1984 NCAA Division I-A football season

The 1984 NCAA Division I-A football season was topsy-turvy from start to finish. It ended with the BYU Cougars being bestowed their first and only national championship by beating Michigan in the Holiday Bowl. In the final AP Poll, BYU received 1,160 points (with 38 first-place votes) while Washington received 1,140 points (with 16 first-place votes) for one of the closest finishes in AP history. NCAA-sanctioned voters (Berryman QPRS, The Football News and the National Championship Foundation) did name Washington their champion, but the school does not formally claim the season as a championship season.

While the Cougars finished with a perfect 13–0 record and were the consensus National Champions, most noted the contentious circumstance of awarding it to the program (none of their conference opponents in the WAC finished with fewer than four losses, and even Michigan finished the season at 6–6 after the bowl loss) and argue that the championship could have just as well have gone to the 11–1 Washington Huskies. Washington (ranked fourth in the AP polls) had stated a preference for the more prestigious 1985 Orange Bowl, and accepted its invitation over that of the Holiday Bowl. One poll put out among anonymous AP voters by NBC asked who they might rank as #1 depending on the outcomes of the Orange and Holiday Bowls, with over half stating that a decisive victory by Oklahoma might make them the national champion; when asked if Washington won decisively, more of the pollsters believed BYU would be deemed champion.

37 subsequent national champions have come from what are now known as the power conferences plus independent Notre Dame until 2017 UCF.