In a few more weeks , the 158th college football season will kick off. It will feature players on seven-digits-a-year contracts and coaches on eight digits a year.
It will finish with a 12-team playoff amid a slate of forty-something bowls. It will feature conference games like West Virginia-Utah, UCF-Oklahoma State and USC-Rutgers but won't feature Pitt-West Virginia, Oklahoma-Oklahoma State or USC-Notre Dame.
The games remain thrilling, and Saturdays remain immaculate. But it's sometimes worthwhile to step back and ask, how the heck did we get here?
So with games broken up into key categories -- from change agents (like tactical innovations and conference realignment) to the things that keep us coming back (like upsets and epic endings) -- here are 100 games that explain college football in the year 2026. Jump to a theme: Making legends | Innovations Postseason drama Upsets | Frustrating finishes TV rules | Realignment's affects | Classic endings Legends The game has seen some titanic figures and titanic performances.
We'll start this list off with some of history's best players and their most noteworthy games. 1.
Nov. 11, 1911: Carlisle 18, Harvard 15 .
Jim Thorpe remains one of the sport's most mythical legends. Playing for the Carlisle Indian Industrial School -- coached at that time by another legend, Pop Warner -- Thorpe rushed for 173 yards against a typically untouchable Harvard defense, and he booted four field goals as Carlisle upset the Crimson in front of 25,000 in Cambridge.
Harvard wouldn't lose again until October 1915. 2.
Oct. 18, 1924: Illinois 39, Michigan 14 .
The first game in the history of Illinois' Memorial Stadium is still its most famous thanks to Red Grange. Against mighty Michigan -- which hadn't lost in three years -- he returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown, then scored on runs of 67, 56 and 44 yards by the end of the first quarter.
The Galloping Ghost scored a fifth touchdown later in the game, then passed for another as the Illini trounced the Wolverines. About Grange, legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice would later write: A streak of fire, a breath of flame, Eluding all who reach the clutch; A gray ghost thrown into the game That rival hands may never touch.
3. Oct.
18, 1924: Notre Dame 13, Army 7 . Of course, Rice didn't write that about Grange that day because he was in New York penning the ultimate tribute to Notre Dame's Four Horsemen.
Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death.
These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden." You'd have thought the Irish won by 100.
But beating Army, at that time, was still pretty impressive. 4.
Dec. 1, 1945: No.
1 Army 32, No. 2 Navy 13 .
World War II was ending, but Army was still able to compile an all-star team of sorts on the gridiron. And it might have been the best team of all time.
Led by Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis ("Mr. Inside" and "Mr.
Outside"), the Cadets pummeled their first eight opponents -- four of which were ranked -- by a combined 380-33, then finished the year by obliterating the second-best team in the country in front of 102,000 at Philadelphia's Municipal Stadium. 5.
Nov. 9, 1946: No.
2 Notre Dame 0, No. 1 Army 0 .
A sold-out Yankee Stadium hosted maybe the most anticipated game ever. Frank Leahy had built a war chest of his own -- Notre Dame would go 36-0-2 from 1946 to 1949 -- but Army still had Blanchard, Davis & Co.
and entered with a 25-game winning streak. The game was a stalemate, which basically meant it was treated as a win for the Irish.
6. Oct.
4, 1975: No. 2 Ohio State 41, No.
13 UCLA 20 . In less than a decade, we'll celebrate the 100th birthday of the Heisman Trophy.
Incredibly, only one person has won it multiple times to date. While Archie Griffin's best collegiate game was perhaps his second -- he rushed for 239 yards against North Carolina as a freshman -- he wasn't known just yet.
But as a defending Heisman winner, he basically locked up a second win with a 21-carry, 160-yard performance against unbeaten UCLA. 7.
Sept. 6, 1980: No.
16 Georgia 16, Tennessee 15 . "He's running over people!
Oh, you Herschel Walker! My God Almighty, he ran right through two men!
Herschel ran right over two men! ...
My God, a freshman! " 8.
Jan. 2, 1996: No.
1 Nebraska 62, No. 2 Florida 24 .
It took Tom Osborne more than 20 years to finally win an elusive national t