Programs and positions carry it. Four players who suited up at the same school is the foundation, and beside it sit position rooms — four quarterbacks, four running backs — which are rarer on the professional boards because the pro rotations have the draft to use instead.
Because this board is about the college career itself, not what came after it. The group is always something that happened on campus: the program, the position, the award, the yardage, the decade. A player who became famous later gets in on what he did as a student.
The named college trophies, the Heisman foremost among them, each as its own group of four winners. Because these have been presented for generations, a single award group can span most of the sport’s modern history.
Yes, as college career thresholds — receiving yards, rushing yards, passing totals — counted over a player’s time on campus only. Nothing a player did as a professional is ever part of a group on this board.
It does, and that is where the board gets its difficulty. A group built on a less celebrated school is invisible to anyone who only knows the traditional powers, and it is regularly the last of the four to fall.
