The 1980 NCAA Division I-A football season saw a university from the state of Georgia take its first national title since 1942.
Nine days following the bowl games to close the 1979 season, tragedy struck when new LSU coach Bo Rein died when the plane he was flying in crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia.
Jerry Stovall, a former LSU All-American and St. Louis Cardinals defensive back, was named to succeed Rein approximately 36 hours after the crash.
The Georgia Bulldogs starred freshman running back Herschel Walker, who made his NCAA debut against Tennessee.
Down 15–2 at halftime, Georgia sent in Walker, the third string running back at the time, to try to light a spark.
Walker ran over All-American safety Bill Bates, in a play that would set the tempo for the rest of his career.
This year was the final season in which long time rivals Rutgers and Princeton played against each other.
The Bulldogs ran through the rest of the season unscathed, beating Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl.
The Pittsburgh Panthers also had a stellar season, led by defensive end Hugh Green and quarterback Dan Marino.
2, finishing the season with a rout of South Carolina and Heisman Trophy winner George Rogers in the Gator Bowl.
2 ranked Pitt Panthers It was an unusual year for the Pac-10 as 5 of its 10 members were placed on probation by the conference (but not the NCAA) including traditional powers USC and UCLA, along with both Oregon schools and Arizona State.
As it turned out, the probation didn't matter as Washington won the conference outright with a 6–1 record.
This year's edition of the Holiday Bowl was a classic as the BYU staged a fourth quarter comeback, led by future NFL star Jim McMahon.
1 Alabama defeated Mississippi 59–35 in a game arranged independently from the official SEC schedule.
September 27: Whilst both teams had no national ranking, the final meeting between college football's maiden rivalry occurred in Piscataway, New Jersey, as the Rutgers Scarlet Knights upended the Princeton Tigers 44–13.
2 Texas fell to SMU by a score of 20–6, and the Longhorns would end up losing five of their last seven games after a 5–0 start.
6 Florida State, whose only loss was by a single point to Miami, beat Memphis 24–3 to move into the top five: No.
1 Alabama, which had held the top ranking for six weeks and was riding a 28-game winning streak, was knocked off by Mississippi State, 6–3; similar to the earlier Nebraska-Florida State game, the favored team lost on a late fumble at the three-yard line.
2 UCLA heard the news of Alabama's loss, but the Bruins could not take advantage, falling 23–17 to Arizona in Tucson.
14 South Carolina 13–10 in a matchup between star running backs Herschel Walker and George Rogers.
It was Scott's only touchdown reception all season and it gave the Bulldogs a 26–21 win, making them the only undefeated and untied team in the nation.
1 Georgia won 31–21 at Auburn, the first game of the season where their winning margin was more than 7 but less than 30; the victory clinched the SEC title and a Sugar Bowl berth for the Bulldogs.
9 Oklahoma met to decide the Big 8 title and the Orange Bowl berth, and for the second straight year the underdog Sooners narrowly upset the Cornhuskers (this time winning 21–17 on a touchdown with less than a minute to play).
10 Michigan squared off in their usual showdown for the Big Ten championship, and once again the underdog won a close game, with the Wolverines prevailing 9–3.
The major bowls extended their invitations in mid-November when there were still games left to be played, which led to problems for some of the top-ranked teams.
Predicting that Notre Dame would defeat USC and finish undefeated, the Sugar Bowl organizers arranged for a meeting between the Fighting Irish and Georgia, which would have been a No.
The early invitation, combined with Notre Dame's late-season loss, cost Florida State (the actual No.
2 team in the final poll) a chance to play in a de facto national championship game.
The Seminoles ended up in an Orange Bowl rematch against Oklahoma, who had defeated them in the same event the previous year.
6 Baylor (who earned the automatic bid as the SWC champion) before the Panthers had obtained their resume-building win over Penn State.