The 1982 NCAA Division I-A football season saw Paul "Bear" Bryant retire as head coach at Alabama with 323 career victories in 38 seasons.
The Penn State Nittany Lions won their first consensus national championship, closing out an 11-1 season by defeating Georgia and Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker in the Sugar Bowl 27-23, and edging out undefeated SMU for the National Championship. It was Joe Paterno's first national championship, after three undefeated non-championship seasons.
UCLA moved from the LA Coliseum to the Rose Bowl and fulfilled a promise made by coach Terry Donahue by closing out their season there as well, beating Michigan in the post-season Rose Bowl game, 24-14.
It is also the year of “The Play”, a near impossible finish to the annual rivalry game between Cal and Stanford.
The Aloha Bowl premiered in Honolulu, Hawaii.
This was the first season the Ivy League competed at the I-AA (FCS) level. Through the 2009 season, the Ivy League has yet to participate in the post-season tournament, despite an automatic bid, citing academic concerns.
Read more about 1982 NCAA Division I-A Football Season: Conference Standings, Notable Rivalry Games, September, October, November, #1 and #2 Progress, Bowl Games, Final AP Poll, Final Coaches Poll, Other Major Awards
Famous quotes containing the words division, football and/or season:
“O, if you raise this house against this house
It will the woefullest division prove
That ever fell upon this cursed earth.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)