AFC

With the addition of the Houston Texans in the 2002 regular season, the National Football League(NFL) decided to revamp the current alignment of teams and divisions. In the 2001 season, the American Football Conference(AFC) was divided into the AFC East, AFC Central, and AFC West. Starting in the 2002 season, the AFC will be divided into divisions such as the AFC North, AFC South, AFC West, and AFC East. Below is a list of the teams and their divisions.

AFC East
Buffalo Bills
Miami Dolphins
New England Patriots
New York Jets

AFC North
Baltimore Ravens
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Pittsburgh Steelers

AFC South
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts
Jacksonville Jaguars
Tennessee Titans

AFC West
Denver Broncos
Kansas City Chiefs
Oakland Raiders
San Diego Chargers

See Also NFC.

The AFC is responsible for Asian World Cup qualifying and other regional soccer (football to non-Americans) tournaments (such as the Asian Cup and Asian Champions League).

For AFC qualifying for the 2002 World Cup (which is to be held in Japan and South Korea; both of those nations automatically qualify as the hosts), there are 10 initial groups of 3-4 teams (9 groups of 4; 1 group of 3). In the groups of 4, each team plays every other team twice. In the group of 3, each team plays the others once.

The 10 group winners advance to the next round, where they are split into two groups of 5. Within each group, each team will play the other teams twice (for a total of 8 games for each team). The two group winners will qualify for the World Cup. The two second-place teams face each other in a playoff, and the winner of THAT will have ANOTHER playoff against a European group runner-up, for a spot in the World Cup. (Yes, it's a bit confusing...)

From the BioTech Dictionary at http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/. For further information see the BioTech homenode.