In this first installment I am going to teach you about playing the college version of “Dice Football”.  This is probably the simplest of all my dice sports games that I’ll reveal in later articles. Anyway, in all dice football games you will need two dice, notebook paper and a pen or pencil.

 The first thing you’ll need to do is draw a two inch horizontal rectangle on the paper encompassing three lines. I prefer college ruled notebook paper because the lines embedded on them already create a smaller natural Visitor/Home team’s divider for the rectangle you draw. Next break your rectangle into quarters—just like in the box scores you see in the newspaper. You can write in any two college teams that you want to see play or just stick with the home/visitor set-up.

Box Score Example

Once you’ve got your box score set up you can begin the game. The top team always goes first. Both teams will get five rolls of the two dice. You always allow the two teams to make their rolls (5) in the quarter all at once. In simpler terms, the visitor team rolls two dice five times. Then the home team does the same. You do this for each quarter of the game.

Scoring occurs when the two dice hit “doubles”. That is a Touchdown and it’s worth six points. For the extra point you would roll just one dice. If the dice is anything other than a “one”, the extra point is good. Should you roll a one then the extra point was missed and you’ll have to settle on just six points for that one particular roll. Remember, you get five rolls of two dice per quarter per team.

*Field Goals can be attempted whenever one roll of your dice results in a total of either a ten (4 & 6) or eleven (5 & 6).  At that point you roll one dice to see if the field goal is good. When you attempt a field goal and you roll a one, two or three, the field goal is good. Roll a four, five or six and that means you missed…sucks for you.

**Two Point Conversions can be attempted after any touchdown.  To attempt a two point attempt just roll both dice. If the rolled number total results in an equal number, the attempt is good. Roll an odd number total and that means you missed.

This is an example of how the game can break down. The visitor team rolls the dice three times before a pair of twos result…Touchdown! The visitor rolls one dice and it results in a four…extra point is good—seven points total. The visitor makes their fifth roll and nails an eleven. A field goal attempt! He rolls a two which means that the field goal is good. The total score for the visitor in the first quarter is ten points. They got seven for the TD and the extra point plus the three points for the field goal.

The home team rolls twice before rolling a ten. He rolls a five on his field goal attempt which means he missed. Then he rolls doubles on both of his last two rolls, making the extra point both times. His final score in the first quarter is a fourteen. Thus the home team leads the game after the first quarter 14 to 10.

Keep rolling until the end of four quarters. If the score ends in a tie then you are headed into "Overtime". To determine the order of overtime rolling you toss one dice and if it is even (2, 4, or 6), the home team rolls first; If the roll is odd (1, 3, or 5) then the visitor gets first shot at winning the game.  After the order of overtime rolling is determined, just alternate one roll of two dice between the two teams until someone scores. In the next article I’ll teach you about Dice Pro Football which is a little more complicated.

Till then, keep on rolling.