100 games that explain college football in 2026
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- The 158th college football season will feature seven-figure player contracts, eight-figure coach salaries, a 12-team playoff and 40-plus bowls, while new conference matchups (West Virginia-Utah, UCF-Oklahoma State, USC-Rutgers) replace traditional rivalries that won't be played (Pitt-WVU, Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, USC-Notre Dame).
- Carlisle's Nov. 11, 1911, upset of Harvard (18-15) features Jim Thorpe rushing for 173 yards and kicking four field goals before 25,000 in Cambridge; Harvard wouldn't lose again until October 1915.
- Oct. 18, 1924, gets a double-bill: Red Grange scored five touchdowns — a 95-yard kickoff return plus runs of 67, 56 and 44 yards — as Illinois trounced previously unbeaten Michigan 39-14 in Memorial Stadium's debut, and the same day Notre Dame beat Army 13-7, the game Grantland Rice was covering when he penned the "Four Horsemen" passage.
- The Jan. 4, 2006, Rose Bowl (Texas 41, USC 38) — Vince Young against Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart and LenDale White — is labeled "maybe the most legendary game of the 21st century."
- The innovation thread runs from the 1906 legalization of the forward pass (Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago leading the nation in scoring that first season) through Don Faurot's 1941 Split-T at Missouri, the wishbone's 1968 unveiling at Texas, and the Air Raid's 1989 debut under Hal Mumme and Mike Leach at Iowa Wesleyan.
- The wishbone's spread is credited to Darrell Royal and Emory Bellard at Texas in 1968, with the piece noting Royal "kindly agreed to teach Bear Bryant and Barry Switzer" the formation, after which Alabama and Oklahoma "dominated the 1970s with it."
- Archie Griffin's Oct. 4, 1975, game — 160 yards on 21 carries against unbeaten UCLA — is cited as the performance that effectively locked up his unprecedented second Heisman Trophy.
Why it matters: For fans wondering how college football reached seven-figure players and a 12-team playoff from the 1906 forward-pass era, this listicle is the connective tissue. It lands as the 158th season kicks off with realignment erasing century-old rivalries like USC-Notre Dame and Oklahoma-Oklahoma State — and traces each era's tactical shift (forward pass, Split-T, wishbone, Air Raid) into the modern game.
