1996 NCAA Division I - A football season The 1996 NCAA Division I - A football season ended with the Florida Gators crowned National Champions , but not as unanimously as the Bowl Alliance would have hoped . Florida defeated in the Sugar Bowl , which was the designated National Championship that year . Florida had faced Florida State earlier in the year , when they were ranked # 1 and # 2 , and lost . Were it not for beating Nebraska , then # 3 , in the first ever Big 12 Championship Game , Florida wouldn ' t have even been in the title game . And even once they were there , it wasn ' t certain a victory would mean a national championship . The Rose Bowl game featured # 2 Arizona State and # 4 Ohio State . Florida St . and Arizona St . were the only unbeatens going into bowl season , so a Rose Bowl victory would give the Sun Devils a legitimate chance on winning the title . This scenario looked plausible as Arizona State ' s Jake Plummer scored with 1 : 40 left to play in the game , making the score 17 - 14 . But Ohio State ' s backup quarterback Joe Germaine marched down the field to pull out a heart stopping 20 - 17 win . On the one hand , this meant the national title game the following night would produce an incontrovertible champion . On the other hand , it left doubt to whether or not Ohio State deserved a stake in the national title , as evidenced by the team ' s 1½ first place votes in the final AP poll . The Pac - 10 and Big Ten could no longer afford to hold onto tradition while the rest of the country wanted a clear national champion . Reading the writing on the wall , they would soon join the national championship series with the other major conferences . The Big 12 ( Big 8 + 4 SWC members in Texas , Texas A & M , Texas Tech , and Baylor ) would begin play as a two division conference , with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State joining the South Division , breaking up the classic Nebraska – Oklahoma rivalry , but renewing the Texas - Oklahoma rivalry , known as the Red River Shootout . A new conference , Conference USA , formed from a combination of the Metro Conference and the Great Midwest Conference , neither of which had sponsored football . The conference champion has a tie in with the Liberty Bowl . The conference included SWC refugee Houston , as well as Louisville and Southern Miss , two solid independents . The Western Athletic Conference gained three members from the defunct Southwest Conference in TCU , SMU , and Rice , as well as UNLV , San Jose State , and Tulsa . The now 15 - team conference split into a Pacific and Mountain division and played a championship game . There was a large controversy when # 5 BYU was robbed of a spot in a Bowl Alliance game , as they were snubbed in favor of lower ranked teams from Bowl Alliance conferences . This would spur Congress into action , and would eventually be a reason the BCS polls were created . The Big West Conference lost several schools . stopped sponsoring football , as of 2006 the last Division I - A school to do so . Arkansas State , Louisiana Tech , Northern Illinois , and Southwestern Louisiana ( now Louisiana - Lafayette ) , all which collectively joined the Big West in 1993 , left to become independents . UNLV and San Jose State left to join the Western Athletic Conference . 1996 marked the end of ties in college football , as an overtime system was put into place across all of Division I - A . The 1995 season had overtime rules , but only for postseason games . As mentioned before Pacific University dropped football this year . However four new schools moved up to Division 1 - A football : University of Alabama at Birmingham , Boise State University , University of Central Florida , and University of Idaho . Bowl Coalition First and Seconds . The Bowl Coalition did not include the Pacific - 10 and Big 10 conferences , whose champions played in the Rose Bowl . Thus , Arizona State and Ohio State ( who met in the Rose Bowl ) were excluded from the Bowl Coalition championship . Final AP Poll . Others receiving votes : 26 . ; 27 . East Carolina ; 28 . ; 29 . ; 30 . Wisconsin ; 31 . ; 32 . ; 33 . Clemson Heisman Trophy Voting . " The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award is given to the Most Outstanding Player of the year " < br > Winner : Danny Wuerffel , Florida , Quarterback ( 1363 points )