Editor\u2019s note: As the World Cup continues in the United States for the first time since 1994, The Athletic is looking back at college sports in the 1990s and how much has changed since then. Join us for a couple of weeks of offseason football and basketball nostalgia.<\/p>\n
College football was good in the 1870s \u2014 which started a few weeks after the first college football game, Nov. 6, 1869, matching Rutgers and Princeton \u2014 and in every decade since. But how about those 1990s? It was a time of epic competition, change and personality in the sport<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here are 90 things we miss about college football in the 1990s (check out 10 things we don\u2019t miss here<\/a>):<\/p>\n 1. The Steve Spurrier-Bobby Bowden rivalry. Any remembrance of college football in the 1990s should start with Florida\u2019s Spurrier and Florida State\u2019s Bowden \u2014 the coach of \u201cFree Shoes University,\u201d as Spurrier once noted amid an NCAA investigation into FSU \u2014 and a coaching rivalry that has a case as the best ever.<\/p>\n Most would start that list with Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler, whose \u201c10-Year-War\u201d from 1969 to 1978 established Ohio State vs. Michigan as the sport\u2019s premier game<\/a>. But every Florida-Florida State meeting in the 1990s matched top-10 teams, and three of those teams won national championships (FSU in 1993 and \u201999, Florida in \u201996). Three of the Ohio State-Michigan games during the \u201c10-Year War\u201d did not match top-10 teams, and neither program won a national title during that time.<\/p>\n Bowden ended up with the upper hand at 7-4-1 in the \u201990s, including two Sugar Bowl meetings (and 8-5-1 overall). But the second of those Sugar Bowl encounters was the most resounding win of the decade \u2014 No. 3 Florida 52, No. 1 Florida State 20, a little more than a month after it was No. 2 Florida State 24, No. 1 Florida 21 at FSU\u2019s Doak Campbell Stadium.<\/p>\n Is Bowden vs. Spurrier the best rivalry ever in college football?<\/p>\n Joe Rexrode<\/p>\n 2. Conferences that made sense. Bound by geography and long-standing tradition. Named accurately \u2014 though Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany opted for branding over math when the league added independent Penn State<\/a> on June 4, 1990, and remained the Big Ten (with a new logo that conveyed the number 11).<\/p>\n 3. Rivalries that no TV executive and no amount of greed could disrupt. The Apple Cup. The Civil War. Bedlam. Nebraska vs. Oklahoma. In the 1990s, Michigan-Notre Dame, Michigan State-Notre Dame, Pittsburgh-Penn State, Pittsburgh-West Virginia and others that have faded were going strong. And no one could have imagined that Notre Dame-USC might ever be threatened.<\/p>\n 4. Keith Jackson saying, \u201cWhoa Nellie!\u201d<\/p>\n 5. Poulan Weed Eater deciding to get into the bowl business<\/a>.<\/p>\n 6. Major college football teams that primarily played other major college football teams during the pre-conference portions of their schedules. For example, in 1990 in the Big Ten, almost every nonleague game was against a power-conference team. The exceptions: Illinois vs. Southern Illinois, Purdue vs. Indiana State, Indiana vs. Eastern Michigan, Northwestern vs. Northern Illinois and Wisconsin vs. Ball State and Temple. That\u2019s the list. In 1991, Michigan opened with Boston College, Notre Dame and Florida State.<\/p>\n 7. The Fifth Down<\/a>.<\/p>\n 8. Expansion that made sense, such as SEC commissioner Roy Kramer adding Arkansas and South Carolina, with those schools starting SEC play in 1992. Arkansas was leaving a troubled conference and South Carolina was leaving independence.<\/p>\n 9. Coaches becoming athletic directors and athletic directors becoming conference commissioners. As opposed to Fortune 500 wannabes and TV executives with no concept<\/a>\u00a0of what makes college football great ascending to power and convincing clueless university presidents to make bad, short-sighted decisions.<\/p>\n 10. The drop-everything-and-watch-this mandate across America every time a kickoff or punt settled into the arms of Raghib \u201cRocket\u201d Ismail.<\/p>\n 11. Conference championships mattering.<\/p>\n 12. New Year\u2019s Day bowl games mattering.<\/p>\n 13. Gigantic shoulder pads and those big, bulky, foam knee pads.<\/p>\n 14. Ty Detmer unleashing lasers all over the field and all but winning the Heisman Trophy by engineering a win over Miami.<\/p>\n 15. Games on Raycom. Games on Jefferson Pilot. Games on radio having so much more importance because every game wasn\u2019t televised.<\/p>\n 16. Beano Cook, a college football voice and historian who entertained, infuriated at times and mastered hot takes before hot takes were a thing \u2014 poor Ron Powlus never had a chance after Cook predicted he\u2019d win two Heismans at Notre Dame.<\/p>\n 17. Ron Franklin and Mike Gottfried in the booth. Verne Lundquist, Brent Musburger, Brad Nessler, Mike Patrick and Sean McDonough on the call. Lynn Swann, Jack Arute, Dr. Jerry Punch, Bonnie Bernstein and Holly Rowe on the sidelines.<\/p>\n 18. Keith Jackson saying, \u201cGoodbye!\u201d as Desmond Howard streaked down the sideline against Ohio State, then adding, \u201cHello, Heisman!\u201d as he reached the end zone and struck the Heisman pose.<\/p>\n 19. Knowing your team would be playing its games on Saturdays, somewhere in the United States.<\/p>\n 20. The relentless, dominant play of Steve Emtman.<\/p>\n 21. The novelty of a \u201cconference championship game,\u201d introduced by the SEC \u2014 the first edition won by Gene Stallings and Alabama over Steve Spurrier and Florida at Birmingham\u2019s Legion Field, setting up a Sugar Bowl shocker over Miami to win the whole thing.<\/p>\n 22. A guy like Marshall Faulk playing his whole college career at San Diego State, before getting to the NFL and showing everyone that, yes, he was every bit that good.<\/p>\n 23. The Big East \u2026 is going to be a football conference?<\/p>\n 24. Charlie Ward at quarterback, even more fun to watch than Charlie Ward at point guard.<\/p>\n 25. The latest \u201cGame of the Century,\u201d Florida State at Notre Dame in 1993, ESPN \u201cCollege GameDay\u2019s\u201d first show from a game site and a Notre Dame win that validated the hype.<\/p>\n 26. Fans being required to show up at a stadium and boo if they wanted a player or coach to be aware of their displeasure with the player or coach.<\/p>\n 27. The Southwest Conference. Rest in peace, you magnificent, dysfunctional beauty. Real ones know you taught the SEC how to cheat.<\/p>\n 28. The SEC soap opera of soap operas, Johnny Majors vs. Phillip Fulmer.<\/p>\n 29. Lou Holtz doing his best to convince the assembled press that the upcoming four-touchdown underdog on the schedule really, seriously, truly posed a threat to Notre Dame.<\/p>\n 30. \u201cBill Walsh College Football,\u201d the first EA Sports foray into college football video games.<\/p>\n 31. USC vs. UCLA feeling important.<\/p>\n 32. Kordell Stewart to Michael Westbrook from a million miles away at Michigan Stadium.<\/p>\n 33. \u201cThe Program.\u201d<\/p>\n 34. Joe Paterno\u2019s Penn State Nittany Lions ruling the Big Ten in their second season in the league in 1994, with one of the greatest offenses college football has seen \u2014 Kerry Collins, Ki-Jana Carter, Bobby Engram, Kyle Brady and a cool 47 points per game.<\/p>\n 35. Warren Sapp blotting out the sun for \u201cThe U.\u201d<\/p>\n 36. \u201cThe Choke at Doak,\u201d the wildest game of the best rivalry of the decade, Florida blowing a 31-3 lead at Florida State in the fourth quarter and being relegated to a tie.<\/p>\n 37. The absolute terror opponents must have grappled with when looking across the field and seeing Tom Osborne\u2019s mid-90s Nebraska teams on the other sideline.<\/p>\n 38. The recruitment of Peyton Manning.<\/p>\n 39. Four years of watching Peyton Manning play for the Vols.<\/p>\n 40. Gary Barnett? Pat Fitzgerald? Northwestern? Winning the Big Ten and playing in the Rose Bowl? How?<\/p>\n 41. Eddie George and Terry Glenn in the same Ohio State offense.<\/p>\n 42. Giant newspaper special sections in every major college town on Sundays, with color photos and several pages of coverage hitting every angle of the big game.<\/p>\n 43. Coaches making salaries that could still be somewhat justified on a college campus and in everyday life.<\/p>\n 44. The occasional sound clip from an overzealous SEC fan that made the rounds after first airing on the radio show of some guy named Paul Finebaum.<\/p>\n 45. Overtime. Sweet, glorious overtime. No more ties. And a format that blew away the NFL\u2019s version.<\/p>\n 46. The mesmerizing early days of \u201cmessage boards\u201d and \u201cchat rooms.\u201d What could go wrong?<\/p>\n 47. Danny Wuerffel operating Steve Spurrier\u2019s Fun \u2018n\u2019 Gun at an unprecedented level, winning all the awards and serving notice that an NFL takeover was forthcoming.<\/p>\n 48. Tommie Frazier dominating in Nebraska\u2019s option offense, NFL analysts taking virtually no notice and no one caring.<\/p>\n 49. Spurrier haters delighting in what Nebraska did to Florida \u2014 that would be a final of 62-24 \u2014 on Jan. 2, 1996 in the Fiesta Bowl.<\/p>\n 50. Keith Jackson declaring it was time for \u201cthe granddaddy of them all!\u201d before calling the Rose Bowl.<\/p>\n 51. Washington politicians talking about things other than college football.<\/p>\n