This is an introduction to a world of incredibly fun games played with dice. No, I’m not going to teach you to gamble. Rather, I am going to show you how just 2 to 8 dice can allow you to play various sports. In this first installment I am going to teach you how to play the university version of “Dice Football”. This is probably the simplest of all my sports craps games that I will reveal in later articles. Anyway, in all football dice games you will need two dice, a notebook sheet and a pen or pencil.

The first thing you’ll need to do is draw a two-inch horizontal rectangle on the paper that spans three lines. I prefer college ruled notebook paper because the lines already create a smaller natural Away/Home team divider for the rectangle you draw. Next, divide your rectangle into quarters, just like the scores you see in the newspaper. You can write in either of the two college teams you want to watch play or just stick with the home/away setup.

Once you have set up your box score, you can start the game. The best team always goes first. Both teams will get five rolls of the two dice. You always allow both teams to make their rolls (5) in the room all at the same time. In simpler terms, the away team rolls two dice five times. Then the home team does the same. You do this for every quarter of the game.

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

Field goals can be attempted whenever a dice roll results in a total of ten (4 and 6) or eleven (5 and 6). At that point you roll a die to see if the field goal is good. When you try for a field goal and you get a one, two or three, the field goal is good. Roll a four, five or six and that means you failed… bummer.

This is an example of how the game can break down. The visiting team rolls the dice three times before a pair of twos results… Touchdown! The visitor rolls a dice and it results in four… the extra point is fine, seven points in total. The visitor makes his fifth throw and nails an eleven. Field goal attempt! He rolls a two, which means 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. He then rolls double on his last two rolls, earning the extra point both times. His final score in the first quarter is fourteen. Thus the local 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, simply alternate a roll of two dice between the two teams until someone scores. In the next article, I’ll teach you about professional craps football, which is a bit more complicated. Until then, keep rolling.