1977 College Football Season: The Road To The Major Bowls
The 1977 college football season defined by a dramatic January 2, when the four major bowl games were played. Two big blowouts created chaos and a controversial national champion.
1977 college football season
The Road To The 1978 Sugar Bowl: Alabama & Ohio State
Alabama came to the 1978 Sugar Bowl hoping that a combination of a win and the right confluence of events could lift them to a national championship. Ohio State came hoping to get to finally get a big win over a really good team. Neither team got what it really wanted, although ‘Bama certainly did everything in its power to make it happen.
The Road To The 1978 Cotton Bowl: Notre Dame & Texas
The 1978 Cotton Bowl was the lynchpin to a dramatic turn of events that saw the polls turned upside down on January 2, as Notre Dame stunned top-ranked Texas and ended up vaulting from #5 all the way to a national championship by night’s end.
1977 Notre Dame Football & The Dramatic New Year’s Day Turnabout
This would’ve been the ideal time for a plus-one format after the bowls, because the Irish and Tide had strong resumes, but ones that appealed to different voting philosophies. Alabama had played a consistently tougher schedule and their September loss to Nebraska was infinitely more defensible than Notre Dame’s defeat at Ole Miss.
But the Tide didn’t have wins like the devastations Notre Dame had hung on USC and Texas—beating two highly regarded opponents by a combined 58 points.
Under-The-Radar Sports History: The 1978 Orange Bowl
This post is part of a series of sports history articles commemorating under-the-radar teams and moments in a given year. This article about the Arkansas-Oklahoma Orange Bowl game that followed the 1977 college football season marks a major upset that had huge repercussions on the national title race that season and future seasons to come.