Introducing The SB Nation College Football Hall Of Fame

If halls of fame are supposed to be a way to recognize the best players who have ever played a game in a particular sport, then college football has a particularly bad way of doing it. Nothing against the College Football Hall of Fame, which does a pretty good job of doing what it's designed to do.

But that's the flaw -- the standards for who is eligible and how they can be elected run on for more than 700 words, and wide swaths of players and coaches are left out by one rule or another. In fact, the College Football Hall of Fame might as well be described as honoring "the best All-Americans who have ever played the game, as long as they're not playing in the NFL, and the best coaches who are either retired or so old that we're worried they will die before getting inducted, as long as they have a winning percentage and a career length that we established because we're the Hall of Fame."

And we suppose that's good as far as it goes. But we want to go further and create a Hall of Fame that reflects more than that. For the SB Nation Hall of Fame, there is no All-American requirement. As long as a college football player has played within the last 50 years and finished his career at least four full years ago, he is eligible. As long as a coach has coached within the last 50 years and finished his career four years ago or spent at least five years in his current or last position, he is eligible. Pretty simple, huh?

Over the last few weeks, we've asked SB Nation college blogs to submit the players from their universities, and nearby smaller schools, that should be considered for our Hall of Fame. And we've sent those nominees to a selection committee of SB Nation bloggers who then vetted the nominees and came up with two sets -- one inductee from each of 10 positions that will go into our Hall of Fame with no further consideration, and another group that will go before you, the fan, to vote on, beginning Wednesday.

Imagine that. A Hall of Fame for the fans.

Over the next couple of days, we'll unveil the nominees who are going directly to the SBN Hall of Fame. And we'll reveal the lists of four nominees who will need your votes to enter the Hall. On Friday, we'll officially unveil the fan choices for the SB Nation Hall of Fame.

And if you don't see your favorite player here? Well, this is just the inaugural year of our Hall of Fame. Tell us who we missed, and we'll put them through the ringer next year.

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The SB Nation College Football Hall of Fame is a summer project involving all of the network's excellent college football blogs. Each community nominated five of its own for inclusion, with 10 of those nominees being inducted by our selection committee, which included reps from most FBS conferences. The first 10 will be revealed Monday and Tuesday, while the remaining 10 will be chosen by public vote Wednesday and Thursday.