By: Christian Pagan
If you ask any college football fan about the wildest season they’ve witnessed, 99% of them will respond with, “2007”.
The 2007 College Football Season simply cannot be described with words. Saying the 2007 season was, “crazy”, “insane”, or “absurd”, doesn’t accurately represent what the 2007 presented.
Termed, “The Year of the Upset”, saw top 10 teams lose 29 times, the No. 1 team lose four times, and the No. 2 team lose seven times. The 2007 season gave us one of the most improbable upsets in the history of sports when Appalachian State defeated No. 5 Michigan, 34-32, on Week 1 of the season. “And the kick is blocked!”, still lies in the heads of college football fans, whether it brings you euphoria and jubilation, or misery and agony.
Every week in the 2007 season was truly unpredictable. The LSU Tigers, who lost in Weeks 7 and 13 as the No. 1 team in the country, eventually won the national championship. They defeated No. 1 Ohio State, 38-24, who had a hiccup of their own in Week 11, when they lost to Illinois, 28-21.
But the key word here is, unpredictable, which is what we’re seeing again with the 2024 season. We’re in a unique time in college football due to many reasons I’ll touch on, but we haven’t had an unpredictable season in a while.
In recent years to be completely fair to you, only a very small handful of teams had an actual legit shot to win a championship. Those teams consisted of Georgia, Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, with LSU, Michigan, and Oklahoma making noise here and there.
But for most of the time, you knew who was going to win the championship because the eventual-champions were so ahead of other teams, whether it was Clemson, Alabama, or Georgia.
But the 2024 season is very different. It’s already Week 15 of the season, and arguably there isn’t a team that stands out far ahead of the rest of the pact. The Oregon Ducks are looking like the team to beat this year as other blue-bloods such as Ohio State, Texas, and Alabama have struggled.
Thanks to conference realignment, not only do we receive super-conferences, but we also experience the newly expanded 12-team playoff for the first time. Instead of the traditional top four CFP teams, the top 12 teams will now make the playoffs, igniting the potential for postseason chaos.
This is the perfect season for the newly expanded playoff to take place, as there are many championship caliber teams this year. Under the previous format, it would’ve been so difficult to pick what the committee believed to be the four best teams this year.
Not to mention, the first round of the playoffs will be hosted on campuses. There’s a real possibility you have an SEC team like Georgia or Tennessee playing at Ohio State or Penn State in December. Picture Georgia playing at Penn State in a cold and snowy playoff game, sign me up!
Now, the 2024 season hasn’t had all the insane upsets the 2007 season had, but there have been some remarkable ones this year. This year, top 11 teams have lost 17 times to unranked opponents, with notable ones being Vanderbilt knocking off No. 1 Alabama, Northern Illinois beating No. 5 Notre Dame, and Michigan defeating #2 Ohio State.
Alongside the upsets, we’ve seen some memorable games this year:
-No. 4 Alabama beating No. 2 Georgia 41-34
-No. 3 Oregon defeating No. 2 Ohio State 32-31
-No. 4 Ohio State overcoming No. 3 Penn State 20-13
-No. 6 Miami outlasting Louisville in a 52-45 shootout
The list goes on and on of the wild games we’ve witnessed this year. But the main reason why the 2024 season is reminiscent of the 2007 season is because of the unpredictability. Some storylines include:
-Ohio State is 10-2 after suffering a humiliating loss to unranked Michigan at home. They will miss out on the Big 10 Championship Game and their chances of hosting a playoff game is up in the air.
-Georgia has lost twice in the regular season for the first time since 2020, but dominated No.1 Texas in Week 8, as they sit at #7. The Bulldogs will face off against the Longhorns again, this time for the SEC title.
-ACC Madness: Newcomer #9 SMU will play against #12 Clemson for the ACC title after #6 Miami was upset by unranked Syracuse. Miami could be one of the last teams in.
-#11 Boise State is 11-1, with their Heisman candidate RB Ashton Jeanty, who nearly has 2,300 rushing yards and 29 total touchdowns through 12 games. What makes this unique is if Boise St can win their conference, they have a legitimate shot of receiving a first-round bye as a conference champion.
-Florida State started the year off ranked as the 10th team in the country after going 13-1 last year, before failing off the face of the earth. The Seminoles finished 2-10 and scored more than 21 points in a game only once this year.
-The reigning national champions, the Michigan Wolverines, are unranked for the first time since 2021 and are 7-5, but pulled off a remarkable upset against #2 Ohio State against all odds.
A lot of these storylines wouldn’t have been believable at the start of the season. The unpredictable nature of the sport is what makes it so wonderful.
Us college football fans are in for a great finish for what has been an amazing year. Cherish it while you can, and may the best team win.
Image from https://www.pff.com/news/2024-college-football-preview-guide