We continue to count down the days until the college football season. Today we celebrate by remembering the 1978 college football season. It just so happened to be the inaugural season of Division 1-A. In 1978 Alabama started the year as preseason rank #1. Apparently, not much has changed!
Alabama’s only loss of that season happened to be against USC. The Trojans beat the Tide in an exciting 24-14 game in Birmingham. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a playoff system back then. So the national champions were decided by the voters. With two separate voting systems, both the Tide and the Trojans went home with a share of the title with Alabama winning the AP poll and USC winning the Coaches Poll. Luckily, today’s national champions aren’t subjected to these sort of votes (as much) and are able to duke it out in a playoff system. From the beginning of Division 1-A to the start of the playoff system, we look forward to seeing the growth of the college football system in the future.
