Bear Bryant’s Tide were looking to get back on top of the SEC when 1977 opened. Over the five seasons from 1971-75, they won the conference championship every year and finished in the national top 10 each time. In 1976, ‘Bama slipped behind Georgia, failed to make a major bowl game, and ended up #11 […]
Barry Switzer’s Oklahoma Sooners were a program that was at least as good—if not better—than anyone in college football. Switzer inherited a team that was already operating at an elite level in 1973 and promptly went 10-1. He followed that up with back-to-back national titles in 1974 and 1975. In 1976, a couple of losses […]
Texas faced uncharacteristically low expectations when the 1977 season began. Legendary head coach Darrell Royal had retired, and the program was coming off a .500 season. They had not reached a major bowl game since 1973 and were clearly losing ground to archrival Oklahoma, who had won a pair of recent national titles. Fred Akers […]
The 1977 Arkansas football season was the start of a new era in Razorback history. Frank Broyles retired after 19 program-defining seasons and moved upstairs to be the full-time athletic director and part-time ABC analyst, alongside Keith Jackson. Broyles’ replacement was Lou Holtz, a winner at N.C. State, and just off a less-than-successful fling with […]
The 1976 UCLA football team was embarking on a new era. In 1975, after winning the Rose Bowl and finishing in the national top 5, head coach Dick Vermeil left for the NFL. The Bruins tapped Terry Donahue to take over. It began a 20-year tenure for Donahue in Westwood. In his first year, he […]
After finishing #3 in the country in 1971, Colorado had slipped back to mediocrity by the time head coach Bill Mallory came to Boulder in 1974. After another mediocre year, Mallory got the Buffaloes to 9-2 and a Bluebonnet Bowl invitation in 1975. The 1976 Colorado football team took advantage of a wide-open Big Eight […]
Woody Hayes had taken Ohio State to four straight Rose Bowls from 1972-75. The 1976 Ohio State football team was still loaded and ranked #4 to start the season. They were certainly good, as evidenced by the fact they won a major bowl game. But some notable losses, including the one loss no Buckeye fan […]
Jerry Claiborne came to College Park in 1972, inheriting a program that hadn’t posted a winning season in ten years and gone 9-33 over the previous five seasons. Claiborne made immediate improvement, going 5-5-1. In 1973, the Terps went to a bowl game. In 1974 and 1975, they won consecutive ACC championships. The 1976 Maryland […]
The University of Houston’s football program had operated as an independent for much of its history. Prior to the 1976 season, the old Southwest Conference, led up by Texas and Arkansas, opened its doors and let Houston in. The Cougars were anything but timid new arrivals. The 1976 Houston football team not only won a […]
Michigan had gone 38-3-3 the previous four regular seasons but never reached the Rose Bowl. The Big Ten did not allow runner-ups to go to bowls prior to 1975, so the previous year’s Orange Bowl—a loss to national champion Oklahoma—was the only postseason appearance for head coach Bo Schembechler since 1971. The only games the […]
The 1976 USC football team was one going through change. The Trojans were one of college football’s top programs under the leadership of John McKay. After taking over in 1960, McKay had a splendid 16-year run in Los Angeles that included three national championships. Now, he was off to coach the NFL’s new expansion franchise […]
In the eleven years since Vince Dooley came to Georgia, the proud Bulldog program had been successful, but were generally submerged behind Bear Bryant’s Alabama in the SEC. 1968 was Georgia’s last conference championship. The 1976 Georgia football team broke through and captured an outright league title. Georgia had, even by the standards of 1976, […]