OU and Texas are in the SEC. OSU is in the Big 12 conference—with Utah. This college football season, the Sooners and Cowboys wave hello to new opponents, and goodbye (for now?) to each other.

The nation’s biggest stage isn’t on Broadway or anywhere in the borough of Manhattan. The extravagant glitz of the Las Vegas Sphere or the billion-dollar football palace in Arlington, Texas, don’t come close, either. America’s largest and most hallowed coliseums tower over college towns like Ann Arbor, Michigan; State College, Pennsylvania; and College Station, Texas. Games between students with homework and textbooks are elevated into grand sporting spectacles watched by millions coast to coast. Filling these bleachers are denizens of one of the most passionate fandoms there is: college football. They come clad in school colors, as young as infants, brought by their parents, who were brought to their first games by their parents before them. But the 2024 season is not your dad’s college football. In fact, no one has ever seen anything like this.

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With fireworks, military flyovers, and music, the pregame festivities at Gaylord Family Memorial Stadium are almost as exciting as actual games. Photo courtesy Stacey West/University of Oklahoma

Sept-Oct Conference Realignment cover story

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