1977 college football season

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The 1977 college football season was one in which the top five teams all finished with records of 11-1-0. Notre Dame, which beat a #1 ranked Texas team in the Cotton Bowl, became the national champion. The year 1977 was the last before NCAA's Division I was divided into I-A and I-AA. On the eve of a national playoff for the smaller programs that would be I-AA, the Sugar Bowl in 1977 became the fourth bowl game to sign a contract guaranteeing an appearance by a major conference champion. The result was that meetings between the media poll choices for the top two teams were less likely, unless those teams were in the Big Ten and Pac-8 (which met in the Rose Bowl, or one of the teams was not obligated to play in a particular bowl game.

Besides the Big 10-Pac 8 matchup in the Rose Bowl, the SWC champion played in the Cotton Bowl, the Big 8 titlist in the Orange Bowl, and the SEC champ in the Sugar Bowl. Top teams that had their choice of which bowl to play were either in a conference outside of the five major powers (such as the ACC or the WAC) or those that were "independent" (not affiliated with any conference), During the 20th Century, the NCAA had no playoff for the college football teams that would later be described as "Division I-A". The NCAA Football Guide, however, did note an "unofficial national champion" based on the top ranked teams in the "wire service" (AP and UPI) polls. The "writers' poll" by Associated Press (AP) was the most popular, followed by the "coaches' poll" by United Press International) (UPI). The AP poll consisted of the votes of as many as 64 writers, though not all voted in each poll, and the UPI poll was taken of a 42 member board of coaches.

[edit] September

In the preseason poll released on September 5, 1977, the AP ranked Oklahoma first, followed by #2 Michigan, #3 Notre Dame, #4 USC and #5 Ohio State. Alabama was 6th, and the defending champion, Pittsburgh (minus Tony Dorsett and Johnny Majors) was ranked 7th.

September 10

#1 Oklahoma opened its season against the visiting Vanderbilt Commodores, who had finished 2-9-0 the year before. Though the Sooners avoided an upset, their 25-23 win didn't impress the pollsters, and OU dropped to fifth. #2 Michigan won at Illinois, 37-9. #3 Notre Dame won at Pittsburgh, 19-9. #4 USC won at Missouri, 27-10. #5 Ohio State beat visiting Miami (of Florida) 10-0. #6 Alabama beat Ole Miss, 34-13, at Birmingham. Although the top six teams all won their openers, The next poll shuffled the rankings (2-4-3-6-1-5): 1.Michigan 2.USC 3.Notre Dame 4.Alabama 5.Oklahoma

September 17

#1 Michigan beat Duke, 21-9 and #2 USC won at Oregon State, 17-10. A week after losing to Alabama, Ole Miss upset #3 Notre Dame 20-13 in Jackson. The Irish dropped to 11th, and as low as 14th the week after. #4 Alabama lost at #14 Nebraska, 31-24. #5 Oklahoma crushed visiting Utah, 62-24. #6 Ohio State and #10 Penn State which beat Minnesota (38-7) and Houston (31-14), respectively, reached the top five: 1.Michigan 2.USC 3.Oklahoma 4.Ohio State 5.Penn State

September 24

#1 Michigan beat Navy, 14-7. #2 USC beat visiting TCU, 51-0. #3 Oklahoma and #4 Ohio State met in Columbus, Ohio, in the season's first big matchup. In a close game, the visiting Sooners won 29-28 and reclaimed first place in the next poll. #5 Penn State beat Maryland, 27-9. #6 Texas A&M, which won at #7 Texas Tech, 33-17, reached the top five: 1.Oklahoma 2.USC 3.Michigan 4.Penn State 5.Texas A&M

[edit] October

October 1

#1 Oklahoma beat Kansas 24-9 and #2 USC was idle, but the Trojans were voted #1 anyway in a split vote (23 vs. 19 for OU and 16 for UM). #3 Michigan beat #5 Texas A&M 41-3. #4 Penn State lost at Kentucky, 24-20. #6 Ohio State won at SMU, 35-7. #8 Texas defeated the visiting Rice Owls, 72-15. With USC having a plurality of votes (23 vs. 19 for OU and 16 for UM), the poll was: 1.USC 2.Oklahoma 3.Michigan 4.Ohio State 5.Texas

October 8 In Los Angeles, #1 USC was beaten by #7 Alabama, 21-20. The same day, in Dallas, #2 Oklahoma and #5 Texas met in their annual game, with Texas winning 13-6. The #2 Sooners' fall on the same day that #1 was beaten was a foreshadowing of something worse. In Big Ten play, #3 Michigan won at Michigan State 24-14 and #4 Ohio State beat Purdue 46-0. #6 Colorado beat visiting Oklahoma State, 29-13, to reach the Top Five, which had the Wolverines return to first place: 1.Michigan 2.Texas 3.Colorado 4.Alabama 5.Ohio State

October 15

#1 Michigan beat #14 Wisconsin 56-0. #2 Texas won at #7 Arkansas, 13-9. #3 Colorado played at Kansas to a 17-17 tie. #4 Alabama beat Tennessee in BIrmingham, 24-10. #5 Ohio State beat Iowa 27-6. #6 USC beat Oregon, 33-15, to return to the top five: 1.Michigan 2.Texas 3.Alabama 4.Ohio State 5.USC

October 22

Previously unbeaten (6-0-0) #1 Michigan was shut out when it visited unranked (4-2-0) Minnesota, 16-0. #2 Texas won at SMU, 30-14. #3 Alabama beat Louisville, 55-6. #4 Ohio State won at Northwestern, 35-15. #5 USC lost at #11 Notre Dame, 49-19. #7 Oklahoma, which beat #16 Iowa State 35-16, returned to the Top Five, and the Longhorns became the fourth team to lead the poll: 1.Texas 2.Alabama 3.Ohio State 4.Oklahoma 5.Notre Dame

October 29

#1 Texas beat visiting #14 Texas Tech, 26-0. #2 Alabama beat Mississippi State 37-7 in Jackson. #3 Ohio State beat Wisconsin, 42-0. #4 Oklahoma won at Kansas State, 42-7, and #5 Notre Dame beat Navy, 43-10. Other than the Sooners' trade with the Buckeyes, the poll was stable: 1.Texas 2.Alabama 3.Oklahoma 4.Ohio State 5.Notre Dame

[edit] November

November 5

#1 Texas won at Houston, 35-21. #2 Alabama won at #18 LSU 24-3. #3 Oklahoma won at Oklahoma State, 61-28, #4 Ohio State won at Illinois, 35-0, and #5 Notre Dame beat Georgia Tech, 69-14. For the first time since the season began, the top five remained unchanged (in fact, the top nine were the same): 1.Texas 2.Alabama 3.Oklahoma 4.Ohio State 5.Notre Dame

November 12

#1 Texas beat TCU 44-14. #2 Alabama beat the visiting Miami Hurricanes, 36-0. #3 Oklahoma beat Colorado, 52-14. #4 Ohio State beat Indiana, 35-7, and #5 Notre Dame won at #15 Clemson, 21-17. #6 Michigan won at Purdue, 40-7, and returned to the Top Five: 1.Texas 2.Alabama 3.Oklahoma 4.Ohio State 5.Michigan

November 19

#1 Texas beat Baylor, 29-7, while #2 Alabama and #3 Oklahoma were idle. Once again, the Big Ten title came down to a meeting between #4 Ohio State and #5 Michigan, 7-0 and 6-1 in conference play, respectively. The game, at Ann Arbor, Michigan, saw the host Wolverines win 14-6 and gain the trip to the Rose Bowl. In the Pac-8, USC beat UCLA 29-27 on a last second field goal to knock UCLA out of the Rose Bowl and put Washington in. #6 Notre Dame beat Air Force, 49-0. The poll: 1.Texas 2.Alabama 3.Oklahoma 4.Michigan 5.Notre Dame

November 26

#1 Texas closed with a 57-28 at #12 Texas A&M, with an 11-0-0 record, the SWC title, and a trip to the Cotton Bowl. #2 Alabama closed its season in Birmingham, beating Auburn 48-21. The Crimson Tide was unbeaten (7-0) in SEC conference play, as was Kentucky (6-0). The Kentucky Wildcats, 10-1-0 overall, might otherwise have gone to the Sugar Bowl, but were ineligible because of NCAA probation. #3 Oklahoma had beaten #11 Nebraska, 38-7, on the day after Thanksgiving to close the regular season 10-1-0. #4 Michigan was idle, as was #5 Notre Dame, which closed its season on December 3 with a 48-10 win at Miami. The final regular season poll had been released on November 28: 1.Texas 2.Oklahoma 3.Alabama 4.Michigan 5.Notre Dame

[edit] Bowl Games

Two former NFL head coaching failures became college football successes, upsetting the #1 and #2 teams. Dan Devine had been unspectacular as Green Bay's coach before succeeding the legendary Ara Parsheghian at Notre Dame, while Lou Holtz had coached the New York Jets to a 3-11 finish before taking over at Arkansas.

The largest crowd in Cotton Bowl history (76,701) turned out in Dallas to watch the unbeaten #1 Texas Longhorns finalize a national championship. Notre Dame's defense, however, forced five turnovers, setting up five scores. Vagas Ferguson scored three touchdowns, including one on a pass from Joe Montana in a 38-10 win. For Texas, both Earl Campbell and Johnny (Lam) Jones were injured. Devine changed his mind about resigning his Irish coaching job.

[1].  

With #1 Texas out of the way, #2 Oklahoma was in a position to claim the championship with a win over #6 Arkansas. The Razorbacks had finished behind Texas in SWC play and had settled for the Orange Bowl. The week of the game, Holtz suspended the Hogs' top rusher, Ben Cowins, and the top receiver, Donny Bobo. The Sooners were 18 point favorites. Roland Sales rushed for two touchdowns and over 200 yards as the Razorbacks shut down the Sooners' ground game en route to a 24-0 lead and a 31-6 win. ^[2].

In a day of upsets, an unvaunted Washington Huskies team upset 4th ranked Michigan in the Rose Bowl, 27-20. In a Bear Bryant vs. Woody Hayes matchup, #3 Alabama handled 8th ranked Ohio State, 35-6, in the Sugar Bowl.

There were several good choices for a champion-- giant killers Notre Dame and Arkansas, and third-ranked Alabama-- and the electors for AP and UPI were divided, but a majority for each service picked Notre Dame. With one AP writer naming all three schools as number one, the writers poll was 37⅓ for Notre Dame, 19⅓ for Alabama and 5⅓ for Arkansas ^[3] UPI had 23 for Notre Dame, 13 for Alabama and 2 for Arkansas ^[4]. Dan Devine, who had followed in the footsteps of both Vince Lombardi and Ara Parseghian, reversed his earlier plans and stayed on as coach of the defending NCAA football champion.

[5].

[edit] Other champions

With NCAA Division I-AA football set to begin in 1978, some of the schools that had played in Division II (such as Montana State) moved to Division I. Soon to be I-AA schools with great records in 1977 included Grambling State (10-1-0), Colgate (10-1-0), Louisiana Tech (9-1-2), UT-Chattanooga (9-1-1), and Tennessee State (8-1-1).

[edit] Heisman Trophy

[edit] References

1. ^ "Notre Dame corrals Longhorns by 38-10," Daily Herald (Chicago), Jan. 3, 1978, p4-1
2. ^ "Holtz' hot Hogs make Sales pitch," Syracuse Hearld Journal, Jan 3, 1978, p39
3. ^ [appollarchive.com]
4. ^ Galveston County News, Jan 4, 1978, p27
5. ^ "Notre Dame corrals Longhorns by 38-10," Daily Herald (Chicago), Jan. 3, 1978, p4-1