College Football on the Timeline
Rivalries, bowls and Heismans — the college game's greatest days. Here’s a taste of the College Football pack — 175 verified moments and counting.
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Play today’s puzzle — free on the App Store- 1869🥇 Rutgers beats Princeton 6-4 on a College Avenue field in New Brunswick in the game remembered as the first intercollegiate football contest.
- 1879🧭 Michigan beats Racine College 1-0 in Chicago in the first college football game played west of the Alleghenies.
- 1892✊ Biddle University beats Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina, in the first football game between two Black colleges.
- 1899🚂 Sewanee opens a legendary road trip by shutting out Texas in Austin, the first of five shutout wins in six days.
- 1905🏛️ Sixty-two colleges meet in New York to form the Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the body that becomes the NCAA.
- 1914🏟️ The Yale Bowl, the first bowl-shaped stadium, opens with Harvard thrashing Yale 36-0 before more than 68,000.
- 1921😱 Tiny Centre College of Kentucky shocks mighty Harvard 6-0 at Harvard Stadium, snapping a 25-game Crimson unbeaten run.
- 1924🐎 Notre Dame beats Army 13-7 at the Polo Grounds and Grantland Rice christens its backfield the Four Horsemen.
- 1928🗣️ Knute Rockne's halftime plea to win one for the Gipper sends Notre Dame past unbeaten Army 12-6 at Yankee Stadium.
- 1932🏛️ Thirteen schools close a two-day meeting at Knoxville's Farragut Hotel by breaking from the Southern Conference to form the Southeastern Conference.
- 1935🏆 Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger is named the first winner of the Downtown Athletic Club trophy, later renamed the Heisman.
- 1940🤝 Cornell scores on an illegal fifth down to beat Dartmouth, then voluntarily forfeits the game once the film confirms the error.
- 1950❄️ Michigan beats Ohio State 9-3 in a Columbus blizzard without making a first down, winning on a blocked punt in the Snow Bowl.
- 1956✊ Pitt's Bobby Grier becomes the first Black player in the Sugar Bowl as Georgia Tech wins 7-0 in New Orleans.
- 1959🎃 LSU's Billy Cannon returns a punt 89 yards on Halloween night to beat Ole Miss 7-3 in Tiger Stadium.
- 1964🐴 Oklahoma's Sooner Schooner, a covered wagon pulled by two ponies, makes its first appearance at a game.
- 1968📰 Harvard scores sixteen points in the final 42 seconds to tie unbeaten Yale 29-29, a game the Crimson student paper headlines as a win.
- 1972📜 NCAA delegates vote to let freshmen play varsity football and basketball, ending the era of separate freshman teams.
- 1974🎷 Grambling beats Southern 21-0 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans in the first Bayou Classic.
- 1978🔥 Chief Osceola and his horse Renegade debut before Florida State's home game against Oklahoma State, beginning the Seminoles' pregame tradition.
- 1980🐶 Buck Belue hits Lindsay Scott for a 93-yard touchdown in the final minute as Georgia stuns Florida 26-21 in Jacksonville.
- 1982🎺 California returns the final kickoff through five laterals and the Stanford band to beat Stanford 25-20 on The Play.
- 1984📺 Unranked BYU upsets No. 3 Pittsburgh 20-14 in ESPN's first live regular-season college football telecast.
- 1985🐯 Grambling's Eddie Robinson earns his 324th victory, passing Bear Bryant as the winningest coach in college football history.
- 1987🔴 No. 2 Oklahoma holds No. 1 Nebraska to 235 yards and wins 17-7 in Lincoln in the game billed as Game of the Century II.
- 1990🐝 Scott Sisson's 37-yard field goal with seven seconds left lifts Georgia Tech over No. 1 Virginia 41-38 in Charlottesville on the way to a national title.
- 1993🚌 ESPN's College GameDay broadcasts from a campus for the first time, setting up at Notre Dame for the showdown with Florida State.
- 1994😮 Florida State scores 28 fourth-quarter points to erase a 31-3 deficit and tie Florida 31-31 in the Choke at Doak.
- 1997🏆 Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson beats Peyton Manning to become the first primarily defensive player to win the Heisman Trophy.
- 2000🏆 Florida State's Chris Weinke, a 28-year-old former minor-league baseball player, becomes the oldest Heisman Trophy winner.
- 2005⛰️ Urban Meyer's Utah routs Pittsburgh 35-7 in the Fiesta Bowl as the first team from outside the power conferences to play in a BCS bowl.
- 2007📺 The Big Ten Network signs on, the first television channel owned by one of the major conferences.
- 2007🏆 Florida's Tim Tebow becomes the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy.
- 2010🏆 Alabama beats Texas 37-21 in Pasadena to win Nick Saban's first national championship with the Crimson Tide.
- 2011🔀 Nebraska officially joins the Big Ten while Colorado and Utah join the Pac-12, the first wave of modern realignment taking effect.
- 2012💰 Texas A&M's Johnny Manziel becomes the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy.
- 2014🏛️ The NCAA Division I board votes 16-2 to let the five richest conferences write many of their own rules, including cost-of-attendance stipends.
- 2016🏆 Nick Saban's surprise onside kick swings the game as Alabama beats Clemson 45-40 in Glendale for the national title.
- 2018🚪 The NCAA launches the transfer portal, a database that lets athletes declare their intent to transfer and hear from other schools.
- 2020⏸️ The Big Ten postpones its fall football season over the pandemic, a decision it reverses five weeks later.
Think you can put these in order?
That’s Whensly — a new daily puzzle of real moments on the timeline.
Play today’s puzzle — free on the App Store