1984 Holiday Bowl - National Championship

National Championship

At the conclusion of the 1984 college football season, BYU was the only undefeated team in Division I-A. As such, BYU was the leading candidate to win the national championship if it were to win its bowl game. However, BYU, as champion of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), was obligated to play in the Holiday Bowl which was not one of the top-tier bowls. As such, the young bowl would not automatically draw a high-caliber opponent for the WAC champion. Many of the poll voters were reluctant to crown a WAC team as national champion, because of the unconventional style of football being played at that time in the WAC, relying more heavily on the pass than was prevalent among the more traditional teams in larger conferences, and the perception that the difficulty of the WAC schedule was weak compared to those of the major powers with losses to highly ranked opponents.

The Holiday Bowl settled on Michigan after some other schools passed on the bowl because of its early time period, citing interference with final exams. Eventually, the Holiday Bowl picked the 6-5 Michigan Wolverines to play BYU with the national title possibly on the line for Brigham Young University. The Wolverines managed to give BYU a tough game, but BYU won the game by a score of 24-17 and would later be awarded the consensus national championship after all of the other bowl games had been completed.