Baseball may have a reputation as America’s pastime, but football is king in this country. Rutgers and New Jersey, now known as Princeton, played the first recorded collegiate football game on Nov. 6, 1869, and over the following 150+ years, the sport has rapidly changed.
In recent years, we have seen some monumental changes to the sport such as Name, Image, and Likeness, the introduction and expansion of the playoff system and now we are trending towards super conferences.
However, some of the most impactful changes that have ever come to the sport happened decades ago and are a huge reason football is what it is today. For example, from the cultural influence of the Miami Hurricanes of the 80s to the introduction of the Air Raid attack by Hal Mumme at Iowa Wesleyan in 1991 the sport has evolved in many different ways.
It’s difficult to quantify which of those teams over the sport’s 150+ year history has impacted football the most, but ESPN ranked the top 30 teams (subscription required) that stood out above the rest.
There are several teams with a strong case for the top spot, but no team has impacted college football more than Darrell K. Royal’s 1968 Texas Longhorns. Texas started the year 0-1-1, before introducing the Wishbone offense in Week 3 as the Horns rattled off nine straight wins to be named Southwest Conference co-champions alongside the Arkansas Razorbacks and eventually beat the Tennessee Vols 36-13 in the Cotton Bowl.
ESPN says of the legendary 1968 Longhorns:
“Having won just 20 games in the three previous seasons, Texas began 1968 with a tie against Houston and a loss to Texas Tech. But backup quarterback James Street looked good in a comeback attempt against Tech; he was named the starter the next week, and Texas wouldn’t lose again until 1971. They rolled through the rest of their 1968 slate, then went a perfect 11-0 in 1969, winning an all-time classic against Arkansas, then confirming a national title with a Cotton Bowl win over Notre Dame.
Because of Texas’ blueblood profile, the Wishbone didn’t have to work its way up from the lower levels of the sport. The other powers immediately understood that it could work for them. Alabama’s Bear Bryant quickly adopted it following the Longhorns’ 1969 success. So, too, did rival Oklahoma. And while the Horns would certainly reap the benefits of this offensive explosion — they enjoyed four top-five finishes from 1968 to 1972, then another top-10 finish before Royal’s retirement in 1976 — Bama and OU would dominate the decade, with five national titles and 16 combined top-five finishes from 1971 to 1980. Never has an innovation caught on so quickly, and for the success it brought both Texas and others, the team that perfected the ‘Bone should be considered the most influential team the sport has seen.”
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