Note: in the review that follows, title-contenders are shown in bold.

Some major changes affected college football in 1992. The Southeastern Conference took advantage of a new NCAA rule allowing 12-team conferences to adopt a two-division structure with a championship game to determine the conference champion. So the SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina, and realigned itself based on east-west geography. The hope was that the championship game would bring increased revenue and attention to the conference, but critics complained that the added burden of another tough game would make it virtually impossible for an SEC team to ever win a naitonal championship. Don't believe it. Not only have SEC teams won 3 of the 8 titles since the SEC championship game was instituted, but Alabama won it the very first year, 1992.

The season kicked off with an unheralded preseason game between Stanford and Texas A&M. As it turned out, the Aggies would finish the regular season undefeated, and the Cardinal would end the year ranked 9th, its highest season-ending ranking of the decade. The Aggies won 10-7.

As usual, the first big game was Notre Dame vs. Michigan. Having split in 1990 and 1991, the two schools didn't settle anything in a 17-17 tie. It would be the year of the tie for the Wolverines. After firing off 8 straight wins, Michigan let down against 5-4 Illinois, managing just a 22-22 deadlock. And then the maize and blue ended the regular season in unsatisfying fashion with a 13-13 tie against arch-rival Ohio State. They would take an 8-0-3 mark into the bowl season.

The Pac Ten was having an up year. Besides Stanford, whose 33-16 win over Notre Dame effectively ended the Irish's championship hopes, both Washington and Washington State got off to furious starts. Washington got an important victory in September with a 29-14 win over Nebraska. The Huskies reached their peak at midseason beating a good Stanford team 41-7 to go to 8-0. The defending champions' reign came to an end against the Desert Swarm defense of Arizona, who beat them 16-3. The same Arizona team had almost stunned the nation by nearly bringing down the other defending national champion, Miami, earlier in the year. The Wildcat defense had stymied the Hurricanes all day, almost enough to end the longest home win streak in the country. But Miami squeaked out an 8-7 win. As for Washington State, who would beat the Huskies 42-23 in the Apple Cup, they had shot off to a 6-0 start before being dropped by Southern Cal, 31-21.

After the Arizona nailbiter, the Miami Hurricanes frustrated Florida State yet again. In a game known as Wide Right II, the Canes benefitted for the second year in a row from a missed Seminole field goal which would have tied the game. Miami would win 19-16, and finish the regular season undefeated. Their final test came against a 9-1 Syracuse team whose only loss had been a 35-12 decision against Ohio State in September. The Orangemen battled Miami all the way, but ended up on the losing side of a 16-10 score.

Nebraska rebounded from the Washington loss, storming to a 7-1 record, the high point of which was a 52-7 pounding of Colorado. But the Cornhusker train was derailed in one of the spectacular upsets of the decade, a miserable 19-10 performance against then 3-6 Iowa State.

Three teams were storming through the newly-restructured Southeastern Conference. Tennessee had assumed control of the Eastern Division with back to back wins against Georgia and Florida. But the Volunteers hit a huge bump in the road in their sixth game, losing 25-24 to a 1-4 Arkansas team. Welcome to the SEC, Razorbacks! When the Vols lost 17-10 to 6-0 Alabama the next game, and then lost their third straight, 24-23, to South Carolina, the stage was set for the winner of the Halloween Day Florida-Georgia game to win the East. Florida was 4-2 with 2 SEC losses, but Georgia was 7-1. The Gators won the 26-24 game in thrilling style, and became a 2-loss representative in the first SEC Championship.

The Gators' opponent was Alabama. The Tide were an inscrutable team: a defensive-minded club that had edged by Southern Miss and Louisiana Tech, but that had beaten Tennessee and a good Mississippi team. When the Tide beat Florida 28-21 in the SEC Championship, three undefeated teams (Texas A&M, Alabama, and Miami, not counting 8-0-3 Michigan) entered the bowl season.