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Bill Connelly, ESPN Staff Writer
Forty years ago, the floodgates officially opened. In June 1984, the Supreme Court ruled in NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma that the NCAA couldn’t control all college football television contracts and limit its exposure. Suddenly, ESPN, TBS, WGN, Raycom and others were racing to air as much football as they possibly could. And what a season for this all to start.
On ESPN alone, viewers watched a supposedly rebuilding BYU team upset No. 3 Pitt 20-14 with a late 50-yard touchdown pass from Robbie Bosco to Adam Haysbert in Week 1. A couple of weeks later, they saw No. 4 Texas take down Bo Jackson and preseason No. 1 Auburn. Then Doug Flutie threw for 354 yards and six touchdowns in a Boston College blowout of North Carolina. Both Miami and South Carolina took down a fading Notre Dame. Navy came within a last-minute John Carney field goal of doing the same. Vanderbilt nearly erased a 28-point deficit at No. 12 LSU but fell just short. Iowa State nearly upset No. 2 Oklahoma. West Virginia beat Penn State for the first time in 25 years, replete with a field storm and the downing of goal posts.
And that was only on ESPN! On other networks, viewers saw Flutie’s Hail Mary miracle over Miami, Maryland’s record-setting 31-point comeback against Miami, a shocking Syracuse upset of No. 1 Nebraska, No. 20 Georgia’s 26-23 upset of No. 2 Clemson and a controversial 15-15 tie between No. 1 Texas and No. 3 Oklahoma. And in the postseason, unbeaten and unexpected No. 1 BYU survived six turnovers to knock off Michigan in the Holiday Bowl on ESPN, which, combined with No. 4 Washington’s upset of No. 2 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl on NBC — thanks in part to a penalty on OU’s Sooner Schooner! — earned the Cougars maybe the most surprising national title the sport has produced.
How were we not going to be hooked at the end of that season?
Forty years after this glorious nonsense, the college football landscape looks just a wee bit different. The year-end top 10 in 1984 featured three teams from the Pac-10 (Washington, USC and UCLA), three from the Big 8 (Nebraska, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State), one from the Southwest Conference (SMU), one from the WAC (BYU), one non-Notre Dame independent (Boston College) and just one team from either the SEC or Big Ten (Florida, which was banned from the postseason).
In 2024, we’ve got a genuine, 12-team playoff atop the sport. BYU would have had to win three postseason games to secure the title (and it was good enough to do just that). Meanwhile, the Big 8, SWC and Pac-10 no longer exist. The WAC dropped football and only recently tried to bring it back. Washington, USC, UCLA and Nebraska are all in the Big Ten, Oklahoma is in the SEC, Boston College and SMU are in the ACC, and the SEC and Big Ten feature nine of the top- 11 teams in the preseason AP poll.
The balance of power (and most of the money) has coalesced dramatically, but college football is forever too big and too messy to contain. We probably cannot summon the chaos of the glorious 1984 season, but we’re always going to have fun. That’s particularly true if we know where to look. Here’s a road map to coaxing the most enjoyment out of this historic season.
Watch the big games (duh)
Sometimes you have to search for the fun, other times it’s staring you in the face. The spectacle of a big game is one of college football’s best draws, and we’ve got plenty of them in 2024. Based on preseason projections, here are three games from each week that feature (A) the highest combined projected SP+ ratings from the two teams and (B) a projected scoring margin (per SP+) under 10 points. (Games between two preseason AP top-15 teams are in bold.)
Week 1: Notre Dame at Texas A&M, LSU vs. USC (Sunday), Miami at Florida. Week 1 is for learning, and some of the teams with the most interesting questions square off. We’ll learn about Notre Dame’s remodeled offensive line, Conner Weigman and the new A&M offense, remodeled defenses at LSU and USC, and which embattled coach is more likely to pull off a 2024 surge, Miami’s Mario Cristobal or Florida’s Billy Napier.
Week 2: Texas at Michigan, Tennessee vs. NC State, Iowa State at Iowa. NC State gets an early spotlight opportunity, as does one of the most underrated rivalries in the country (Iowa-ISU). But Week 2 belongs to Texas’ trip to the Big House. (Conference realignment has scrambled my brain to the point where I thought Texas-Michigan was a conference matchup on multiple occasions this offseason.)
Week 3: Texas A&M at Florida, Arizona at Kansas State, UCF at TCU. The Big 12 did a really smart thing in scheduling quite a few exciting matchups in the back half of September, when the national schedule isn’t quite as strong. Meanwhile, A&M-Florida will either put us on Napier Fired watch or Florida Is Back watch.
Week 5: Georgia at Alabama, Oklahoma at Auburn, Florida State at SMU. Alabama and Georgia have played each other six times in the past seven seasons but four of those games have been played in Atlanta (either the SEC or CFP championship), one was in Indianapolis (CFP) and one came in Tuscaloosa during the attendance-limited 2020 COVID season. This is the first genuine home game in this series since 2015.
Week 6: Missouri at Texas A&M, Clemson at Florida State, SMU at Louisville. Mizzou-A&M could have significant CFP at-large stakes, but Week 6 is the biggest of the season for the ACC, with the projected top-two conference teams squaring off, along with two of the most likely dark horse contenders.
Week 7: Ohio State at Oregon, Ole Miss at LSU, Oklahoma vs. Texas. Good gracious. And this list doesn’t even include Penn State at USC or Florida at Tennessee. This is about as big a week as major college football can offer.
Week 8: Georgia at Texas, Alabama at Tennessee, Kentucky at Florida. The SEC hogs the spotlight on the third Saturday in October. It’s hard to know for sure what the stakes of games like Bama-Tennessee or Kentucky-Florida will be by that point, but it’s safe to assume that Georgia-Texas will be enormous.
Week 9: Missouri at Alabama, Oklahoma at Ole Miss, LSU at Texas A&M. Another all-SEC affair. Mizzou gets its best chance to score a marquee win, OU fans visit The Grove for the first time, and while I have no idea what LSU-A&M will have in-store from a stakes perspective, this is a pretty reliably fun affair.
Week 10: Ohio State at Penn State, Oregon at Michigan, Kentucky at Tennessee. The Big Ten takes the baton as November begins. Its four preseason top-10 teams square off, with Penn State trying to beat Ohio State for the first time in eight years and Michigan and Oregon squaring off for the first time since Oregon’s 39-7 Big House blowout in 2007.
Week 11: Georgia at Ole Miss, Alabama at LSU, Florida State at Notre Dame. Week 7 is the first of the season’s two genuine fencepost weekends, with Week 11 as the second. We get these three games, all of which could have major CFP bid and/or seeding implications, and we also get Oklahoma’s first trip to Missouri since 2010, the first Florida-Texas game since 1940 and, of course, the Holy War (BYU at Utah).
Week 12: LSU at Florida, Nebraska at USC, UCLA at Washington. After a ridiculous five-week run, we take the foot off of the accelerator a bit here and shift into more existential vibes. All of these games could deliver more angst for the loser than joy for the winner.
Week 13: Alabama at Oklahoma, Ole Miss at Florida, Texas A&M at Auburn. Another SEC trio, led by OU’s second-huge SEC home game of the season. Meanwhile, Florida could be on an interim coach by this point or could completely wreck Ole Miss’ CFP hopes. Or maybe both! Hooray, mess!
Week 14: Michigan at Ohio State, Texas at Texas A&M, Oklahoma at LSU. College football can change as much as it possibly wants, but Rivalry Week is still Rivalry Week.
Immerse yourself in the largest playoff race ever
For those of us who spent years clamoring for a genuine playoff — not merely a four-teamer that gave us one extra game — we’re going to enjoy the hell out of the 12-teamer we’ve been given (before it becomes a 14-teamer, or before Greg Sankey demands seven automatic SEC bids, or whatever else is on the horizon). We’re now giving three times the amount of CFP teams a shot at the national title, and more than one-third of FBS begins the season with at least a glimmer of playoff hope. According to the Allstate Playoff Predictor, 47 teams enter 2024 with at least a 5% chance of making the CFP, and 71, more than half, have at least a 2% chance.
Do all 71 of these teams have hopes of winning the national title? Of course not. But access is awesome. We should have been doing this all along! Hopefully we don’t lose this when the sport’s powers attempt further power grabs in the future.
Bask in wild conference title races
Most conferences start the season with a pretty clear hierarchy. SP+ gives Georgia a 31% chance of winning the SEC for instance, with only six other conference teams having a 5% chance. In the Big Ten, Ohio State‘s at 30%, and the top-four teams combine for a 90% chance.
We’ve got a couple of genuinely democratic races, though. The Big 12, as wide-open a power conference as you’ll ever see, features only two teams with a greater than 12% chance (Kansas State and Utah), while five more are at 5% or higher (Oklahoma State, Arizona, Iowa State, Kansas, West Virginia, TCU) and two others nearly hit that mark (Texas Tech Red 4%, UCF 3%). This race could go in any number of different directions.
Then you’ve got the Sun Belt. James Madison has the second-lowest odds for any SP+ conference title favorite (22%) and is facing coaching turnover that SP+ isn’t designed to account for. Three others, meanwhile, are between 11% and 19% (App State, Troy and Louisiana), and five are between 4-6%.
Will a national title contender emerge from either of these two conferences? Probably not. Will that matter as we’re enjoying a wild stretch run with loads of plot twists? Absolutely not.
Celebrate the remaining rivalries
One of the more deleterious effects of conference realignment is the loss of some of the sport’s connective tissue, of games that have been played 100 times (or close to it) but won’t be played much, if at all, moving forward. We lost Bedlam (Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State) to this latest round, along with Texas–Texas Tech, Texas-Baylor and plenty of former Pac-12 matchups like UCLA–Cal and USC–Stanford. Others, like the Apple Cup (Washington vs. Washington State) and Civil War (Oregon vs. Oregon State), were moved to earlier in the season with lower stakes.
Rivalry Week will forever be something to celebrate (even if it now features new “rivalries” like Cal-SMU and Oklahoma-LSU), but we’ll have plenty to take-in before then. Here are some of my favorites, including a couple that realignment or fun nonconference scheduling brought back to us.
Week 1: Clemson vs. Georgia, Miami at Florida, Penn State at West Virginia
Week 2: Iowa State at Iowa, Colorado at Nebraska, Pitt at Cincinnati (the Armon Binns Bowl)
Week 3: Oregon at Oregon State, Washington State at Washington, Cincinnati at Miami (Ohio), Colorado at Colorado State, Appalachian State at East Carolina
Week 4: Iowa at Minnesota, TCU at SMU
Week 5: Arkansas vs. Texas A&M, Georgia Southern at Georgia State, New Mexico at NMSU
Week 6: Auburn at Georgia, Navy at Air Force
Week 7: Ole Miss at LSU, Florida at Tennessee
Week 8: Toledo at NIU (the Tommylee Lewis Bowl)
Week 9: Florida State at Miami, Kansas at Kansas State, Michigan State at Michigan
Week 10: Air Force at Army, TCU at Baylor
Week 11: BYU at Utah, Florida State at Notre Dame, Oklahoma at Missouri
Week 12: Texas at Arkansas (it’s back!)
Week 13: Stanford at Cal, USC at UCLA, Boise State at Wyoming
Boise State potentially having to win in Laramie in late November to hold onto a CFP spot? Count me all the way in on that one.
Embrace the absurdity
Look, nobody asked for USC-Rutgers as a conference rivalry, and the sport isn’t better off for its existence. But we embrace whatever weirdness we get in this sport, and to be sure, there are quite a few weird new conference matchups this year. Might as well immerse ourselves into them. Here’s a sample. Week 9 is going to be … a treat? Is that the right word?
Week 3: Stanford at Syracuse (Friday), Cal at Florida State
Week 4: Northwestern at Washington, Stanford at Clemson
Week 5: Washington at Rutgers
Week 6: USC at Minnesota
Week 7: Minnesota at UCLA, Cal at Pitt
Week 8: Oregon at Purdue (Friday), NC State at Cal, South Carolina at Oklahoma
Week 9: Rutgers at USC, Texas at Vanderbilt, Wake Forest at Stanford, Illinois at Oregon, Washington at Indiana
Week 10: Pitt at SMU
Week 11: Boston College at SMU, Maryland at Oregon, Cal at Wake Forest (Friday)
Week 12: Louisville at Stanford, Syracuse at Cal
Week 13: Kentucky at Texas
Oregon playing at Purdue in a night game — just ask Ohio State how those can go — is the ultimate “Welcome to the Big Ten” experience right there.
Try not to get blown away on Lake Michigan
Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium is the official name of Northwestern’s makeshift stadium on the banks of Lake Michigan. It’s where it’ll play Miami (OH), Duke, Eastern Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin before moving to Wrigley Field to play Ohio State in Week 12 and Illinois in Week 14. This is going to be awfully unique, though I’m disappointed we missed out on an “Ohio State comes to Evanston No. 1 in the CFP rankings and has to survive 40 mph winds in a tiny stadium” scenario. Football at Wrigley is always pretty cool, though.
Watch the midweek games
Let’s be honest: Saturdays are absolute fire hoses sometimes. It’s impossible to keep up with everything you want to keep up with. But midweek games can sometimes be blessings in that regard. You can check on teams you’ve been wanting to see more of, and once November rolls around, you can immerse yourself in glorious MACtion.
Here’s one Tuesday-to-Friday game to pay particular attention to each week. (It was really hard limiting myself to just one for some.) The Friday slate is awfully strong this season.
Week 1: North Dakota State at Colorado (Thursday)
Week 2: Duke at Northwestern (Friday)
Week 3: Arizona at Kansas State (Friday)
Week 4: South Alabama at Appalachian State (Thursday)
Week 5: Virginia Tech at Miami (Friday)
Week 6: Texas State at Troy (Thursday)
Week 7: Memphis at USF (Friday)
Week 8: Oregon at Purdue (Friday)
Week 9: Boise State at UNLV (Friday)
Week 10: Louisiana Tech at Sam Houston (Tuesday)
Week 11: Appalachian State at Coastal Carolina (Thursday)
Week 12: CMU at Toledo (Tuesday)
Week 13: NC State at Georgia Tech (Thursday)
Week 14: Memphis at Tulane (Thursday)
Watch as much smaller-school football as you can
It’s one of my annual messages: The more small-school ball you watch, the healthier you become. In my Friday preview columns during the season, I always try to identify at least one smaller-school game to keep an eye on, but in addition to some super-interesting early-season matchups for highly ranked FCS teams — No. 4 Montana State at New Mexico in Week 0, No. 1 South Dakota State at Oklahoma State and No. 2 North Dakota State at Colorado in Week 1, No. 5 South Dakota at Wisconsin in Week 2 — here are two games per week that pit teams ranked particularly high in the preseason polls. These games will rock. I had to include three for Week 9.
Week 1: No. 3 Ferris State at No. 6 Pittsburg State (D2), No. 3 Georgetown (Kentucky) at No. 21 Montana Tech (NAIA)
Week 2: No. 3 Montana at No. 22 North Dakota (FCS), No. 19 John Carroll at No. 3 Wisconsin-Whitewater (D3)
Week 3: No. 11 College of Idaho at No. 4 Montana Western (NAIA), No. 1 North Central at No. 15 Aurora (D3)
Week 4: No. 6 Wisconsin-La Crosse (D3) at No. 4 Grand Valley State (D2), No. 2 Cortland at No. 12 Susquehanna (D3)
Week 5: No. 12 West Florida at No. 4 Grand Valley State (D2), No. 11 Southern Illinois at No. 5 South Dakota (FCS)
Week 6: No. 1 North Central at No. 9 Wheaton (D3), No. 1 Keiser at No. 12 St. Thomas (NAIA)
Week 7: No. 4 Montana State at No. 7 Idaho (FCS), No. 2 North Dakota State at No. 11 Southern Illinois (FCS)
Week 8: No. 1 South Dakota State at No. 2 North Dakota State (FCS), No. 1 Harding at No. 19 Ouachita Baptist (D2)
Week 9: No. 5 South Dakota at No. 1 South Dakota State (FCS), No. 3 Ferris State at No. 4 Grand Valley State (D2), No. 8 Bethel (Tennessee) at No. 3 Georgetown (Kentucky) (NAIA)
Week 10: No. 2 Central Missouri at No. 6 Pittsburg State (D2), No. 2 Northwestern (Iowa) at No. 10 Morningside (NAIA)
Week 11: No. 10 Sacramento State at No. 4 Montana State (FCS), No. 3 Wisconsin-Whitewater at No. 6 Wisconsin-La Crosse (D3)
Week 12: No. 3 Montana at No. 4 Montana State (FCS), No. 2 North Dakota State at No. 5 South Dakota (FCS)
Better yet, adopt a small-school team
Want the full smaller-school experience? Follow a team (preferably a good one) from start to finish. Here are five particularly choice options.
1. Montana Grizzlies. Honestly, you can’t go wrong with just about anyone in the Big Sky. Montana State has a devastating run game, one of the best defensive players in the FCS (defensive end Brody Grebe) and a glorious locale. Idaho has one of my favorite head coaches (Jason Eck) and a potential breakout QB (Jack Layne) and plays in the glorious Kibbie Dome. Sacramento State has a mighty offensive line and 29 wins in three years. Eastern Washington plays on a blood red field and boasts yet another prolific quarterback (Kekoa Visperas). Portland State hasn’t been amazing of late but once fielded one of the most fun and influential teams of all time. And I’m wearing an utterly delightful Idaho State “Throwin’ Idahoans” shirt from Homefield Apparel as I write this.
Hell, maybe just adopt the Big Sky as a whole. You can’t go wrong. But if you’re just picking one team, pick the one that made the FCS title game last year and returns the guy who did this:
0:50
Junior Bergen returns the punt 47 yards for a TD vs. North Dakota
Junior Bergen makes a magnificent play as he weaves around the defense to return the 47-yard punt for a touchdown.
(That was his third return score in two playoff games. He would go on to both catch a touchdown pass and throw the game-winning 2-point conversion in overtime. It was one of the greatest playoff runs you’ll ever see.)
2. Central Missouri Mules. You like points, right? You like the forward pass? And great mascots? The Mules check all the boxes. Quarterback Zach Zebrowski returns after throwing for a Joe Burrow-ian 5,157 yards and 61 touchdowns and winning the Harlon Hill Award (a.k.a. the D2 Heisman). They lost to Harding, the eventual D2 national champions, by just one point in the playoffs, too.
3. SW Oklahoma State Bulldogs. Hey, sue me, the Bulldogs are my hometown team, and they need all the support they can get. Their next win will be their first since November 2022.
4. Wheaton. The Thunder are good, their stadium is right next to an active train track, their games had scores of 49-41, 41-34, 42-26, 36-35, 75-0, 52-6, 50-13, 61-6, 54-35, 41-34, 47-16 and 30-21 last season, and their entire offense consists of giving the ball to Giovanni Weeks until he falls over. He gained at least 140 yards from scrimmage in 11 of 12 games last season, and he’s back to both dish out and receive more punishment.
5. College of Idaho. I realize there is probably some residual Big Sky love working in their favor, but the Yotes reached the NAIA semifinals by scoring loads of points and throwing for loads of yards, and they return enough of last year’s team to rank third in the preseason polls this year. You won’t regret pulling up a choppy live feed of a game in Simplot Stadium this fall.