What If: The 1976 College Football Season

A college football legend finally gets it done.

Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler on the field with his players at Michigan Stadium during the 1977 season. / Malcolm Emmons-Imagn Images

In college football, games and legacies can be decided by a matter of inches.

Throughout much of college football history, even a single loss could derail a team’s hopes for a national championship. A tipped pass, a bad call, or an unlucky ball bounce can flip a game's outcome in one-score games.

Inspired by the Nebraska Cornhuskers' historic trend of losing so many close games over the last decade, I decided to dive into college football history to see how different the sport might look if the outcome of every one-score game was flipped season by season.

Welcome to What If: The 1976 College Football Season.

Other What If seasons: 1973, 1974, 1975

What Did Happen

Nebraska opened the 1976 season in the pole position with Michigan, and Arizona State, the team who beat Nebraska on New Year's Day earlier that year, trailing behind them. On the first weekend of the season, the top of the rankings was shuffled. Top-ranked Nebraska tied LSU and fell to eighth, while number seven Texas lost to an unranked Boston College and fell out of the top 25. Eventual national champion Pitt convincingly beat No. 11 Notre Dame to jump to third.

Michigan would spend the next eight weeks ranked No. 1 before faltering against Purdue. The Wolverines would beat Ohio State for the first time since 1971 to earn a Rose Bowl bid. On the same day, unbeaten USC and UCLA would match up to determine who would represent the Pac-8 in Pasadena. Trojans coach John Robinson would lead his team to the Rose Bowl in his first season after taking over for John McKay.

The standout player of the 1976 season was Pittsburgh Panthers' star running back Tony Dorsett. Dorsett's exceptional speed, agility, and playmaking ability made him a dominant force on the field throughout the season. He finished the year with an impressive 1948 rushing yards, a then record, and 23 touchdowns, earning him the prestigious Heisman Trophy. Dorsett's electrifying performances solidified his place as one of the greatest college football players of all time.

Unbeaten teams: Maryland (11-0), Pittsburgh (11-0), Rutgers (11-0)

Nebraska had the opportunity to beat Oklahoma for the first time since 1971 as it entered the fourth quarter with a 20-7 lead. The Huskers' lead dwindled to just three with under four minutes remaining when Oklahoma would pull out some Sooner magic, completing its only two pass attempts for 79 yards to set up a game-winning score. The loss created a three-way tie atop the Big Eight between Colorado, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, with the Buffaloes earning the trip to the Orange Bowl.

The Southwest Conference would also result in co-champions with Texas Tech and first-year member Houston, finishing league play 7-1. The unbeaten Terrapins would face Houston in the Cotton Bowl with a chance to earn at least a title split with a win. Pittsburgh coach Johnny Majors already announced his intentions to return to his alma mater, Tennessee, following the Sugar Bowl. A victory against Georgia would send them out as national champions.

Bowl	Winner	Loser
Cotton Bowl	Houston (9-2) 30	Maryland (11-0) 21
Orange Bowl	Ohio State (8-2-1) 27	Colorado (8-3) 10
Rose Bowl	USC (10-1) 14	Michigan (10-1) 6
Sugar Bowl	Pittsburgh (11-0) 27	Georgia (10-1) 3

Pittsburgh’s victory against Georgia, combined with Maryland’s loss versus Houston, ensured there would not be a split title in 1976 with only one major team going undefeated. Pitt would receive almost all the first-place votes in the AP Poll, with USC earning three votes. Unbeaten Rutgers would finish 17th.

What Might Have Happened

Fresno State and Tulane are the biggest improvers from this exercise, each adding four wins. Fresno’s 9-2 record would have them flirting with bowl contention under first-year offensive coordinator Dennis Erickson. North Carolina suffers the most, dropping from 9-2 to 4-7. Rutgers falls to 8-3 rather than their special unbeaten 1976 season.

Pitt suffers one loss in our alternative scenario, which may hurt Tony Dorsett’s Heisman vote total, but his record-breaking season would likely still be enough to take home the trophy. In reality, USC’s Ricky Bell finished second in the Heisman voting, and Michigan’s Rob Lytle finished third. With USC’s record worsening by one game and Michigan’s improving by one game, I expect these two would flip, given their similar stat lines.

Unbeaten Teams: Michigan (11-0)

Three of the four major bowl matchups remain the same, but the stakes have changed. Pittsburgh is now 10-1 with a loss against West Virginia. However, Michigan goes into bowl season unbeaten, meaning the title is theirs to lose. Maryland, 10-1, is also looking at a chance for a title share in its matchup against Southwest Conference champion Houston.

The Orange Bowl is much different in this scenario, though—the Big Eight finishes with six teams at seven wins. Mizzou has the best conference record at 5-2, making them the sole Big Eight champions. The Orange Bowl isn’t guaranteed to take the Big Eight champion or even a Big Eight team at all. Bolstered by their win at USC to start the season and their 4-1 record against the other Big Eight teams with seven wins, I think the Orange Bowl selects the Tigers. Their opponent would be Pac-8 runner-up UCLA, who finished the season with an impressive 9-1-1 record.

The Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl were multi-possession wins, so I expect they will stay that way. UCLA had one of the best offenses in the country in 1976, ranking fifth in the nation and running for over 300 yards per game. While Mizzou was able to shock USC in the first game of the season, they wouldn’t be able to pull off two upsets of LA schools in the same season.

Bowl	Winner	Loser
Cotton Bowl	Houston (8-3)	Maryland (10-1)
Orange Bowl	UCLA (9-1-1)	Missouri (7-4)
Rose Bowl	Michigan (11-0)	USC (9-2)
Sugar Bowl	Pittsburgh (10-1)	Georgia (9-2)

Michigan finished the 1976 season first in both scoring offense and scoring defense. USC now comes into the Rose Bowl coming off a loss to Notre Dame rather than a 10-game winning streak. The Sugar Bowl started before either the Cotton Bowl or the Rose Bowl, so all the teams would’ve known that Pittsburgh was already the likely national champion. Would knowing they could still win a title improve Michigan’s chance of winning the Rose Bowl?

In the spirit of this exercise, I think Michigan will flip its Rose Bowl outcome to beat USC and end the Wolverine's title drought in 29 years. Pittsburgh still defeats Georgia to finish in the second spot, with UCLA following them. This game would be a legacy-altering win for Bo Schembechler; to finally be able to claim the title he was never able to capture.

The 1976 outcome is the most notable change in all my What If series. The 1976 Michigan Wolverines are just one of four teams in modern college football history to lead the nation in scoring offense and defense in the same season. Bo Schembechler was a Hall of Fame coach despite never winning a title. A missed field goal against Purdue cost the Wolverines an incredible opportunity to force at least a share of a national title.

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