The Eras: My College Football Eras Explained

A Crash Course in College Football History (kind of)

I thought about breaking this article up, but it just works better as one piece. So, here’s your daily reading quota!

As mentioned in my preview article, to understand college football thoroughly, you have to realize what was going on in the sport at the time, and also in the country as a whole. I keep using ESPN as an example because they split college football into 3 eras without realizing what changed in not only the sport, but also the country. 

For example, in their first era of 1869-1918, some massive innovations called the forward pass and neutral zone came into play, completely changing the game. While the sport obviously continued to evolve, the game played in 1906 was nothing like the game played even in 1904. Therefore, that can’t possibly be an era smashed together if we want to be intellectually and competitively honest. So, here’s an incredibly abbreviated (if you can believe it) overview of the eras as I have defined them for college football.

Pre-NCAA Era (1869-1905)

This era in itself could be broken up into many parts, but the overall theme is this is where the sport sprang from “nothing”, the primordial ooze of college football if you will. Harvard was playing something more akin to rugby in the 1870s therefore playing mostly teams from Canada since the likes of Yale, Princeton, and Columbia were playing a game more aligned with soccer. Through a series of meetings between the football powers at the time (Rutgers famously not invited) and with the help of visionaries like Walter Camp, the game began to have standardized rules across all competitions.

This era was also defined by the brutality of the game. With no neutral zone, the forward pass being illegal, and inadequate equipment, serious injury and death were common in this “amateur” contest. While the game was supposed to resemble war so that men of the day would not grow up to be “soft”, young men with bright futures being permanently maimed or dying wasn’t a great look for the game. In fact, it threatened to end the game entirely and came to a head in 1905 when 19 players died from football related injuries. 

Non-AP Era (1906-1935)

As such, in 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt held a meeting with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton about how to make the sport safer. While he publicly said, “make it safer or it’s done”, Teddy was actually a fan of the game and wanted it to be preserved. Following a meeting with 16 members in which no conclusion was reached, 62 schools met in December of 1905 to discuss rule changes. From this meeting came the IAAUS, the predecessor to the now more infamous than famous NCAA. Naturally, no HBCU’s were invited to said meetings or to join the NCAA even though they had been playing football since 1892, because why would they do a silly thing like that?

This era can then be defined as great expansion. While football was being played coast to coast at this point, the power and BrainTrust still resided in the Northeast, particularly amongst schools that would eventually form the Ivy and Patriot Leagues. While Michigan began to establish itself prior to the NCAA, USC, Alabama, and Notre Dame began to establish themselves as football powers outside the Northeast. Knute Rockne popularized the forward pass during this time, though he was not the OG when it comes to high flying offense. We’ll talk about the 1906 St. Louis Billikens at another time.

WW II Era (1936-1946)

Assuming those reading this know at least a little about US history, obviously calling this era WW II isn’t entirely accurate, but most of the years were defined by prepping for what seemed like an inevitable entrance into the war. Coming out of the times dominated by the Northeast, schools in the Midwest and South started to win/claim national championships. By this time, they were all but coming from these areas. Even with the Great Depression ravaging the country and world, college football continued to grow in popularity. 

Then, the US enters the war. During the first couple of years if you looked at the AP rankings you wouldn’t notice a difference. Then, all of a sudden you see the Naval Academy out of nowhere finishing 4th, and powers such as Iowa Pre-Flight and Great Lakes Naval finishing 2nd and 6th respectively. 1943-1944 had an assortment of military academies pop up and litter the AP top 20 with top tier football programs. Our most athletic young men were being drafted and playing football. All of this culminated in 1945 with #1 Army beating #2 Navy to end the season, and Army winning the 2nd of what would be 3 national championships in a row. 

Postwar, Pre-Civil Rights Act (1947-1963)

This time in college football is a time of transition in many ways. The first individual TV contracts were looked into and established by both Penn and Notre Dame, but later dissolved. In 1950, Princeton was the final team out of the Ivy League to claim a national championship, along with 3 other teams claiming one that year as well. But there seemed to be a dividing line in voting. There seemed to be a national championship from a state that wasn’t segregated, and then a championship from one that was. 

The 1954 Brown vs. The Board of Education verdict declared racial discrimination in public schools unconstitutional. While colleges in the Midwest, Northeast, and West were integrated to a certain extent, the South was decidedly not. And it would remain this way. These divisions meant the best black players in a talent rich part of the country were either going to local HBCU’s, or traveling to states where segregation wasn’t the law of the land. We will dive deeper into this later, but if you want to know exactly how schools, particularly in the SEC, fought against the integration of schools, I highly recommend watching the ESPN 30 for 30, “Ghosts of Ole Miss”. It’s about as light a version as you’ll get on this incredibly difficult subject matter. 

Post Integration Phase 1 (1964-1969)

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the national legislation that really and truly made it impossible for schools (mostly) in the South to continue to hold on to segregation. During this time, you start to see the occasional African American player showing up on an SEC roster here and there. This was a process though, and you really don’t see the full integration effect until the 1980s with the rise of Florida schools (not named FAMU) and the drain of talent from HBCU’s starting to be noticeable. 

Notable during this time, the Michigan State teams of 1965 and 1966 featured teams that were a lot more racially integrated than even teams from the Midwest in the past. It was a window into the future. They shared national championships during those respective years. On the opposite end of the spectrum the game between Arkansas and Texas in 1969 was a de facto championship between #1 and #2 and also featured the last game between two all-white teams, and therefore the last national champion to feature an all-white squad. 

Post Integration Phase 2 (1970-1979)

On September 12th, 1970, USC played the University of Alabama in Birmingham, making USC the first fully integrated team to play in the state. To make a fascinating story short, USC and specifically USC running back Sam “Bam” Cunningham ran all over the Crimson Tide to win 42-21. Alabama’s Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant had won 3 national championships prior to the 1970 season but had fallen on harder times as of late. Alabama, and the South at large had an existential decision to make: which “just means more” to them, winning college football games, or continued segregation?

Well, to answer the question purely from a football perspective, Alabama went to USC with an integrated team in 1971 to upset the highly ranked Trojans. Bear Bryant went on to win 3 more national championships. However, and notably, because of the South having to be dragged to integration on the gridiron and in society, teams like Nebraska, Oklahoma, and USC popped up and established/re-established themselves as national championship brands. 

HBCU’s were still thriving and pumping out NFL Hall of Famers. The Florida A&M Rattlers, by far the best team in the state of Florida up until this point, won the state’s first Division 1 football National Championship (1-AA) in 1978 when they defeated the UMASS Minutemen 35-28. The same Rattler team would in their 1979 campaign beat the University of Miami at Doak Campbell Stadium. Yeah. FAMU beat “The U” at Florida State’s house. We’ll dive deeper into what that meant for Florida football, and HBCU’s on the whole at a later time. 

Post Integration Phase 3 (1980-1989)

The 80s were more or less the tipping point in terms of integration in college football. While HBCU’s continued to send players and Hall of Famers to the pros, it was obvious more schools were invading the well-established pipelines into black communities that HBCU’s thrived on for so many years. This could be epitomized by Howard Schnellenberger and his “State of Miami” approach to establishing “The U”. He knew if you could keep the best players, specifically best black players from leaving South Florida, he would have all the talent he needed to win a national championship. So, these players started to stay home, rather than make their way to FAMU and other HBCU’s.

It was also a time defined by offenses that were scoring and throwing a lot more. From the aforementioned University of Miami squads to the famous BYU national championship team in 1984, points and lots of points were in vogue. Willie “Satellite” Totten and Jerry “World” Rice took Archie Cooley’s offense at Mississippi Valley State and literally scored points for fun, setting records that would stand for decades to come. Penn State, while not really joining in the points revolution, established itself under Joe Paterno as a national championship contender annually. 

But not all was fun and gun, and points were not the only things flying. Bribes were becoming more brazen in college football, and nowhere was this more evident than the Southwestern Conference. While pretty much every team was so blunt with their bribes that they had some form of sanctions on them, no school was more unapologetic about their “payroll” than SMU. Well, the boosters couldn’t be stopped, let’s be real. Watch the 30 for 30 “Pony Excess”, truly great stuff. Long story short, SMU became the only football team to receive the Death Penalty, and it was such a severe setback for the program no one has been issued the Death Penalty since.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the landmark case of NCAA vs. Board of Regents, specifically those of Georgia and Oklahoma. The court ruled that the NCAA could not restrict the rights of individual schools, let alone conferences. Thus, opening the door for TV money and rights to come into college football. We will leave it there, for there is much to discuss on this topic (recent events much?).

Pre-BCS (1990-1997)

To be honest, this is a bit of an odd time in college football. Following their utter dominance in the 80s, Miami began to drop off significantly after the NCAA started to probe their program. Colorado and Georgia Tech claimed national championships in 1990 seemingly out of nowhere. Florida and Florida State won their first respective titles after finally recruiting their own state the way it could be recruited. One could say Nebraska was the throughline of the decade, winning outright/claiming 3 national championships, and Michigan even snuck one in there in 1997.

However, shared national championships were becoming a bit of a drag for schools and an American public at large who loves an undisputed champion without question. This is how the rumblings started that would eventually form the BCS. The biggest hold up was the Rose Bowl, and their unwillingness to release the Big Ten and PAC-10 champions without some concessions. As a result, the Rose Bowl would be added into the rotation of bowls to host national championship games in exchange for releasing the Big Ten or PAC-10 champion when appropriate. This would be an exclusive club though, with no teams outside of what then were the 6 power conferences (and a one off from Notre Dame in 2012), making it to the BCS Championship. 

Speaking of the Fighting Irish, they kicked off the decade by signing a deal with NBC, which made a lot of other teams angry. The deal is still in place today and is a direct predecessor to what would be the Longhorn Network (soon to end), and to a lesser extent conference specific TV channels. If you’re sensing a theme here, your intuition is spot on. 

BCS Era (1998-2013)

The beginning of the BCS we had more diversity in general when it came to where our national champions were coming from, but it all was still mostly focused in the southern parts of the United States, shall we say. Oklahoma, Texas, and Florida State twice won the coveted clear football trophy. USC claims a national championship based off a #1 AP ranking in 2003 but won the BCS outright in 2004. Miami and Ohio State also got theirs in 2001 and 2002 respectively. After that? Apart from FSU winning the final BCS in 2013 against Auburn, this was the rise of SEC dominance. 

From 2006-2012, SEC schools dominated the national championship. Florida, LSU, Auburn and re-established Alabama took over the sport. The results of a more fully integrated South were coming to fruition and the talent was bursting on the field. The SEC was investing what seemed like way more into their football programs than others, and their players seemed to be that much more athletic in all facets. This dominance, along with an all-SEC national championship in 2012 had other conferences thinking that it might be time to do away with the biased BCS and the computer component. They wanted a system that was voted on every week, with objective human eyes, and allowed for more conferences to participate in national championship postseason play.

The Playoff Era (2014-Present)

The playoff era is a time where TV contracts have completely intertwined themselves with the sport. The SEC, ACC, Big Ten, PAC-12 (allegedly) all have their own linear networks. The Longhorn Network is still going strong, and the SEC is still dominating championships. Apart from Ohio State in 2014, the national champion has come from a school in what one would call the “Deep” South. I can’t just say the SEC because Clemson has won two national titles in this time and has continued to be a national title player even when not winning. The same can be said of Ohio State. 

And…I guess I’ll mention that UCF thing in 2017 just to move along a narrative. They claimed a national title because they were undefeated, after failing to earn a playoff invite based on final rankings prior to the bowls. The playoff still had a problem. Power 5 schools were heavily favored leaving excellent G5 teams wanting. While the highest ranked G5 team was getting into a New Year's Six Bowl, it still didn’t feel like a real shot at a national championship. Yes, sure, you can bring up Cincinnati and their college football playoff berth in 2021. But they had to basically be flawless for 2 years and have other teams in front of them lose to slide into the final slot. Yeah, they earned it, but it was obvious how much more they had to do to get there. 

Sadly, the back end of this time will not be defined by moving to a more inclusive playoff system in 2024, but by the fact that regional conferences have been broken up for the sake of TV money. Well, mostly. Shoutout to the MAC and SunBelt. We will not open that can of worms just yet, but rather than calling the next era of college football the 12-team playoff era, it would be more apt to dub it, “The Era of TV: ESPN vs. Fox”.