100 best college football games of the 2024 season - ESPN

It was the longest college football season on record, starting Aug. 24 and ending nearly five months later. But considering how difficult it was to cut my annual great games list to just 100 — my apologies to Penn State-Minnesota, Washington-USC, Western Kentucky-Toledo, Syracuse-Virginia Tech and so many others; I just assumed you'd make the list — this was also one of the richest seasons in recent memory.

The freshly expanded College Football Playoff gave us a few classics, Miami and BYU seemed to play heartstoppers every week, Arizona State gave us a double-field-stormer, Division II gave us maybe the biggest upset of all time and… then there were those two Bama games. What a year it was. Let's write a love letter to the season by celebrating its 100 best games.

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Smaller-school gems | Top 25 | Top 5 games

Mike Bloomgren's final season as Rice head coach produced only a 4-8 season, but the Owls scored a couple of thrilling wins, including this wild win probability swing. With nine seconds left, UTSA's win probability was 78.4%. Five seconds and one difficult catch later, Rice's was 99.9%.

RICE FOR THE WIN!!!!!<a href=«https://twitter.com/hashtag/AmericanWay?src=hash&ref_src=» https:>#AmericanWay

x <a href=«https://twitter.com/RiceFootball?ref_src=» https:>@RiceFootball pic.twitter.com/g27s6b4t18

UConn won nine games for the first time in 17 seasons, but the season might have gone off the rails if not for an incredible goal-line stand that prevented an upset loss in early October.

UCONN UCONN UCONN!!!

Fumble recovered and returned for 96 yards to seal the deal! pic.twitter.com/c8QrFPRSeM

There's nothing like a West Texas track meet. Texas Tech scored on its first five possessions and finished with 539