched, and turns them right-side out.

He has had the job for 40 years. Not that it would be easy to take his specialty elsewhere: Every ball used in the NFL, and most used in college and high school games, comes from the Wilson Sporting Goods factory in this town of 5,582.

This is, literally, the only football factory in America.

With about 130 workers in its union shop, the plant is Ada's second-biggest employer — after Ohio Northern University — and the only one to have its logo on the town's water tower. Wilson's workers average 15-20 years on the job, says plant manager Dan Riegle, who's in his 24th year and had to give up raising hogs in his spare time "because now I'm just too busy making pigskins."

In a plant producing 3,000-5,000 footballs a day, nearly everyone is a specialist. But, for some exemplary workers, there can be a big break in the routine: Each year the plant sends a contingent of workers to the Super Bowl to make balls at the annual NFL Experience fan fest.

Glenn Hanson, who stitches about 150 footballs each day in a job he has had for 33 years, will be at his third Super Bowl next month. He knows what to expect at the company's exhibit: "People always think the balls are made out of pigskin."

They come from cowhide. An entire hide yields up to 25 footballs after being cut by workers such as Donna Putnam.

A cutter for 19 years, Putnam jokes about sometimes recognizing her work as she watches games on TV: "I'll tell my kids, 'I cut that ball.' They'll say, 'How do you know?' "

Putnam, of course, can't know that much about footballs. But like many of her co-workers, she's surrounded by experts: Her relatives who have worked at the plant include a brother, a sister, an uncle, three cousins and three aunts.

The factory isn't obsessed with how its NFL balls will bounce. It's loaded with long-suffering Cleveland Browns fans — although Ada is slightly closer to Detroit and Cincinnati — and has some workers who couldn't even say who made the NFL playoffs. For example, Rita Rowe, who has gone to the site of seven Super Bowls but chose to go to games only twice. "At first, I wanted to be able to say I'd been to the games. I'm just not a fan."

At the factory's annual outing, everybody plays ... softball.

But for this crew, the Super Bowl isn't just an excuse to have a party. "The proudest moment for this factory is when they kick off in the Super Bowl," Riegle says. "To know you're part of it — in Ada, Ohio — is pretty special."

Jackie Oakes, a lacer for 15 years who'll be in Jacksonville for her second Super Bowl, can guess what she'll be thinking at kickoff: "You wonder if you laced that ball."

Made in the USA — mostly

When it comes to its game ball, the NFL has largely resisted the urge to innovate.

The league briefly tested a white ball in 1953, says Kevin Murphy, football business manager for Chicago-based Wilson. In 1973, including that season's Super Bowl, it used balls with white stripes.

But since Wilson began making all NFL game balls in 1941, Murphy says, the league's specifications haven't changed much.

"They're very deliberate," he says. "I joke that if you want to make a change in NFL game balls, it's like turning around the Queen Mary. But that's a good thing. I don't want to rip on baseball, but remember those years when there were so many home runs? Well, the NFL doesn't have 70-yard field goals."

For the last three years, Wilson has tested balls with pebbled laces that feel like the rest of the ball. Wilson hopes those balls, being used in college and high school games, could end up in the NFL.

"We talk to the NFL and keep testing," Murphy says. "Because we're always looking in the rearview mirror to see if there's anybody creeping up on us. But with any change you even think of making in the NFL, you'd think we were talking about putting a rocket into space."

Wilson's high-profile relationship with the NFL helps it control more than 80% of the total market for football game balls, which range from $35 for youth balls to $120 for its Super Bowl collectible ball. In addition to its annual sales of about 700,000 game balls, Wilson sells more than 3 million balls meant for casual recreation, some made in China.

Wilson's workers in Ada wonder if their jobs might end up in China or someplace overseas that offers lower labor costs.

"I think about that quite a bit," says Bonnie Cockerell, who sews ball linings and has worked at the plant for 18 years. "I'd work here the rest of my life. That's what I'm hoping."

The Wilson plant began as a means to lower labor costs: The Ohio-Kentucky Manufacturing Co., which sold the plant to Wilson in 1955, moved its operation from Cincinnati to Ada in 1938 to lower its wages.

Wilson Sporting Goods is a division of the Amer Group, a multinational company based in Finland.

But for its workers in Ada, Wilson is seen as standing by the USA while other sports gear marketers have deserted.

"I won't let Nike stuff in my house," says Moore, the veteran ball turner. "My kids know it. If they come in Nike shoes, they leave them at the door."

But the world's only factory devoted solely to footballs, plant manager Riegle says, has an advantage in that people "doing something every day will do it better."

Sunday night, Riegle had a small crew of workers on hand as the Super Bowl matchup was determined. As soon as the Philadelphia Eagles-New England Patriots matchup was set, they worked overnight stamping the team names on balls to be shipped out immediately as collectibles. Because of demand, the plant's three stamping machines will keep putting on team names this week — sales of collectibles could reach 10,000.

Says Riegle, "You couldn't get them in people's hands the next day if they were coming from the Far East."

Chain of command no issue

Teams can't cook their Super Bowl balls. Or put them in dryers, fill them with helium or give them an oily rubdown.

There were always rumors about how teams might try to doctor balls in hopes of gaining an advantage. But that ended with the Super Bowl in January 1996, says NFL senior vice president Jim Steeg, when the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys ended up in a dispute and turned to the league for a resolution: "Teams liked to rub them up differently. So we took over to do it ourselves."

The league puts Super Bowl balls in the custody of the NFL team in the host city before they go under the control of game officials. Wilson's Murphy says the company has a backup for the Super Bowl's 72 balls: After the game balls were stolen or lost before the 1998 Super Bowl, an extra set of balls is hidden in case of emergency.

Every NFL ball, used from preseason to the Super Bowl, is supposed to be alike. The only exceptions are balls marked with a small K and used only for kickers — and more closely monitored by game officials. Super Bowl balls also are marked with a synthetic DNA that has become a standard tool to identify the authenticity of sports memorabilia.

The NFL didn't put imprints of the Super Bowl logo and participating team names until 1986.

The league, concerned that quarterbacks might complain about the feel of balls with logos, tested them with the New York Giants, then quarterbacked by Phil Simms, now a CBS analyst.

"We knew Simms was the most finicky quarterback," Steeg says. "So when that team didn't notice a difference, we knew we were fine."

Before the NFL's conference finals determine who will play in the Super Bowl, Wilson makes a few dozen balls that include each of the possible Super Bowl matchups among the four remaining teams. Some of those balls are sent to TV broadcasters, who can show official Super Bowl balls immediately after the matchup is determined.

The balls with Super Bowl matchups that never materialized aren't sold.

"I have a few in my closet," Murphy says. "I've shown them to people who say they remember the game. I have to tell them that's impossible."