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USF Football Imperialism Update: Staking Claim to the Midwest

We’re on board with this College Football Imperialism Map. Charlie Strong and his forces acquired valuable Midwestern lands with their defeat of Illinois last Friday.

By Nick Simon
Reddit CFB user Nathan Bingham (nbingham196)

One of the coolest things to come out of the college football interwebs this season has been the creation of the College Football Imperialism Map. The map was designed by Reddit user Nathan Bingham or nbingham196 as he goes by on Reddit and on Twitter.

How does this battle for territory and dominance work? Here’s how Bingham himself explained it:

What if College Football games were actually battles for land? This map answers this question. The original map is my closest FBS team to every county, but if a team is beaten their land is taken by the team that beat them. Teams will keep their land until beaten by another team and then all land will be passed to the new winner. For example Oregon State lost to Colorado State in week 0. Colorado State then lost to Colorado in week 1. Therefore Colorado owns Colorado State's land and Oregon State's land. FCS were not originally included, but can win their way on to the map like Howard, James Madison, Liberty, and Tennessee State did this week.

Got all of that? Now here’s how things have developed throughout the first three weeks of the season.

As you can see, after laying claim to the major western port city of San Jose, General Charlie Strong and his forces acquired key Illinois farmland this past Friday with their 47-23 defeat of invading Illinois.

Considering Lovie Smith and his Illini regiment already conquered Western Kentucky and Ball State (which in fact is not a state), those lands now belong to USF as well.

According to Reddit, the Bulls are now one of the top five teams by population and are tied with Kentucky with most territories claimed at five. Only Memphis and Clemson have larger empires with six territories apiece.

Considering that Temple already lost to Notre Dame, who then lost to Georgia, USF unfortunately cannot claim the key city of Philadelphia this Thursday with a win over the Owls.

Matter of fact, considering that East Carolina and UConn (who play each other before USF’s meeting with the Pirates) have already ceded their land, USF won’t have any potential new land to claim until their October 14 homecoming battle versus Luke Fickell and his Cincinnati Bearcat army.

We’ll keep you updated with new land developments as we forge through the season.