Note: The following appears in the App State football gameday program.
Seldom have we seen as much change to the game of college football as we are seeing with the opening of the 2024 season. No fewer than 15 schools were in different conferences when we kicked off the season over the last two weeks. That includes the ACC adding California, SMU and Stanford. We will have more on those schools in The Last Word in three weeks when Stanford comes to Tigertown.
Another big change is the way Division I football determines a national champion. Let’s look at how that has changed over the years.
Prior to 1969, the national champion was determined by the AP and UPI wire-service polls that were published at the end of the regular season. Media did the voting for the AP and coaches did the voting for UPI.
Many of you reading this probably did not realize that prior to 1969, the 100-year anniversary of college football, bowl games did not have an impact on the declared national champion.
Then in 1969, AP issued its first final poll after the bowl games. UPI still did not do a final poll until after the 1974 season. In 1973, my freshman year of college, No. 2 Notre Dame beat No. 1 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl by a score of 24-23. AP had its final poll and declared Notre Dame No. 1, but UPI did not have a poll after that game and declared Alabama No. 1.
It still makes me mad when historians’ lists of Alabama national championship years include 1973 simply because UPI did not have a post-bowl vote.
There was so much uproar over UPI not having a final poll after Notre Dame won the head-to-head meeting that UPI changed its policy for the 1974 season.
That was the way the national champion was determined until the BCS began in 1998. Between 1998 and 2013, the top-two teams after the conference title games were matched up in a national title game based on a formula, which included computer ratings.
In 2014, the CFP era began with the top-four teams entering into a playoff. The qualifiers were determined by a 13-member committee. Now in 2024, the CFP has been expanded to 12 teams.
I am 68 and have followed the game closely over all these changes from the time I was in grade school, because I am the son of a 1948 Notre Dame graduate who experienced two national titles as a student and lived and died with Notre Dame football each fall Saturday.
As I look back, it is a little surprising it has taken this long to get to the format we have today. As a longtime collector of Sports Illustrated magazines, I ran across an article by legendary writer John Underwood about an upcoming January 1976 NCAA Convention in St. Louis, Mo.
An NCAA Playoff Feasibility Study Committee, chaired by Temple Athletic Director Ernie Casale, had written a proposal, whereby four teams would be announced on Jan. 2, 1977 as competitors in a four-team playoff for the national championship.
Underwood, one of the most connected sports writers of the era, contacted all the commissioners of the major conferences for their thoughts on the subject. Only one, ACC Commissioner Bob James, was in favor of the proposal.
Underwood also quoted Hall of Fame coaches of the era, including Bear Bryant, Barry Switzer and John McKay, who had just left Southern California to become head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. All were against the playoff.
“Why do we need a playoff?” said the always quotable McKay. “Because the pros have it?
“We (college football) have something better. We have eight or 10 teams that win their conference, win bowl games and have great seasons…10 winners instead of one. Everyone’s happy.”
That was the feeling of many coaches across the country, and athletic directors believed the same. That proposal and many others were defeated over the next decades.
That approach has changed to what we have today, basically because of money. Had McKay, Bryant and Switzer been told their budgets would increase 10-fold by having a playoff, they might have reconsidered.
This year’s 12-team playoff adds a lot of excitement to America’s already No. 1 sport. Instead of meaningful games involving 10 teams with a chance to make a four-team playoff as we enter play on Nov. 1, there will be 25, and probably still 20 on Thanksgiving weekend.
A look to Clemson’s history shows that the Tigers have been in six College Football Playoffs (2015-20), when there were only four teams. If there had been this year’s 12-team playoff rules in effect from 1956 and 2023, noting the ACC champion or a top-11 AP ranking entering the bowls each year, Clemson would have made the playoff 21 times.
Think how those additional 15 playoff seasons would have added to the excitement of those years and added to Clemson’s heritage.
