September
In the preseason poll released on September 5, 1977, the AP ranked Oklahoma first, followed by #2 Michigan, #3 Notre Dame, #4 USC and #5 Ohio State. Alabama was 6th, and the defending champion, Pittsburgh (minus Tony Dorsett and Johnny Majors) was ranked 7th.
September 10 #1 Oklahoma opened its season against the visiting Vanderbilt Commodores, who had finished 2-9-0 the year before. Though the Sooners avoided an upset, their 25-23 win didn't impress the pollsters, and OU dropped to fifth. #2 Michigan won at Illinois, 37-9. #3 Notre Dame won at Pittsburgh, 19-9. #4 USC won at Missouri, 27-10. #5 Ohio State beat visiting Miami (of Florida) 10-0. #6 Alabama beat Ole Miss, 34-13, at Birmingham. Although the top six teams all won their openers, The next poll shuffled the rankings (2-4-3-6-1-5): 1.Michigan 2.USC 3.Notre Dame 4.Alabama 5.Oklahoma 6. Ohio State.
September 17 #1 Michigan beat Duke, 21-9 and #2 USC won at Oregon State, 17-10. A week after losing to Alabama, the Ole Miss Rebels stunned the nation as they defeated #3 Notre Dame 20-13 in a humid 100 degree plus day in Jackson. Humiliated by their loss to Red and Blue, Irish dropped to 11th, and as low as 14th the week after. The #11 Maryland Terrapins fell to an unranked West Virginia team in College Park, 24-16. #4 Alabama lost at #14 Nebraska, 31-24. #5 Oklahoma crushed visiting Utah, 62-24. #6 Ohio State and #10 Penn State which beat Minnesota (38-7) and Houston (31-14), respectively, reached the top five: 1.Michigan 2.USC 3.Oklahoma 4.Ohio State 5.Penn State
September 24 #1 Michigan beat Navy, 14-7. #2 USC beat visiting TCU, 51-0. #3 Oklahoma and #4 Ohio State met in Columbus, Ohio, in the season's first big matchup. In a close game, the visiting Sooners won 29-28 after a touchdown, an onside kick recovery, and a last second field goal by Uwe Von Schaman, and reclaimed first place in the next poll. #5 Penn State beat Maryland, 27-9. #6 Texas A&M, which won at #7 Texas Tech, 33-17, reached the top five: 1.Oklahoma 2.USC 3.Michigan 4.Penn State 5.Texas A&M
Read more about this topic: 1977 College Football Season
Famous quotes containing the word september:
“April is in my mistress’ face,
And July in her eyes hath place,
Within her bosom is September,
But in her heart a cold December.”
—Unknown. Subject #4: July Subject #5: September Subject #6: December. All Seasons in One. . .
Oxford Book of Sixteenth Century Verse, The. E. K. Chambers, comp. (1932)
“This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened since Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity is not the less great for that, for we do not regulate our historical time by the English standard, nor did the English by the Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek.... From this September afternoon, and from between these now cultivated shores, those times seemed more remote than the dark ages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Any one who knows what the worth of family affection is among the lower classes, and who has seen the array of little portraits stuck over a labourer’s fireplace ... will perhaps feel with me that in counteracting the tendencies, social and industrial, which every day are sapping the healthier family affections, the sixpenny photograph is doing more for the poor than all the philanthropists in the world.”
—Macmillan’s Magazine (London, September 1871)