Coming off a season where eight teams made bowl appearances, along with the rise of Stanford and Oregon into annual top-five status, the arrow on the Pac-12’s future is clearly pointing up.

With two of its best teams ineligible for a bowl game, 2012 was mostly a year to forget for the Big Ten. Despite having nothing to play for, Ohio State ran the table and finished with a perfect 12-0 record.

North Carolina fans could really not be any more pleased with how Year 1 of the Larry Fedora era in Chapel Hill went in 2012, other than the fact the Tar Heels couldn’t capitalize on their first-place tie in the ACC Coastal Division because of their NCAA-mandated

After an up-and-down season, Pittsburgh is ready to reboot in spring practice.

The Panthers were one of the nation’s most confounding teams in 2012, starting the season with back-to-back losses to Youngstown State and Cincinnati before bouncing back to defeat Virginia Tech. Later in the year, Pitt took Notre Dame to triple overtime, only to lose to Connecticut the following week.

Ohio State fans will forever wonder "what if" about their undefeated 2012 football team. Urban Meyer led the Buckeyes to an unbeaten 12-0 record in his first season in Columbus and Braxton Miller blossomed into a Heisman Trophy-contending quarterback.

Was 2012 the best disappointment in school history? South Carolina won a school-record 11 games with wins over Michigan, Georgia, Clemson, Tennessee and Arkansas. It finished seventh in the final polls, the best final ranking in school history. But two crucial losses to LSU and Florida gave the Gamecocks a third-place finish in the SEC East and relegated them to the Outback Bowl.

Thanks to seven consecutive national championships, the rest of college football is looking up at the SEC. And while there are some worthy challengers ready to make a push in 2013, there appears to be no end in sight to the SEC’s recent string of dominance.

BYU’s second season as an independent was a little rockier than the first, but the Cougars still finished the season in a bowl game.

For the second year in a row, Mark Richt's Bulldogs came up just shy of an SEC championship. This time, Georgia missed a chance at the national title game by just five yards. Yet, the 2013 team will look dramatically different than the last two SEC East champs.

With Michigan, Northwestern, Michigan State and Nebraska all expected to be in the mix for a spot in most preseason top-25 polls, the Big Ten Legends Division could be the toughest in college football in 2013. The Cornhuskers are the defending division champs but finished the year on a down note.