College football hates a usurper. It's one of the ultimate facts of life. This sport fends off change better than any sport, even baseball, ever has.
The list of ruling programs rarely changes in any meaningful way. It took four decades of yelling and arguing to adopt a playoff, and it was only a four-teamer at that. The NCAA, with football as its brightest light, managed to fend off the "student athletes making money" concept for more than 60 years before only partially succumbing (when forced to by state governments).
We say we love underdogs. Don't you remember Boise State's hook-and-ladder? That time we deigned to let Cincinnati into the College Football Playoff -- and then immediately tried to question whether the Bearcats had actually belonged after they lost to Alabama like everyone else does? Great stuff!
But no matter what rule changes come about, no matter what developments take shape, if you assume they will benefit the bluebloods more than anything else, and that the richest will get richer at the expense of poorer programs, you'll probably be proved correct.
This sport and its power structure couldn't stop Miami and Florida State from becoming Miami and Florida State, though.
Twenty years ago today, Miami pummeled Nebraska in the Rose Bowl to cap its second rise to dominance and claim its fifth national title in 19 years. The Hurricanes laid waste to the Cornhuskers from the opening kick, rolling to a 34-0 halftime lead before cruising to a 37-14 win. Only two teams all season managed to stay within 22 points of a Hurricanes team that featured six All-Americans, eight future All-Americans and 38 future NFL draft picks, including 17 first-rounders.
Ten years earlier, in 1991, a Miami team nearly as talented -- six All-Americans, a future Heisman winner at QB, four future Pro-Bowlers -- went 12-0, beating nine teams by at least 22 points. One of the only teams that could compete with Miami that season: Florida State, which suffered its lone loss via Wide Right I and was in the fifth year of a 14-year run of top-five finishes.
Miami and Florida State were total afterthoughts and also-rans until the late 1970s; Miami had even considered dropping the sport altogether. But they ruled college football for most of the time between the mid-1980s and early 2000s. They briefly ceded control to Nebraska in the mid-1990s, then charged back, winning national titles in 1999 (FSU) and 2001 (Miami), and coming just short in 2000 (FSU) and 2002 (Miami). The changing machinations of integrated recruiting in the 1970s, combined with the television boom of the 1980s, opened the door for a usurper, and two barged through.
Today, with name, image and likeness money flooding the sport, the transfer process becoming a lot more open and player-friendly, and the possibility of a vastly expanded playoff system on the horizon, one could argue there's a similar or even greater amount of change going on than occurred in the 1980s. Are the circumstances right for a new power to emerge and take advantage of the altered landscape? And who might that power be?
NCAA v. the Board of Regents: College football's biggest change agent since the forward pass
"The Supreme Court, in a decision that could change the television viewing habits of millions of Americans, today broke the National Collegiate Athletic Association's exclusive grip on televised college football games. By a 7-2 vote, the court freed individual colleges to make their own television deals. ... Justice John Paul Stevens, in his opinion for the court, said: 'The anti-competitive consequences of [the NCAA] arrangement are apparent. Individual competitors lose their freedom to compete. Price [for TV rights] is higher and output [measured by games televised] lower than they would otherwise be, and both are unresponsive to consumer preference."
That's how the AP reported the Supreme Court's decision in the 1984 case of NCAA v. the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma. The court confirmed assertions that the NCAA's limitation of television opportunities was a violation of antitrust laws and restrained trade. For decades, the NCAA insisted that, among other things, putting more games on television would do severe damage to game attendance and therefore capped televised offerings and the revenue that came with them. Justice Stevens shot that claim down, stating the NCAA was assuming "that the product itself is insufficiently attractive to draw live attendance when faced with competition from televised games." Ouch.
Freed of limitations, and undoubtedly boosted by both the expanding presence of cable networks (ESPN in particular) and the "consumer preference" that Stevens referenced above, college football's television boom officially began. And for better and occasionally worse, the Supreme Court might have done more to change college football than anything else since the legalization of the forward pass eight decades earlier.
Within a decade of the ruling, conferences -- and, in Notre Dame's case, individual schools -- were negotiating their own television deals, and super-conferences were forming: the SEC in 1992, Big 12 in 1996 and so on. This, in turn, led to increased revenue, skyrocketing coaches' salaries and facilities arms races. But first, the court decision offered branding opportunities that didn't previously exist and allowed an increasingly nationalized college football audience an opportunity to get to know programs, coaches and players across the country. That served to escalate change that was already underway.
College football had already undergone a bit of a leadership shift in the early 1980s. The 1970s were maybe the most oligarchy-friendly decade in the history of the sport: Nine schools (Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Notre Dame, USC, Penn State and Texas) had gobbled up 65 of 100 AP top-10 spots from 1970 to 1979 and, for that matter, all but one AP national title from 1961 to 1979. But a number of legendary coaches retired in short succession, including Texas' Darrell K Royal in 1976, Ohio State's Woody Hayes in 1978, Notre Dame's Ara Parseghian in 1974 and Dan Devine in 1980 and Alabama's Bear Bryant in 1982, while USC's two title-winning coaches, John McKay and John Robinson, left for the NFL in the same period as well.
This turnover, and the general unpredictably of hiring new coaches, contributed to churn atop the sport. So, too, did the gradual effects of integrated recruiting in the South and the varying levels of commitment from different programs in that regard. The result: a rare void at the top of the college football hierarchy. The bluebloods were still good, but they weren't quite as dominant, and college football saw five straight first-time AP national champions between 1980 and 1984: Georgia, Clemson, Penn State, Miami and, incredibly, BYU.
It was this version of college football, in flux and less dominated by longtime elites than normal, that began showing up far more on our televisions.
Marketability, independence and The U
Miami's Howard Schnellenberger and Florida State's Bobby Bowden were among the first coaches to wholly commit to and take advantage of the integration of college football in the South, thriving with players who might have ended up at Big Ten schools or HBCUs a decade earlier. Both had already seen unprecedented success before NCAA v. Board of Regents -- FSU had enjoyed its first two top-10 finishes ever in 1979 and 1980, and after a charge into the top 10 in 1981, Miami had famously upset Nebraska to win the 1983 national title. While Schnellenberger was lured to the USFL in 1984, Jimmy Johnson replaced him and ramped up The U's burgeoning personality tenfold.
The 1984 season, the first after the Board of Regents ruling, presented Miami as the ultimate foil as the Hurricanes fell victim to two of the most famous finishes of the decade: a 31-point blown lead against Maryland, followed by Hail Flutie against Boston College two weeks later. But by the middle of 1985, the Canes were officially becoming the sport's indomitable antagonist. They beat eventual national champion Oklahoma by two touchdowns in Norman, breaking Troy Aikman's leg in the process. They beat Notre Dame 58-7 in the final game of the Irish's failed Gerry Faust experiment. They rolled through the 1986 regular season with such swagger and dominance that their Fiesta Bowl appearance against Penn State, a de facto national title game, was covered with genuine (and jarring in retrospect) good-versus-evil undertones.
Miami lost to Penn State but rolled to the 1987 and 1989 national titles and easily could have won in 1988 too, with one more bounce or call in the famous Catholics vs. Convicts game against Lou Holtz and Notre Dame. The Hurricanes were the perfect "love them or hate them" team for the television era. There's a reason why they have played a role in multiple 30-for-30 films.
Florida State, meanwhile, had long since taken on an "anyone, anywhere" scheduling policy, which was aided by the school's status as an independent. After an early 1980s lull, Bowden's recruiting picked up again starting with a sparkling 1985 signing class -- one that took advantage of coaching turnover at Miami and landed blue-chip running back Sammie Smith and a defensive back by the name of Deion Sanders -- and the Seminoles began their long run of top-five finishes in 1987, finally winning the title in 1993.
It's difficult to remember a big game from the late 1980s or early 1990s that didn't involve Miami, FSU or both. Within a decade, college football had gone from an outright oligarchy to utterly usurped. Conference life proved to be too much of a draw by the 1990s -- Miami joined the nascent Big East in 1991, while FSU joined the ACC a year later -- but not before these two schools, also-rans until the late 1970s, had become the sport's biggest powers.
Could NIL cause a similar sea change?
This obviously isn't the mid-1980s. Alabama has been even more consistently elite under Nick Saban than it was under Bear Bryant, and hell, Saban probably won't retire until he's 114 years old. Plus, while the 2021 season opened the door for some new blood in the College Football Playoff, we're still in a situation where four teams -- Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson and Oklahoma -- have vacuumed up nearly twice as many CFP bids (21) as the other 126 FBS teams combined (11).
The late 2010s may have been the most blueblood-friendly period the sport has seen since the 1970s; after all, even in the Miami-FSU era, Georgia Tech (1990), Colorado (1990), Washington (1991) and Tennessee (1998) all won at least a share of a national title, while West Virginia (1988), Arizona State (1996) and Virginia Tech (1999) came close. With the way talent and recruiting rankings have consolidated in the CFP era, there's nothing to suggest this dominance is over just because Michigan and Cincinnati made the final four once.
When things change, however, they typically change quickly. No one would have seen Miami's rise coming in 1979, right?
What if a coaching change stunts Oklahoma's dominance? What if assistant coach turnover and a suddenly behind-the-times offense permanently takes Dabo Swinney's Clemson team down a notch or two? And what if the combination of open transfers and liberalization of NIL rules totally changes how talent is distributed? It's easy to assume that these changes might end up benefiting the same old dominant programs as before, and that could very well be the case. But what if they don't? What if NIL becomes the new "Board of Regents"?
In the first official recruiting class of the NIL era, we saw the most earth-shattering signing day development in years: Cornerback Travis Hunter of Suwanee, Georgia, the No. 2 overall prospect in the 2022 class, signed not with Alabama or Georgia (from whom he had offers) and not with Florida State (to whom he had long been committed), but with Deion Sanders' Jackson State.
A year after taking the JSU job and bringing in both a truckload of FBS transfers and his four-star quarterback son Shedeur, Sanders led the FCS Tigers to an 11-2 record and their first SWAC title in 14 years. They lost only to FBS foe Louisiana Monroe (by five) and in a letdown performance against South Carolina State in the Celebration Bowl. Jackson State's signing day haul ranked 52nd in the country, just three spots behind Miami's and ahead of quite a few power conference classes. (Meanwhile, Texas A&M surpassed Alabama and Georgia for the top spot, while North Carolina and Missouri ranked in the top 10, ahead of Oklahoma and Clemson, among others. It was a unique year.)
When NIL laws began percolating in recent years, naysayers quickly talked about how it would result in the best players going to the best schools with the best NIL opportunities -- as if a small cluster of schools hadn't been hogging all the top recruits all along -- but it was easy to make the case for the opposite occurring. It was easy to craft a scenario in which it becomes more valuable and alluring to become Toledo's top-rated recruit instead of, say, Ohio State's 18th-highest recruit. We won't know all the details until Hunter shows up on campus, but it could very well turn out that NIL opportunities at least indirectly played a role in his commitment.
It remains the case with college football -- and, it seems, pretty much everything else on the planet -- that the most jaded and cynical prediction is often the one most likely to become reality. If you think that if or when the NCAA ever gets around to creating NIL regulations, it'll figure out a way to crack down on whatever Jackson State is doing (but not in a way that affects Ohio State or Alabama), that Hunter will transfer and that Sanders will end up at a bigger job (or be run out of the sport entirely) ... well ... there's a non-zero chance you'll end up right. And even if that doesn't all come to pass, it's reasonable to think Sanders might leave for a power-conference job in the coming years regardless. He supposedly interviewed for the TCU vacancy in November, after all.
But what if he doesn't leave right away? After all, Bowden, Sanders' college coach, never left Florida State despite other opportunities. What if Sanders stays and continues to sign star recruits and big-time transfers?
What if an increasingly talented and relevant Jackson State, taking advantage of its minimal nonconference commitments in an era of "schedule everything a decade out" nonsense, snares some big games in the coming years?
What if the Tigers win those games?
What if Jackson State, a storied HBCU program long blessed with FBS-level fan support, begins to develop the infrastructure to match the support? What if an FSU product creates the next FSU?
Too far-fetched? Almost certainly. As incredible as it might be to envision a world in which HBCU football is as relevant and powerful in the future tense as it was in the past, there are, to say the least, quite a few institutional barriers standing in the way of that. But in barely a year, Sanders has built a roster with more high-end talent than that of a large number of power-conference programs. If that can happen, lots of other things can too, whether they involve Jackson State or not.
Maybe early winners of the new Big 12 carve out a niche for themselves. Just as the CFP era brought about a chance for sustained domination for programs such as Clemson, someone is going to win an Oklahoma- and Texas-less Big 12 -- be it stalwarts like Oklahoma State or Baylor or newbies like Cincinnati or Houston -- and that could result in a run of top-four seeds from the conference in a 12-team national playoff. Maybe that creates a recruiting-and-NIL boost and a long run of great form. (Houston's activity in the transfer portal and ultra-favorable location certainly give the Coogs interesting potential, yes?)
Maybe the barriers to entry are just too high in the 2020s for a long shot like JSU or Houston to dominate. But this period still offers opportunity for a power shift. Maybe this is the first of many No. 1 classes for Jimbo Fisher and Texas A&M. Maybe Miami returns to power with dominant recruiting by former U lineman Mario Cristobal. Maybe USC's hire of Lincoln Riley results in a recruiting shift out west and brings the Trojans back into the top five. Maybe whichever Pac-12 program serves as the most competent foil for a newly dominant USC out west makes national waves too.
Nobody saw Miami coming 40-something years ago -- hell, no one really saw Clemson coming, not to the heights it has reached at least, just a decade ago -- so predicting who might best take advantage of this unique and wide-open window is just about impossible. But make no mistake: While windows also close, and there's a chance college football's power structure doesn't end up shifting in any meaningful way, the opportunity for change exists at the moment. Let's see if someone can take advantage of it.