1976 College Football Season - November

November

November 6 In West Lafayette, Indiana, #1 Michigan narrowly lost to Purdue, 16-14, and fell from the top spot. #2 Pittsburgh's 37-7 win over visiting Army allowed it to take over the top spot. #3 UCLA beat Oregon, 46-0 #4 USC won at Stanford, 48-24. #5 Texas Tech won at TCU 14-10. the Top Five was: 1.Pittsburgh 2.UCLA 3.USC 4.Michigan 5.Texas Tech

November 13 #1 Pittsburgh beat West Virginia 24-16. #2 UCLA won at Oregon State to extend its record to 9-0-1. #3 USC beat Washington, 20-3. #4 Michigan beat Illinois 38-7. #5 Texas Tech beat SMU 34-7 to reach 8-0-0. The Top Five was unchanged: 1.Pittsburgh 2.UCLA 3.USC 4.Michigan 5.Texas Tech

November 20 While #1 Pittsburgh was idle, three conference championships were determined on the same day. In Pac-8 conference play, #2 UCLA (7-0) and #3 USC (6-0) were both unbeaten, so their crosstown L.A. game determined not just the conference title, but who would go to the Rose Bowl. UCLA suffered its first loss of the season, falling to the Trojans 24-14. The same day in Columbus, Ohio, the Big Ten's two best teams were meeting to determine the other berth in the Rose Bowl. In conference play #4 Michigan (6-1-0) was second to #8 Ohio State (7-0). In the bicentennial year Schembechler-Hayes meeting, it was no contest as Michigan won 22-0 over the Buckeyes. The Southwest Conference title and a trip to Cotton Bowl came down to a meeting between #5 Texas Tech and #9 Houston, 6-0-0 and 5-1-0 in conference play, respectively. Visiting Houston handed the Red Raiders their first loss, 27-19. #6 Maryland closed an 11-0-0 regular season with a 28-0 win at Virginia, and the ACC champion was invited to meet SWC champion Houston in the Cotton Bowl. Pittsburgh was invited to play in the Sugar Bowl after the players took a vote and made it clear that they would prefer to play SEC champion #5 Georgia there rather than face lower ranked Big 8 co-champion Colorado in the Orange Bowl. The Orange Bowl then controversially selected Big 10 runner up Ohio State to play Colorado over Pac-8 runner up UCLA, even though UCLA had a better record and higher ranking than Ohio State. It was believed that Ohio State would bring more fans to Miami for the warm weather than UCLA would, and Orange Bowl officials did not like the prospect of a UCLA - Colorado matchup as it would be two schools from the west playing back east.

The Top Five was: 1.Pittsburgh 2.USC 3.Michigan 4.Maryland 5.Georgia

November 27 #1 Pittsburgh moved its game against Penn State from its campus to Three Rivers Stadium. Pitt had not beaten the Nittany Lions in its last ten meetings, and on the day after Thanksgiving, cruised to a 24-7 win. Tony Dorsett, who rushed for 224 yards and scored two of Pitt's touchdowns, breaking the record for yards in a season (1,948) and becoming the first college player to reach 6,000 yards rushing in a career, closing with 6,082. USC maintained its #2 ranking with a 21-13 win over Notre Dame. The final regular season poll was 1.Pittsburgh 2.USC 3.Michigan 4.Maryland and 5.Georgia.