2005 NCAA Division I-A Football Season

The 2005 NCAA Division I-A football season ended with the least amount of controversy surrounding the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) title game in many years.

To an extent it was a return to classic football. All eight BCS teams were traditional powerhouses, many of the schools having worn the same uniforms for half a century, and Penn State and Florida State having the same coaches for nearly half a century. Alabama was back in the mix for the SEC title, shaking off the residual effects of NCAA sanctions, and though Penn State is a relative newcomer to the Big Ten, Ohio State and Michigan were still in the running for the conference title until the last game.

The BCS saw good fortune as two teams, the USC Trojans and the Texas Longhorns, went wire to wire as #1 and #2, respectively—the second year in a row that had happened—and finished as Division I-A's only undefeated teams after the regular season. As a result, there was no dispute over the choice of teams selected for the BCS title game (there were five undefeated teams in the 2004 regular season: Oklahoma, USC, Auburn, Utah, and Boise State). The game was played at the Rose Bowl, where Texas edged the favored, defending champion Trojans in large part due to a historic performance by Texas quarterback Vince Young, who gained 467 yards of total offense and ran for three touchdowns. The victory earned the Longhorns their first consensus national championship since 1969. (Texas won a split title in 1970.)

There was also an unlikely comeback team in the season. The UCF Golden Knights came from a helpless 0–11 record in 2004, to a respectable 8–5 record and an appearance in the Conference USA Championship game and a Hawaii Bowl berth. Although their season apparently got off to a poor start with a loss to South Carolina on opening day and a pasting by their intrastate rival, South Florida, they pulled off 8 wins over a 9 game span (only loss was a 31–52 rout by Southern Miss) including getting a win over eventual conference champions, Tulsa. Tulsa ended up beating UCF 44–27. In the Hawaii Bowl, the Golden Knights were a failed PAT away from sending Nevada to double overtime. Also, Penn State, who went 4-7 in 2004, managed an 11-1* record and #3 ranking in 2005, but not being ranked until after the 44-14 pasting of then #19 Minnesota, where Penn State took control of the Governor's Victory Bell for the first time since 1998.

Quite a few conference changes took place in 2005. Temple became an independent football program after expulsion from the Big East Conference and Army ended its brief affiliation with Conference USA and also returned to football independence. Boston College left the Big East to become the ACC's 12th member, allowing that league to split into divisions and start a conference championship game.

Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida left Conference USA to join the Big East, to bring the membership in that league back up to eight. TCU also left Conference USA to join the Mountain West Conference as its ninth member.

Conference USA responded to the mass defections by adding Central Florida and Marshall from the Mid-American Conference, knocking the MAC's membership down from 14 to 12, and Rice, Southern Methodist, UTEP, and Tulsa from the WAC to get up to 12 members. Like the ACC, C-USA split into two divisions and started a conference championship game.

In response to their losses, the WAC added Idaho, New Mexico State and Utah State from the Sun Belt Conference while the Sun Belt picked up independent Florida Atlantic and Florida International, who had just transitioned from Division I-AA. Division I-A membership is now at 119 schools.

Instant replay would expand to most major conferences, after initially being used by only the Big Ten the previous season. All conferences were granted permission to use replay for the 2005 season and all but the Sun Belt and WAC adopted some form of replay system. The rules governing instant replay varied from conference to conference, before the NCAA standardized the rules for the 2006 season.