This article documents the year 2013 in American football.
College football
NCAA Division I FBS
The 2013 NCAA Division I FBS football season began on Thursday, August 31 at 6:00 p.m. EDT, with both the kickoff of a game between North Carolina and South Carolina and a game between Kent State and FCS member Liberty. The Alabama Crimson Tide were voted as the preseason No. 1, receiving 58 of the 60 allotted first-place votes.
As part of the 2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, the Western Athletic Conference discontinued football and the Big East Conference went through a massive change in membership that saw the conference discontinue football and many of the original members rebrand as the American Athletic Conference, which began play in 2013.
On September 7, the contest between Michigan and Notre Dame at Michigan Stadium set a new NCAA record for attendance at a college football game, with 115,109 people in attendance. This record would not be broken until the Battle at Bristol in 2016.
On November 30, in the Iron Bowl game between Auburn and Alabama at Jordan–Hare Stadium, Alabama attempted a game-winning 57-yard field goal as time expired; however, the kick was short and was returned 109 yards for a walk-off Auburn touchdown, dubbed the "Kick Six". This came just two weeks after the so-called "Prayer at Jordan–Hare", in which Auburn defeated Georgia after a deep pass on 4th down late in the game was tipped by 3 Georgia defenders and fell into the hands of receiver Ricardo Louis, who then ran into the end zone for what would be the game-winning touchdown.
UCF and Baylor were named champions of the American Athletic and Big 12 Conferences, respectively, based on their superior conference records. Arkansas State and Louisiana–Lafayette were named co-champions of the Sun Belt, though Louisiana–Lafayette would later vacate this championship along with eight of their nine wins from the season. In the first of the conference championship games to be played, Bowling Green defeated Northern Illinois to win the MAC Championship. Other teams who won their conference championship games included Florida State (ACC), Michigan State (Big Ten), Rice (Conference USA), Fresno State (Mountain West), Stanford (Pac-12), and Auburn (SEC).
On December 14, Florida State freshman quarterback Jameis Winston was announced as the winner of the 79th Heisman Trophy, defeating Alabama senior quarterback A. J. McCarron and Northern Illinois senior quarterback Jordan Lynch, who finished second and third, respectively. Winston was the second consecutive freshman to win the award.
The bowl game season kicked off with the New Mexico Bowl on December 21, and concluded with the 2014 BCS National Championship Game on January 6. The National Championship, played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, saw the No. 1 Florida State Seminoles defeat the No. 2 Auburn Tigers, 34–31, to win the school's third national championship. This year was the last of the BCS era, as the College Football Playoff system would be introduced the following season.
NCAA Division I FCS
Similarly to the FBS, the 2013 NCAA Division I FCS football season began on Thursday, August 31 at 6:00 p.m. EDT, as Liberty kicked off against Kent State. The first matchup between two FCS teams began an hour later, with the start of a contest between Robert Morris and Eastern Kentucky at Roy Kidd Stadium. As the back-to-back defending national champions, North Dakota State received the preseason No. 1 ranking, along with 127 of the 134 first-place votes.
The 2013 season saw the debuts of two new football programs, Charlotte and Houston Baptist, as well as the fielding of a football team at Mercer for the first time since 1941 and at Stetson for the first time since 1956.
On August 31, No. 4 Eastern Washington defeated FBS opponent Oregon State, who was ranked No. 25 in the AP Poll at the time of the game. This marked only the third time that an FCS team had defeated a ranked FBS opponent, after Appalachian State in 2007 (def. No. 5 Michigan) and James Madison in 2010 (def. No. 13 Virginia Tech). Three more Power Five teams were upset by FCS opponents: Kansas State fell to No. 1 North Dakota State the day before the Eastern Washington–Oregon State game, August 30, and later on August 31 Iowa State was defeated by No. 17 Northern Iowa. The fourth and final instance came much later in the season, on November 23, when Georgia Southern upset Florida, extending the Gators' losing streak to six games.