Bill Connelly’s annual guide for all that’s good and will make the upcoming season enjoyable.
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.
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 4: Tennessee at Oklahoma, NC State at Clemson, Utah at Oklahoma State. OU fans complained for years about a lack of marquee conference home games, but this year their inaugural SEC season starts with a visit from No. 15 Tennessee. You think the atmosphere might be fun for that? Elsewhere, Utah-OSU might tell us who the favorite is in OU’s former conference.
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.
