NCAA FOOTBALL 2024 MEGA THREAD - WELCOME TO THE PLAYOFF ERA
Just 8 days until Florida State plays Georgia Tech!
A lot happened while you were away:
Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC
The Pac-12 went out in a blaze of glory:
Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA are headed to the B1G
Utah, Arizona, Arizona State and Colorado are headed to the B12
Cal and Stanford along with SMU are somehow headed to the ACC
Poor old Wazzu and Oregon State are now aligned with the MWC in some sort of in-flux relationship
The conferences are huge now, and the schedules are wildly imbalanced. Florida might have the hardest schedule in the history of the sport, while Missouri's playing a sun-belt slate.
FSU and Clemson play each other, but then play ZERO common ACC opponents
Utah/Baylor and Arizona/Kansas State play non-conference games against conference opponents
LSU and USC play in Vegas!
Boise goes to Oregon, a team they've never lost to!
Texas at Michigan!
Alabama at Wisconsin!
Notre Dame at ATM!
Clemson vs Georgia!
And there are some incredibly juicy new conference matchups:
Texas @ ATM is back!
Texas vs Georgia
Oregon vs Ohio State
USC @ Michigan
USC vs Penn State
And then the bizarre:
UCLA @ Rutgers is now a conference game
Syracuse plays home and away against Cal and Stanford for some reason
Half the teams have new coaches, transferred quarterbacks, or both!
Let's get it on!
I scanned the 1970s, the golden age 🙂 It appears Oklahoma played Oklahoma St the week after the Thanksgiving Nebraska game. I read that as a way of telling the little brother where to stand. The exception was a late Thanksgiving they would just bracket the holiday with Sat games. Mid 70s they changed and tried to play OU-NU on the Friday after Tday and fit cOSU wherever.
As an aside what an decade the 70s was for Switzer's Sooners. They had one season with more than one loss; 1977 when #2
I didn't realize the Sooners record in that era was quite THAT good. Awesome. My older brother made me a fan of theirs, and they played exciting, loosey goosey football. Reminded me of Louisville basketball under Crum (who I've played poker with). "The Bootlegger's Boy" was quite a dude.
I just went thru that 10 year stretch and it looks like there was two 2-loss teams from 71-80. And the Big 8 was pretty good then, with Nebraska, Colorado, Mizzou, OK. St., plus they were playing Texas every year, and USC and Ohio State some, and then top tier bowl opponents. Sick record. Looks like the went 105-11 over a ten year stretch.
That Arkansas bowl game is kind of the game that made Holtz a monster name. Big underdog, suspended all those players, and shockingly routed the Sooners.
As an aside what an decade the 70s was for Switzer's Sooners. They had one season with more than one loss; 1977 when #2 OU was stunned by Lou Holtz's Razorbacks in the Orange Bowl and finished 7th at 10-2.
When I was a kid my dad used to brag to me about how Michigan only lost to Oklahoma 14-6 in the 76 Orange bowl. That's all I needed to know to know they were an empire then.
It was effin electric. The whole setting and build up to the game was almost surreal, and then that happened as an opening act. I really have it as the most exciting moment in TV sports of the 20th Century. Off the top of my head I might add Secretariat Belmont, Affirmed/Alydar Belmont, Ali/Frazier 1 (but not on live TV), believe it or not Leonard/Hearns 1, NC State takes down the Bruin dynasty in double OT in the Final Four, maybe the Jordan shot for the title ... I"m sure there are a bunch of
this, more often than not, gets voted #1 for the last century when such polls are run
