1980 NCAA Division I-A football season

The 1980 NCAA Division I-A football season saw a university from the state of Georgia take its first national title since 1942.

Nine days following the bowl games to close the 1979 season, tragedy struck when new LSU coach Bo Rein died when the plane he was flying in crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia. Rein, who coached North Carolina State to the Atlantic Coast Conference championship in 1979, was named on November 30 of that year as the successor to Charles McClendon, who coached LSU to a 137–59–7 mark from 1962 through 1979. Jerry Stovall, a former LSU All-American and St. Louis Cardinals defensive back, was named to succeed Rein approximately 36 hours after the crash.

The Georgia Bulldogs starred freshman running back Herschel Walker, who made his NCAA debut against Tennessee. Down 15–2 at halftime, Georgia sent in Walker, the third string running back at the time, to try to light a spark. Walker ran over All-American safety Bill Bates, in a play that would set the tempo for the rest of his career.

This year was the final season in which long time rivals Rutgers and Princeton played against each other. The rivalry between the New Jersey schools has not been played since.

This year's edition of Florida–Georgia game was won on a last-minute 92-yard pass from Georgia's own endzone, known by the play-by-play call "Run, Lindsay, run!".

The Bulldogs ran through the rest of the season unscathed, beating Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. Walker rushed for 150 yards against Notre Dame, a defense which had not given up a hundred-yard game that whole season. He did this with a dislocated shoulder.

The Pittsburgh Panthers also had a stellar season, led by defensive end Hugh Green. The team went 11–1 and finished ranked No. 2, finishing the season with a rout of South Carolina and Heisman Trophy winner George Rogers in the Gator Bowl. 29 players from this team went on to play in the NFL.

Florida State defeated No. 3 ranked Nebraska on the Cornhuskers' home turf, and the following week defeated the No. 2 ranked Pitt Panthers

It was an unusual year for the Pac-10 as 5 of its 10 members were placed on probation by the conference (but not the NCAA) including traditional powers USC and UCLA, along with both Oregon schools and Arizona State. So half the conference was ineligible for bowl games and it was feared that the 4th or 5th-place finisher would end up in the Rose Bowl. Ironically, USC and UCLA both got as high as No. 2 in the polls before being upset. As it turned out, the probation didn't matter as Washington won the conference outright with a 6–1 record.

This year's edition of the Holiday Bowl was a classic as the BYU staged a fourth quarter comeback, led by future NFL star Jim McMahon. Down 45–25 to SMU with less than four minutes left, McMahon threw three touchdown passes, including a Hail Mary as time expired, caught in the endzone by Clay Brown, despite being surrounded by three SMU defenders.