The 1969 college football season was special. It contained some of the more memorable and dramatic moments in the sport’s history.
This was the first year of Bo Schembechler’s coaching tenure at Michigan. This began the so-called “Ten-Year War” with Woody Hayes at Ohio State, one of the most celebrated eras of Big Ten football. Schembechler’s Michigan team upset Ohio State to knock the Buckeyes out of the running for back-to-back national championships. It was the stuff of legend in Ann Arbor.
The 1969 season also provided a 1-versus-2 showdown, but more than that, it gave us the 1-versus-2 centerpiece matchup in early December, not in September or early October. When Texas faced Arkansas, that game was for the national championship. President Richard Nixon was on hand in Fayetteville to proclaim Texas national champion after the Longhorns — down 14-0 — rallied to win 15-14 in what is considered Texas’s greatest single-game victory and Arkansas’ most crushing single-game defeat. No other game matches the significance of this one for those two schools — not even the 2006 Rose Bowl for Texas. The 1969 win over Arkansas was bigger, albeit only slightly.
In 1969, USC did not lose a game. The Trojans did, however, endure one tie, and that’s what kept them from sharing the national championship with Texas. We look back on USC’s unbeaten seasons as we say goodbye to the Pac-12.
Here’s how USC’s 1969 season unfolded: