As 2022 winds down, Sports Illustrated is looking back at the themes and teams, story lines and through lines that shaped the year.

The year began with a seismic shift: Georgia winning its first national championship in 41 years. The Bulldogs were slight favorites against Alabama, but the act of taking down the Crimson Tide and nemesis Nick Saban was the first indication that 2022 was going to be different.

Momentously chaotic might be the best way to put it.

By February, after Texas A&M had signed its best recruiting class under what certainly seemed like collective- and NIL-aided circumstances, we were solidly on our way. In the spring, Saban said the Aggies “bought every player on their team,” and A&M coach Jimbo Fisher furiously countered by calling Saban a “narcissist” and “despicable.” Well, we were off and running.

Collectives were demonized by some and defended by others. The NCAA flailed so much in its attempts to enforce standing rules against pay-for-play recruiting that it issued what amounted to a We Need Snitches APB to the membership.

Then came June 30, when the year didn’t just shift, it nearly split open. News broke that USC and UCLA were out of the Pac-12 door in ’24 for the Big Ten, setting off shock waves throughout the industry and following the 2021 jolt of Oklahoma and Texas announcing their moves to the Southeastern Conference. Both moves crystallized the biggest rivalry in college sports: the Big Ten and Fox vs. the SEC and ESPN.

Everyone else was diminished and endangered. The Big 12 and its new commissioner talked big about potentially raiding the vulnerable Pac-12. The Pac-12 scoffed in response. Notre Dame, the ultimate lever that could send realignment spinning further, held fast as an independent. Everything seemed to calm down. For how long, we shall see.

Watch college football with fuboTV. Start your free trial today.

Two months later, college football finally got its act together and moved past a petty commissioner impasse to formalize an expansion of its playoff from four to 12 teams. This took some 14 months longer than it should have, but progress was progress—it was just a matter of how fast that progress could come into being. By December, the rush order had been put in place: 12 teams by 2024.

On Dec. 5, the transfer portal swung open once again and the flood of prospects was unlike anything we have seen before. Big names, small names—it seemed like everyone was on the move. College leaders complained about the portal becoming de facto free agency and players taking the best available offer—kind of like what coaches have done for themselves for decades.

The transfer exodus impact on bowl games is just being felt. The impact on the 2023 season will be immense.

On the field, Texas A&M’s massive flop, —from top-five team to a 5-7 record—was a Schadenfreude Special for many. Two big-time coaches who changed jobs, USC’s Lincoln Riley and LSU’s Brian Kelly, made their new schools’ massive investments immediately worthwhile by reaching conference championship games, where they both got trucked and missed the Playoff. Instead, the new coach who authored the biggest breakthrough was one no one saw coming: Sonny Dykes at TCU. He guided the Horned Frogs into the Playoff as the No. 3 seed, breaking up an SEC-Big Ten stranglehold that saw those two leagues position their teams in first (Georgia), second (Michigan), fourth (Ohio State), fifth (Alabama) and sixth (Tennessee).

Yet for all the momentous chaos, we end 2022 where we started it: reigning champion Georgia once again looming as the team to beat.

Here is a selection of SI’s best college football stories of the past year.—Pat Forde

The Other Side of College Football’s Game Changer: The NIL Collective, by Ross Dellenger

An Inside Look at the Most Powerful Person in College Sports, by Pat Forde

Why Have Southern Teams Dominated the CFP? Follow the Money, and History, by Richard Johnson

Lane Kiffin on NIL, Recruiting and Boosters: ‘We’re a Professional Sport,’ by Ross Dellenger

USC, UCLA and the Big Ten Get Theirs, But at What Cost?, by Pat Forde

Year 1 of NIL Brought Curveballs, Collectives and Chaos. Now What?, by Richard Johnson