I think Ohio State and Michigan were just REALLY unlucky to have great teams in the same season that year. Ohio State outscored opponents 413-64 as mentioned above and Michigan was not much worse at 330-68.
USC is very interesting that year. They finished 9-2-1 and were #8 in the final AP Poll but the thing is that their losses and tie were to the top-3:
- Lost 23-14 AT Notre Dame (final #1)
- Lost 42-21 in the Rose Bowl to Ohio State (final #2)
- Tied 7-7 at home with Oklahoma (final #3)
Their other game against a ranked team was a 23-13 win at home over UCLA (final #12).
Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn State, and Michigan all finished undefeated although each except ND and PSU had a tie. However, the ties were not bad:
- 11-0 Notre Dame beat #1 (final #4) Bama in the Sugar Bowl
- 10-0-1 Ohio State tied (final) #6 Michigan 10-10 in Ann Arbor
- 10-0-1 Oklahoma tied (final) #8 USC 7-7 in LA
- 11-1 Bama lost to ND 24-23
- 12-0 Penn State played two ranked (final) teams: Beat #16 NCST 35-29 at home, beat #13 LSU 16-9 in the Orange Bowl.
- 10-0-1 Michigan tied #2 tOSU 10-10 at home
That Oklahoma team was sophomore-heavy, with QB Steve Davis, HB Joe Washington, SE Tinker Owens, DT's Lee Roy and Dewey Selmon, DE Jimbo Elrod, K Tony DiRienzo, S Eric Van Camp, OT Mike Vaughan, and OG Terry Webb all sophomore starters.
The USC game was Barry Switzer's 2nd game as HFC. He had a conservative game plan and the play-calling was conservative. He said afterward that if he had known how good the team was, he would have opened up the offense more.
That was the game in which Joe Washington ran about 80 yards to lose 8 on a punt return.
I've always wondered what might have been in the final rankings had OU won that game, but the Sooners were on probation, and the punishment began with not being allowed to go to a bowl game. I don't think that an 11-0 Oklahoma that hadn't played in a month would have passed 11-0 Notre Dame, victor over Bama in the Sugar Bowl.
Still, that was a better Sooner team than the '75 MNC team.
