LiMu's system

[SWC75]

IMO I rather see going back to the old Bowl system and then have the Top 2 teams play in the NCG 10-14 days later, vs expanding the playoff. When Texas and Oklahoma leave there really will be a P4. If a team doesn't win their conference, then too bad no chance at the NCG for you (that counts for UGA this season).

So if you have the Rose (B1G vs P12) and Sugar (ACC vs SEC), there will be a clear #1 and #2 99% of the time.

2021- Bama vs Michigan/UGA (so a different champ if Michigan wins the Rose over Utah)
2020- Bama vs Ohio State (same)
2019- LSU vs Ohio State (instead of Clemson)
2018- Clemson vs Notre Dame (instead of Bama)
2017- UGA/Clemson vs Bama (potentially the same)
2016- Clemson vs Ohio State/Washington (instead of Bama)
2015- Bama vs Michigan State/Stanford/Oklahoma (instead of Clemson)
2014- Ohio State vs Bama/FSU (instead of Oregon)

So in the playoffs only this season would potentially have a different champ. It would be almost impossible to contest who the champ is. If you are P4 and didn't win your conference it is hard to complain. The G6 teams can complain but who cares.

I'll be getting to those years.

 

[SWC75]

1957

1957 College Football National Championship

1957 NCAA University Division football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1957 AP Poll

The 1957 national championship race had a lot of moving parts. On the surface, it seems obvious that Auburn should be considered the national champion: they were a power conference team that won all their games in a year when no other power conference team did. In most years, that resolves the issue. But if you look at the final AP poll, you’ll see that no less than 8 teams got first place votes. Auburn did get 210 of the 359 votes but that’s only 58.5%. Vautravers article on the national championship outlines all the lobbying that went into the final vote, which caused AP to change its rules, allocating votes in equal portions to each section of the country. In 1957, there were more voters in the south than in any other section. And remember, these were the guys who voted Jim Brown 5th in the 1956 Heisman race.

On top of that there’s the issue that comes up all the time in this era: Auburn was a segregated team that played only segregated teams. Ohio State and Michigan State were integrated teams that played integrated teams.

Then there was the fact that Auburn was on probation. That kept them out of a bowl game but, interestingly, that didn’t keep them out of the UPI, (coach’s poll). Later on the coaches agreed to simply ignore teams on probation but they had no such rule in 1957. It’s just that coaches were reluctant to declare a team on probation their national champion. They may have regarded Auburn as the best team.

Then there’s Auburn’s ‘performance’. They had a roller coaster season in terms of their scores. The Tigers beat Chattanooga 40-7, Houston, (then a mid-major as they have been in recent years, not an SWC team yet) 48-7, Florida State 29-7, and Alabama 40-0. Those last two scores sound impressive but Florida State was emerging as a football program at this time: they’d been a girls school until 1947, then a small college and were closer to a mid-major at this time. Bama was coached by J. B. ‘Ears’ Whitworth, surely the worst coach of all time: in three years at Alabama, he went 4-24-2, which caused the administration to beg Bear Bryant to come and save them. Against their other six opponents the War Eagles scored just 50 points. But they gave up only a single touchdown. Three of those teams were ranked. As Vautravers points out, you’ve got to consider the style of play of a team and Auburn’s strength was one of the great defenses of all time, one that gave up only 28 points in ten games. Their offense was conservative even by the standards of the 1950’s, taking care of the ball, grinding out drives on the ground and punting to get out of trouble. They were looking to win, not for style points. Because of the over-matched opponents, they managed to out-score their foes 207-28 overall but they were one of the least exciting national champions ever. Still it worked for them: they had a 24 game undefeated string from 1956-1958 before Tennessee beat them in the 1959 opener, (by 0-3, naturally).

Ohio State and Michigan State were almost twins, both going 8-1 with upsets by 4 and 7 points to team that went 5-4, (actually TCU was 5-4-1. The Buckeyes out-scored their opponents by 257-85 and the Spartans by 264-75. Both had flashy wins: Ohio State 17-13 over Iowa in the biggest and most dramatic game of the year and 31-14 over Michigan and Michigan State 35-6 over Michigan and 34-6 over Notre Dame a week before the Irish ended Oklahoma’s 47 game winning streak. Michigan State also has an ax to grind with the refs, who erroneously used a dead-ball foul to negate as touchdown in their 13-20 loss to Purdue: they might have been 8-0-1.

The differences between the two teams were that the Spartans loss was in conference and the Buckeyes was not so Ohio State got the Rose Bowl invite to face a 7-2 Oregon team that wasn’t even in AP’s top 20, (UPI had them at #17), and barely beat them 10-7, in a game where the Ducks out played them in the other statistics:
(Note broadcast legends doing the game: The Lakers' Chick Hearn and the Yankees’ Mel Allen!)
One wonders if the coaches might have dropped the Buckeyes below Auburn in a post bowl poll.

Vautravers dismisses Oklahoma, who went 9-1, losing to Notre Dame 0-7 to lose their streak. But then they won 13 of their next 14 games, losing only by a point to Texas in 1958. They beat Duke 48-21 in the 1958 Orange Bowl, out-scoring their opponents on the year 333-89. They were still Oklahoma.

Were I an AP voter voting on whether should be any additional games for 1958, I’d be torn between simply acknowledging the only contender with a perfect record or seeing what they could do against the Big Ten powers. And if I included them in, I’d also include Oklahoma. I think I’ll go ‘big tent’: Oklahoma plays Auburn while Ohio State and Michigan State slug it out to see who is really the best team in the Big Ten. Then the winners meet for the 1957 national championship.

But of course, if Auburn is excluded entirely, then you’ve got just the one-loss teams. I’m against probation. I prefer a surgical approach with player ineligibility, coach suspensions or banishments and fines. So, in this fantasy, I’ll pretend that that was done instead. Afterall, both the writers and the coaches were allowed to vote for Auburn.

 

[SWC75]

There have been a lot of complaints about the one-sided nature of the college football playoff games and how the sport has come to be dominated by a very small number of schools, mostly in the SEC and how in some seasons it seems obvious that one or two teams are really at the top with nobody really belonging on the same field with them.

Before the BCS, the complaint was that there was often at least one team that deserved a shot at the #1 team and didn’t get it, or a split championship. In 29 seasons from 1936, when the AP started, through 1997, the year before the BCS, the top two teams had the same record, (by losses and ties: they may have played an unequal number of games). The coach’s poll began in 1950 and produced 8 split championships through 1997. Polls after bowls came in 1947, 1965 and then regularly, in 1968 for the writer’s poll and 1974 for the coach’s poll. There were 9 years when a team retained a national title or a share of it based on being #1 in the last regular season poll, despite a loss in a bowl game.

In some years, there might be more than two teams with a legitimate claim to a national title. In 1954, Ohio State, (#1 in the writer’s poll), UCLA, (#1 in the coach’s poll) and Oklahoma (#3 in each but 19 games into their 47 game winning streak) all had perfect records. In 1973 six power conference teams were undefeated after the regular season. Oklahoma was on probation, so that eliminated one of them. Alabama, Notre Dame and Penn State all had perfect records. Ohio State and Michigan beat everyone except each other, tying 10-10 in that pre-overtime era. Notre Dame beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Penn State beat LSU in the Orange Bowl. Ohio State was chosen to play USC in the Rose Bowl and beat them. That still left four unbeaten power conference teams. In 1977 Notre Dame, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas and Penn State all finished 11-1. The next year USC, Oklahoma, Alabama and Penn State were all 11-1.

Even after the BCS there were problems. In 2004, Auburn ran the table and won the SEC, the acknowledged most powerful conference, and watched USC blow out Oklahoma for the national title. The previous year, USC, LSU and Oklahoma all had one loss. USC was #1 in both polls but the Tigers and Sooners were #1-2 in the BCS rankings and they played for the title.

All of this created a lot of discontent and produced first the BCS, then the playoff. Now there’s talk of expanding the playoff, which makes sense if you want everyone in the division to have at least a theoretical shot at the title but which makes little sense to those who see just 1 or 2 or maybe 3 teams at the top that nobody else can compete with. For a while, in the years before the BCS, an idea was floated about having an extra game if there was a public demand for it. Maybe this could be adapted to have a flexible playoff, with just the games we need to satisfy everyone that the recognized national champion is universally recognized. “Just the games you need”. LiMu the Emu would like that.
Why Liberty Mutual chose funny mascots in new campaign

I decided to go back to 1936, when the writer’s, (Associated Press) bowl began and the Orange, Sugar and Cotton Bowls were first rising to challenge the Rose Bowl and look at each season to see what years we really needed any games after the bowls to satisfy any arguments about #1. My scenario is that the AP writers are polled after the bowls, not only for a top 25 but also what teams, if any, they’d like to see in a post bowl game or games to resolve any controversy. If no team other than the #1 ranked team is selected by at least 50% of them, it means that they feel that the national champion has been effectively established and there is no reason they should have to put their achievement on the line in a game the public wasn’t demanding to see. If two teams are selected by at least 50% of them, there will be one post bowl game, with the bowl committees bidding to see who will hold it. If three teams meet the 50%, the two teams that aren’t ranked #1 will play in one game and the winner will meet the #1 team in a second game. If four teams make it to 50%, we’ll have a four- team playoff, seeded by the rankings. If it’s more than that, there could be other preliminary games. But we won’t have any games nobody wants to see.

I’m going to imagine myself as one such writer who is not a curmudgeon who doesn’t want any such game but is willing to do his due diligence to see what games need to be played and what games the public would like to see. I’m going to consider records plus strength of schedule but I’m not going to parse the latter to the Nth degree to exclude anybody: if a team proved themselves against top-level competition and have a record as good as anybody’s, they should have a shot. My source of information will be Richard Vautravers excellent site:
Tip Top 25
where he describes each season and all the top teams in detail. I’ll also look Wikipedia’s summary of the weekly rankings through the course of the season:

I’m going to cover a year a day in the same thread, with links to Vautravers’ pages on each year, (he chooses a national champion(s) and also estimates what the AP top 25 would look like after the bowls. I invite you to read the article and see if you agree with my selections, or non-selections. I’m not going to try to estimate who would have won proposed games at this time. I just want to see what LiMu’s system, as I’ll call it, might look like.

Here is an attempt to see what this system might have actually looked like if it were used. I’m using comparative scores to suggest results. My system is to look at head to head games first, then common opponents, then the top remaining opponents of each team. I want a minimum of 5 comparisons. Using the top remaining opponents, I’ll draw lines from each of one teams opponents to a major college opponent of the other team, trying to avoid repeats so I’m not just re-processing the same information. I’ll try to connect a team from one team’s top opponents to one of the other team’s top opponents. Let’s look at 1936 as an example: Minnesota vs. Santa Clara and Pittsburgh vs. Northwestern

Minnesota and Santa Clara did not play each other and had no common opponents.
Minnesota’s 5 best opponents were: Northwestern (7-1), Nebraska (7-2), Washington (7-2-1), Purdue (5-2-1) and Iowa (3-4-1)
Santa Clara’s 5 best opponents were Louisiana State (9-1-1), Texas Christian (9-2-2), Auburn (7-2-2), Loyola Marymount (6-3) and St. Mary’s (6-3-1)

Minnesota lost to Northwestern 0-6 who beat Iowa 18-7 who beat Temple 25-0 who beat Mississippi 12-7 who lost to Louisiana State 0-13 who lost to Santa Clara 14-21 = +15 for Minnesota
Minnesota beat Nebraska 7-0 who beat Oklahoma 14-0 who lost to Texas 0-6 who lost to Texas Christian 6-27 who lost to Santa Clara 0-9 = +15 for Santa Clara
Minnesota beat Washington 14-7 who beat Idaho 22-0 who lost to St. Mary’s 7-26 who lost to Santa Clara 0-19 = +9 for Santa Clara
Minnesota beat Purdue 33-0 who lost to Fordham 0-15 who beat St. Mary’s 7-6 who beat Loyola Marymount 19-7 who lost to Santa Clara 6-13 = +24 for Minnesota
Minnesota beat Iowa 52-0 who lost to Indiana 7-13 who beat Syracuse 9-7 who lost to Maryland 0-20 who lost to Florida 6-7 who lost to Auburn 0-13 who lost to Santa Clara 0-12 = +2 for Minnesota
Result: Minnesota +19 / 5 lines = +4

Pittsburgh and Northwestern didn’t play each other but had a common opponent: Notre Dame. Pittsburgh beat them 26-0 but Northwestern lost to them 6-26. That’s +46 for Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh’s best four other opponents were: Fordham (5-1-2), Duquesne (8-2), Nebraska (7-2) and Washington (7-2-1)
Northwestern’s other top four opponents were: Minnesota (7-1), Ohio State (5-3), Illinois (4-3-1) and Iowa (3-4-1)

Pittsburgh tied Fordham 0-0 who beat Purdue 15-0 who beat Chicago 35-7 who lost to Ohio State 0-44 who lost to Northwestern 13-14 = Northwestern +2
Pittsburgh lost to Duquesne 0-7 who beat Marquette 13-0 who beat Wisconsin 12-6 who lost to Chicago 6-7 who lost to Illinois 7-18 who lost to Northwestern 2-13 = Northwestern +11
Pittsburgh beat Nebraska 19-6 who lost to Minnesota 0-7 who lost to Northwestern 0-6 = Even
Pittsburgh beat Washington 21-0 who lost to Minnesota 7-14 who beat Iowa 52-0 who lost to Northwestern 7-18 = Pittsburgh +48
Result Pittsburgh +81 /5 lines = +16.

Minnesota did not play Pittsburgh but they both played Nebraska. Minnesota beat them 7-0 and Pittsburgh beat them 19-6 = +6 for Pittsburgh. They also both played Washington. Minnesota beat them 14-7 and Pittsburgh beat them 21-0 = +14 for Pittsburgh.
Minnesota’s best three other opponents were: Northwestern (7-1), Purdue (5-2-1) and Iowa (3-4-1)
Pittsburgh’s best three other opponents were: Fordham (5-1-2), Duquesne (8-2), Notre Dame (6-2-1)

Minnesota lost to Northwestern 0-6 who lost to Notre Dame 6-26 who lost to Pittsburgh 0-26 = +52 for Pittsburgh
Minnesota beat Purdue 33-0 who lost to Fordham 0-15 who tied Pittsburgh 0-0 = +18 for Minnesota
Minnesota beat Iowa 52-0 who beat Temple 25-0 who lost to Carnegie Tech 0-7 who lost to Duquesne 0-13 who beat Pittsburgh 7-0 = +64 for Minnesota
Result: Minnesota +10 /5 lines: +2

So Minnesota beat Santa Clara by 4, Pittsburgh beat Northwestern by 16 and then Minnesota beat Pittsburgh by 2 to win the national championship.

Historical Scores - Alphabetically by Team

 

[SWC75]

1937

1937 College Football National Championship

www.tiptop25.com

1937 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1937 AP Poll

This was Pittsburgh’s last year as an elite program until their brief re-emergence forty years later under Johnny Majors and Jackie Sherrill. The sad story of their demise is told in championship article. But they were arguably still the best team in 1937 with a 9-0-1 record, tied by Fordham, 0-0 for the third straight year. The Rams, at the end of their “Seven Blocks of Granite” era, were 7-0-1 but not as impressive as Pitt in their other games. California might have voted #1 at 9-0-1 as they had the most All-Americans and been consistently dominant, except for an upset tie to unranked Washington State. They had the most impressive win, 13-0 over undefeated Alabama in the Rose Bowl to go 10-0-1. The one team with a perfect record was Santa Clara, who again beat LSU in the Sugar Bowl. But other than that, they had the weakest schedule and the lowest ranking, (#10 in the final AP poll: Vautravers puts then at #5 in his imagined post-bowl poll). Villanova, Dartmouth and Holy Cross were also undefeated but with ties and weaker schedules. St. Mary’s had played three of the top four teams, losing to Fordham 0-6, Santa Clara 0-7 and Cal 7-30.

It seems to me the obvious thing is to have Pittsburgh and Fordham play to finally resolve their ties in a game that would have to go overtime if neither team could score again, while California takes on Santa Clara for the ‘western’ championship. Then the winners meet to decide the national championship. What do you think?

Pittsburg tied Fordham 0-0
Pittsburgh beat West Virginia 20-0 who tied Georgetown 6-6 who beat NYU 6-0 who lost to Fordham 7-20 = +13 for Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh beat Nebraska 13-7 who beat Indiana 7-0 who lost to Purdue 7-13 who lost to Fordham 3-21 = +10 for Santa Clara
Pittsburgh beat Duke 10-0 who lost to North Carolina 6-14 who lost to Fordham 0-14 = +12 for Fordham
Pittsburgh beat Notre Dame 21-6 who beat Southern California 13-6 who lost to California 6-20 who beat St. Mary’s 30-7 who lost to Fordham 0-6 = +25 for Pittsburgh.
Result: +16/5 for Pittsburgh who wins by 3.

California beat St. Mary’s 30-7 who lost to Santa Clara 0-7 = +16 California
California beat Stanford 13-0 who lost to Santa Clara 7-13 = +7 California
California beat Alabama 13-0 who beat Tulane 9-6 who lost to Louisiana State 7-20 who lost to Santa Clara 0-6 = +3 for Santa Clara
California tied Washington 0-0 who beat Oregon 14-0 who beat Gonzaga 40-6 who lost to San Francisco 0-7 who lost to Santa Clara 0-13 = +28 California
California beat Southern California 20-6 who beat Pacific 40-0 who tied St. Mary’s 0-0 who beat Loyola (Marymount) 13-7 who lost to Santa Clara 0-7 = +53 California
Result: +101/5 for California who wins by 20.

Pittsburgh tied Fordham 0-0 who beat St. Mary’s 6-0 who lost to California 7-30 = +17 California
Pittsburgh beat West Virginia 20-0 who tied Georgetown 6-6 who tied Pennsylvania 0-0 who lost to Columbia 6-26 who tied Stanford 0-0 who lost to California 0-13 = +13 for California
Pittsburgh beat Nebraska 13-7 who beat Iowa 28-0 who lost to Washington 0-14 who tied California 0-0 = +20 for Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh beat Duke 10-0 who tied Tennessee 0-0 who lost to Alabama 7-14 who lost to California 0-13 = +10 for California
Pittsburgh beat Notre Dame 21-6 who lost to Southern California 6-13 who lost to California 6-20 = +6 California
Result: +26/5 for California who wins by 5

So Pittsburgh defeats Fordham by 3 while California beats Santa Clara by 20. California then beats Pittsburgh by 5 for the national championship.

 

[SouthernCuse]

1938

1938 College Football National Championship

1938 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1938 AP Poll

This one is simple: Texas Christian plays Tennessee in a single game for all the marbles. They have perfect records and are ranked #1-2. Everybody else got beat. I like Vautraver’s discussion of how the AP voters made the emotional decision to pick the wrong team because they had the best player. I’ve heard it argued that we should honor the viewpoint of the “the people who were around at that time and actually saw them play”. But how did they watch them play? On the radio?

They have a sign in the TCU stadium, 1938 National Champions, now I now what that is all about, thanks.

 

[SWC75]

They have a sign in the TCU stadium, 1938 National Champions, now I now what that is all about, thanks.

Stay tuned. I'm now having some fun with comparative scores.

 

[SWC75]

1958

1958 College Football National Championship

1958 NCAA University Division football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1958 AP Poll

On the surface, this year is simple: Louisiana State went 11-0-0 and everyone behind them o had a loss or a tie, (one contender had both and another had 2 ties). As Vautravers points out, those records are deceiving. He promoted the case for 9-1-1 Iowa because they played the toughest schedule of any of the contenders. He dismissed the cases for 9-0-1 Army and Auburn, 9-0-2 Air Force and 10-1-0 Oklahoma because of weaker schedules. Not so fast, my friend.

Firstly, I’ve never seen so many ties among top teams. Suppose we pretended that ties don’t exist. Now LSU is 10-0, Iowa 9-1, Army, Auburn and Air Force 9-0 and Oklahoma 10-1. That tightens things up a bit. Point differentials? LSU 282-53, Iowa 272-146, Army 264-49, Auburn 173-62, Air Force 247-102, Oklahoma 300-55. Army was Red Blaik’s last team. He didn’t build that team with a war-time draft of other school’s players and there was no cribbing scandal. He’d brought them back to the top the right way and retired undefeated. He also had the Heisman trophy winner. Pete Dawkins. Auburn was the defending champs and in the midst of a 24 game unbeaten string. Oklahoma was the dominant college football program of the 1950’s. Aur Force was the new kids on the block.

Let’s look at how those teams were ranked as the season progressed. The polls opened with Ohio State ranked #1, Oklahoma #2, defending national champion Auburn at #5, Army at #9 and Iowa #13. Neither LSU nor Air Force were even thought of. Paul Dietzel had been at LSU for three years and was 11-17-2. Air Force was in the third year of its football program and they’d gone 13-12-2, playing junior varsity teams in 1955, small colleges in 1956 and mid-majors in 1957. The one “power conference” type-team they played in 1957, was UCLA, who beat them 47-0. But they, like LSU, got good in a hurry.

In the second poll, Auburn rose to #3 after a 13-0 win over Tennessee while LSU appeared at #15, (#13 in the coach’s poll) after beating Bear Bryant’s first Alabama team, 13-3. They were #2 in week 3 while Army rose to #4 with a 26-0 win over Penn State. That’s the week Iowa was stunned to be tied by Air Force at home, 13-13. That put the Falcons on the map. Oklahoma was #1. Auburn moved to #1 after the Sooners lost to Texas by a single point, 14-15. Army became #2 after beating Notre Dame 14-2. The became the #1 team when Auburn tied Georgia Tech 7-7. The Cadets kept the top spot until Pittsburgh tied them 14-14 in Week 6. LSU made it to #3 that week, while Iowa cracked the Top 10 with their win over red-hot Wisconsin. In week #7, LSU grabbed the #1 sport with Iowa #2 after they beat red-hot Northwestern, then Army, then Auburn. With Oklahoma #7. Air Force cracked the top ten in week #8. They all kept winning and in the final AP poll, it was LSU, Iowa, Army, Auburn, Oklahoma and Air Force, at 1-6. LSU and Iowa beat lesser opponents in their bowl games, (the Tigers barely, the Hawkeyes impressively). Oklahoma beat Syracuse, who would become the following year’s national champion), 21-6 in the Orange Bowl. Air Force further confirmed their status by tying SWC champ TCU in the Cotton Bowl. Auburn was still on probation, (but ranked in both polls) and Army didn’t do bowl games in those years.

How could we put them all in a playoff? How about putting all six teams int eh first round, then having the two lowest ranked winners play in the second round and the winner of that game against the highest-rated frost round winner? Let’s Have LSU play Auburn, Army play Asir Force, (which they didn’t do until 1959, when, of course, they tied them 13-13) and Iowa play Oklahoma?

Louisiana State beat Alabama 13-3 who lost to Auburn 8-14 = +4 LSU
Louisiana State beat Kentucky 32-7 who lost to Auburn 0-8 = +17 LSU
Louisiana State beat Florida 10-7 who lost to Auburn 5-6 = +2 LSU
Louisiana State beat Mississippi State 7-6 who lost to Auburn 14-33 = +18 Auburn
Louisiana State beat Mississippi 14-0 who beat Kentucky 27-6 who beat Georgia Tech 13-0 who tied Auburn 7-7 = +48 LSU
Result: +53/5 LSU who wins by 11 points

Army beat South Carolina 45-8 who beat Georgia 24-14 who lost to Texas 8-13 who beat Texas tech 12-7 who beat Arizona 33-6 who lost to New Mexico 13-33 who lost to Air Force 7-45 = +13 Army
Army beat Navy 22-6 who lost to Tulane 6-14 who lost to Texas 20-21 who lost to Texas Christian 8-22 who tied Air Force 0-0 = +7 Air Force
Army beat Penn State 26-0 who lost to Nebraska 7-14 who lost to Kansas State 6-23 who beat Wyoming 17-14 who lost to Air Force 6-21 = +10 Air Force
Army beat Notre Dame 14-2 who lost to Iowa 21-31 who tied Air Force 13-13 = +2 Army
Army beat Villanova 26-0 who lost to Wichita State 6-21 who lost to Oklahoma State 12-43 who lost to Air Force 29-33 = -24 Air Force
Result: +26/5 = Air Force wins by 5

Iowa tied Air Force 13-13 who beat Oklahoma State 33-29 who lost to Oklahoma 0-7 = +3 Oklahoma
Iowa beat Wisconsin 20-9 who beat U of Miami 20-0 who lost to Boston College 2-6 who lost to Syracuse 14-24 who lost to Oklahoma 6-21 = +2 Iowa
Iowa lost to Ohio State 28-38 who beat Southern Methodist 23-20 who beat Missouri 32-19 who lost to Oklahoma 0-39 = +33 Oklahoma
Iowa beat Texas Christian 17-0 who beat Texas 22-8 who beat Oklahoma 15-14 = +32 Iowa
Iowa beat California 38-12 who beat Utah 36-21 who lost to Colorado 0-7 who lost to Oklahoma 7-23 = +18 Iowa
Result: +16/5 = Iowa wins by 3.

Iowa tied Air Force 13-13 = even
Iowa beat Texas Christian 17-0 who tied Air Force 0-0 = +17 for Iowa
Iowa beat Wisconsin 20-9 who beat Marquette 50-0 who lost to Arizona State 18-42 who beat New Mexico State 23-19 who lost to New Mexico 7-16 who lost to Air Force 7-45 = +6 for Air Force
Iowa lost to Ohio State 28-38 who beat Southern Methodist 23-20 who beat Missouri 32-19 who lost to Oklahoma 0-39 who beat Oklahoma State 7-0 = +26 Air Force
Iowa beat California 38-12 who beat Utah 36-21 who lost to Wyoming 20-25 who lost to Air Force 6-21 = +21 Iowa
Result: +6/5 = Iowa wins by 1

Louisiana State beat Alabama 13-3 who beat Georgia 12-0 who beat Florida State 28-13, who lost to Oklahoma State 6-15 who lost to Air Force 29-33 who tied Iowa 13-13 = +24 LSU
Louisiana State beat Kentucky 32-7 who tied Vanderbilt 0-0 who beat Virginia 39-6 who lost to Virginia Tech 13-22 who lost to West Virginia 20-21 who lost to Indiana 12-13 who lost to Ohio State 8-49 who beat Iowa 38-28 = +16 LSU
Louisiana State beat Florida 10-7 who beat UCLA 21-14 who lost to California 17-20 who lost to Iowa 12-38 = +19 Iowa
Louisiana State beat Mississippi State 7-6 who beat Florida 14-7 who beat U of Miami 12-9 who lost to Wisconsin 0-20 who lost to Iowa 9-20 = +20 Iowa
Louisiana State beat Mississippi 14-0 who beat Arkansas 14-12 who lost to Texas Christian 7-12 who lost to Iowa 0-17 = +6 Iowa
Result: +5/5 = Iowa wins by 1

 

[SWC75]

1938

1938 College Football National Championship

1938 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1938 AP Poll

This one is simple: Texas Christian plays Tennessee in a single game for all the marbles. They have perfect records and are ranked #1-2. Everybody else got beat. I like Vautraver’s discussion of how the AP voters made the emotional decision to pick the wrong team because they had the best player. I’ve heard it argued that we should honor the viewpoint of the “the people who were around at that time and actually saw them play”. But how did they watch them play? On the radio?

Texas Christian beat Carnegie Tech 15-7 who lost to Notre Dame 0-7 who beat Georgia Tech 14-6 who tied Alabama 14-14 who lost to Tennessee 0-13 = +4 Tennessee

Texas Christian beat Baylor 39-6 who beat Oklahoma State 20-6 who lost to Oklahoma 0-19 who lost to Tennessee 0-17 = +11 Texas Christian

Texas Christian beat Centenary 13-0 who lost to Mississippi 14-47 who lost to Tennessee 0-47 = +67 Tennessee

Texas Christian beat Southern Methodist 20-7 who lost to Riced 14-25 who lost to Tulane 17-26 who lost to Clemson 10-13 who lost to Tennessee 7-20 = +23 Tennessee

Texas Christian beat Texas A&M 34-6 who lost to Texas 6-7 who lost to Louisiana State 0-20 who beat Vanderbilt 7-0 who lost to Tennessee 0-14 = Even

Result: +83/5 = Tennessee wins by 17

 

[SWC75]

1959

1959 College Football National Championship

1959 NCAA University Division football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1959 AP Poll

Vautravers’ article on the 1959 national championship is pleasant reading for Syracuse fans: it’s all about SU’s greatest team, which the author feels is the undisputed national champion for the year. He’s suitably impressed by the stats: the only major undefeated, untied team at 11-0-0, having outs-cored their opponents 413-73, outgained them 451-96 and out-rushed them 313-19. Our four games against ranked opponents all came on the road and we won all four by a combined 114-40. Our team is thus the only one described and every SU fan should make this page a favorite and read it whenever they feel down.

But the waves still had to part for even so mighty a team to reach that #1 spot, (and remember that the national championship at that time was based on a poll conducted before the bowl games). The Big Ten, still considered the top football conference, was down. They sent a two-loss Wisconsin team to the Rose Bowl, where they got slaughtered. Mighty Oklahoma opened the season losing 13-45 to Northwestern and stumbled to a 3-loss season but still won the Big Seven, (which would become the Big 8 the next year when Oklahoma State joined). The ACC was won by a 2-loss Clemson team. SU’s rivals turned out to be:
- Penn State from their own section of the country but we subdued them 20-18, (and then they were upset by Pitt).
- the Pacific Coast league, (reorganized as the Athletic Association of Western Universities or, the AAWU), where Southern California started 8-0 before being knocked off by UCLA and then Notre Dame. They had beaten Washington 22-15 but that was the only loss for the 10-1-0 Huskies who were the team that crushed Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, 44-8.
- Texas, who won their first 8 games and was ranked #2 when Syracuse agreed to play them in the Cotton Bowl. They were upset 9-14 by TCU the next week.
- The other source of competitor was the SEC, where three teams went 9-1-0: defending national champion Louisiana State, Mississippi and Georgia.

If you total the records in major college football for the 50’s and 60’s combined, it’s Mississippi which had the best overall record:

I-A Winning Percentage 1950-1969

Under Johnny Vaught they went 8-0-2 but then lost in the Sugar Bowl to Georgia Tech in 1952, 9-1 in 1954 but lost to Navy in the Sugar Bowl, 9-1 again in 1955 and beat TCU in the Cotton Bowl, 8-1-1 in 1957 and crushed Darryl Royal’s first Texas team 39-7 in the Sugar Bowl, 9-1 and beat LSU in the Sugar Bowl in 1959, 9-0-1 and beat Rice in the Sugar Bowl in 1960, 9-1 and lost to Texas in the Cotton Bowl in 1961, 9-0-0 and beat Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl in 1962 and 7-0-2 and lost to Alabama in the Sugar Bowl in 1963. And all that was before they’d ever heard of Archie Manning. They were never voted #1, even in ’82 when Southern California also ran the table and were #1. Their best of these powerful teams was the 1959 team, which out-scored their opponents 350-21. Their one defeat had come on this famous play:


That run won Cannon the Heisman Trophy and probably won Syracuse the national championship, since we were an ‘eastern’ team and the rest of the country was hard to convince of the quality of a team from eastern football. An 11-0-0 Mississippi team probably would have been selected over us. So would an 11-0-0 LSU team that had just won the national championship. The dream of winning 2 in a row ended the next week when Tennessee beat the Tigers 14-13 on a failed try for two by Cannon stopped at the goal line. (at 26:30)

1959 # 13 Tennessee vs # 1 LSU

Neither Mississippi or LSU won the SEC that year. Instead Georgia, led by Fran Tarkington, did because their only loss was to South Carolina, then a ACC team. While the Rebels and Tigers both went 5-1 in the SEC, the Bulldogs went 7-0. Then they beat a mediocre Missouri team, there based on the infamous “no repeat” rule in the Orange Bowl.

LSU led the rankings for the first 8 weeks until the Vols beat them. SU then took over for the rest of the way. We’d started out at #20, fell out of the second poll, re-appeared at #20 in the third and eventually cracked the Top Ten in the fifth week and made it to #1 after the Penn State game. Mississippi started at #8 and worked their way up to #3 before Cannon’s punt return, then fell back to #5 and worked their way back up to #2 by week 10. Georgia and Washington started out unranked. The Bulldogs quickly got ranked by beating Alabama 17-3 but got unranked again by Losing to the Gamecocks 14-30. It took them three weeks to get back in the AP poll at #14. They were #5 in both for the last two polls. The Huskies didn’t make it until week 5 at #18/#17. Then they lost to USC and were #20, coach’s only. They cracked the Top 10 in the coach’s in week #10 and finished at #8/#7.

In the bowls, Syracuse smashed Texas 23-14 in the Cotton. Mississippi crushed LSU 21-0, gaining revenge for the regular season loss in much the same way as Alabama did 52 years later, out-gaining the Tigers 363-74, holding Cannon & company to -15 yards rushing. Georgia blanked Missouri in the orange Bowl 14-0 and Washington ran Wisconsin out of Pasadena to end the Big Ten domination there, 44-8. Vautravers’ ‘fixed’ post-bowl poll has Syracuse #1, Mississippi #2, then LSU and Texas, which he left there because they lost to #1 and #2, then Georgia and Washington. But both LSU and Texas were decisively beaten.

Rocky Marciano famously retired with a record of 49 wins and no losses. That’s an unbeatable record. But what about Gene Tunney, who 84 fights and lost one- to Harry Greb, who he came back to beat Greb – four times. Doesn’t a decisive victory over the only opponent to beat erase that defeat? And might the nation demand that such a team begiven a shot at the title as if they hadn’t lost at all, especially if the sole undefeated team was an ‘eastern’ team? And if one 10-1 team gets a shot at the tile, shouldn’t the other two 10-1 teams also get a shot at it? If they did the nation could hardly complain.

Syracuse vs. Washington:
Syracuse beat UCLA 36-8 who lost to Washington 7-23 = +12 for Syracuse
Syracuse beat Texas 23-14 who beat California 33-0 who beat Washington State 20-6 who lost to Washington 0-20 = +36 for Syracuse
Syracuse beat Penn State 20-18 beat who beat 19-8 who beat Air Force 13-0 who lost to Oregon 3-20 who lost to Washington 12-13 = +8 for Syracuse
Syracuse beat Holy Cross 42-6 who lost 12-30 to Marquette who lost 6-44 to Wisconsin who lost 8-44 to Washington = +56 for Washington
Syracuse beat Pittsburgh 35-0 who lost to Southern California 0-23 who beat Washington 22-15 = +19 for Syracuse.
Result: +19/5 for Syracuse who wins by 4. Whew….

Mississippi vs. Georgia
Mississippi beat Kentucky 16-0 who lost to Georgia 7-14 = +9 for Mississippi
Mississippi beat Vanderbilt 33-0 who lost to Georgia 6-21 = +18 for Mississippi
Mississippi beat Mississippi State 42-0 who lost to Georgia 0-15 = +27 for Mississippi
Mississippi beat Arkansas 28-0 who beat Georgia tech 14-7 who beat Auburn 7-6 who lost to Georgia 13-14 = +35 for Mississippi
Mississippi beat Louisiana State by a combined 24-7 who lost to Tennessee 13-14 who tied Alabama 7-7 who lost to Georgia 3-17 = +2 for Mississippi
Result: +91/5 for Mississippi, who wins by 18.

Syracuse vs. Mississippi
Syracuse beat Texas 23-14 who beat Arkansas 13-12 who lost to Mississippi 0-28: +18 for Mississippi
Syracuse beat Penn State 20-18 who beat Alabama 7-0 who tied Tennessee 7-7 who lost to Mississippi 7-37 = +21 for Mississippi
Syracuse beat Holy Cross 42-6 who lost to Boston College 0-14 who lost to Navy 8-24 who lost to U of Miami 8-23 who lost to LSU 3-27 who lost to Mississippi by a combined 7-24 = +50 for Mississippi
Syracuse beat Pittsburgh 35-0 who beat Duke 12-0 who beat Georgia Tech 10-7 who beat Kentucky 14-12 who lost to Mississippi 0-16 = +36 for Syracuse Yeah!
Syracuse beat UCLA 36-8 who beat North Carolina State 21-12 who lost to South Carolina 7-12 who beat Georgia 30-14 who beat Vanderbilt 21-6 who lost to Mississippi 0-33 = +30 for Syracuse
Result: +23/5 for Mississippi who wins by 6

Kiss Me Deadly, original ending

On second thought, maybe Vautravers was right. If Syracuse is 11-0-0 and the other teams are just 10-1-0, why should there be a playoff?

 

[SWC75]

1940

1940 College Football National Championship

1940 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1940 AP Poll

It seems logical to have a three-team playoff between 8-0 Minnesota, 10-0 Stanford and 11-0 Boston College. But Michigan might have actually been the best team and they had the best player, Heisman trophy-winning Tom Harmon, and their one loss was to #1 Minnesota at Minnesota in a game where they out-gained Minnesota but lost by the margin of a missed extra point, (a factor that was prominent in many of the games these top teams played). The Big Ten at the time was the premiere conference in college football, much as the SEC is now. Harmon was college football’s most famous player since Red Grange, most of whose records he had broken. He even starred in a movie about his life, (sort of):

View attachment 212456

I think there might have been a clamor for a Minnesota-Michigan rematch and it would have been set up for a final by pitting them against Stanford and Boston College, although getting both of them to the final for a rematch would not have been easy. Michigan-Boston College and Minnesota-Stanford would have made the most geographical sense, but geography would have been irrelevant if the additional games were put on by the bowl committees. A Boston College-Stanford game would have been fun, featuring the nation’s best passers in Charlie O’Rourke and Frankie Albert. But I suspect the match-ups would have gone by Vautravers’ ‘fixed’ rankings: #1 Minnesota vs. #4 Boston College and #2 Stanford vs. #3 Michigan.

This was one of the most interesting college football seasons and would have produced one of the most interesting playoffs.

I decided to go geographical and have Boston College play Michigan while Minnesota plays Stanford.

Boston College beat Tennessee 19-13 who beat Florida 14-0 who lost to Texas 0-26 who beat 19-16 who lost to Nebraska 0-13 who lost to Minnesota 7-13 who beat Michigan 7-6 = +21 for Michigan
Boston College beat Georgetown 19-18 who beat Syracuse 28-6 who lost to Cornell 6-33 who lost to Pennsylvania 20-22 who lost to Michigan 0-14 = +20 for Michigan
Boston College beat Auburn 33-7 who beat Georgia Tech 16-7 who lost to Notre Dame 20-26 who beat Army 7-0 who tied Harvard 6-6 who lost to Michigan 0-26 = +10 for Boston College
Boston College beat Tulane 27-7 who lost to Fordham 7-20 who beat Purdue 13-7 who lost to Wisconsin 13-14 who lost to Northwestern 7-27 who lost to Michigan 13-20 = +15 for Michigan
Boston College beat Temple 33-20 who beat Michigan State 21-19 who beat Purdue 20-7 who lost to Ohio State 14-17 who lost to Michigan 0-40 = +15 for Michigan
Result: 61/5 = Michigan wins by 12

Minnesota beat Washington 19-14 who lost to Stanford 10-20 = +5 for Stanford
Minnesota beat Nebraska 13-7 who lost to Stanford 13-21 = +2 for Stanford
Minnesota beat Michigan 7-6 who beat Michigan State 21-14 who tied Santa Clara 0-0 who lost to Stanford 6-7 = +7 for Minnesota
Minnesota beat Northwestern 13-12 who beat Notre Dame 20-0 who beat Southern California 10-6 who beat Oregon 13-0 who lost to Stanford 0-13 = +25 for Minnesota
Minnesota beat Ohio State 13-7 who beat Pittsburgh 30-7 who beat Fordham 24-12 who lost to St. Mary’s 6-9 who lost to California 6-9 who beat Oregon State 19-13 who lost to Stanford 14-28 = +27 for Minnesota
Result: 52/5 = Minnesota wins by 10

Which sets up the great re-match:
Minnesota beat Michigan 7-6 = +1 Minnesota
Minnesota beat Washington 19-14 who beat Southern California 14-0 who lost to Notre Dame 6-10 who beat Army 7-0 who tied Harvard 6-6 who lost to Michigan 0-26 = +4 for Michigan
Minnesota beat Nebraska 13-7 who beat Pittsburgh 9-7 who lost to Duke 7-12 who beat Colgate 13-0 who lost to Cornell 0-34 who lost to Pennsylvania 20-22 who lost to Michigan 0-14 = +34 for Michigan
Minnesota beat Northwestern 13-12 who lost Michigan 13-20 = +6 for Michigan
Minnesota beat Ohio State 13-7 who lost to Michigan 0-40 = +34 to Michigan
Result: +77/4 = Michigan wins the national championship by 15.

 

[SWC75]

1960

1960 College Football National Championship

1960 NCAA University Division football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1960 AP Poll

If you love chaos, this is the year for you! Five different teams were ranked #1 and the position changed hands 7 times, ending up in the possession of Minnesota, a team that by modern standards, (which include bowl games), is clearly undeserving of it. Syracuse started out #1 and Mississippi #2, just as they were the previous season. They traded the #1 spot back and forth through the first four polls before being displaced, (without losing) by Iowa, who held onto it until defeated by Minnesota who promptly lost to the perennial upset champion, Purdue. That gave the spot to Missouri, who then lost to Kansas. Minnesota was then elevated to #1 again, apparently because they were going to the Rose Bowl. Syracuse had fallen off due to losses to Pittsburgh and Army, (we’ve never gotten back to #1 since in this sport). Mississippi had suffered an upset tie to LSU, an offensively challenged team that lost a series of close games to finish at 5-4-1 but won the rest of their games to finish at 9-0-1 and ranked #2. Missouri had bene upset by arch-rival Kansas, who used a player later determined to be ineligible, causing a forfeit to make the Tigers’ official record 10-0-0. Iowa, playing the nation’s toughest schedule, finished 8-1-0. Washington, for the second straight year, won the AAWU, (now the Pac12) with a 9-1 record, the only loss coming to 9-1 Navy by a single point. Navy had lost to 7-3 Duke, who beat Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl, basically the last time Duke was nationally relevant in this sport.

The final poll had #1 Minnesota 8-1-0 (17 ½ first place votes – ne shared with Iowa), #2 Mississippi 9-0-1 (16), #3 Iowa 8-1-0 (12 ½), #4 Navy 8-1, (they beat Army the next week), #5 Missouri 9-1, #6 Washington 9-1-0 (2). The came the Bowls. For the second straight year Washington knocked off the Big Ten champs, this time the #1 ranked team, 17-7. Mississippi struggled to beat a 7-3 Rice team in the Sugar Bowl but did so 14-6. Missouri topped Navy, 21-14 in the Orange Bowl, in a game that wasn’t really as close as the score indicated. Iowa stayed home as Big Ten teams could only go to the Rose Bowl and Minnesota got that spot.
The Rose Bowl: The Sugar Bowl: 1961 Sugar Bowl - Ole Miss vs. Rice
The Orange Bowl: Missouri Beats Navy 21-14 American Football AKA Orange Bowl (1960)

That left the surviving contenders for the national championship, as rated by Vautravers in this ‘fixed’ AP poll: #1 Iowa 8-1-0 #2 Washington 10-1-0, #3 Minnesota 8-2-0, #4 Missouri 10-1-0 and #5 Mississippi 10-0-1. The Big Ten had a very strong year and both Iowa and Minnesota played and beat more ranked teams than the rest.

But I’d have voted for Iowa and Washington to take on Missouri and Mississippi in a four-team playoff. Geography suggests that Iowa should play Missouri which leaves Mississippi playing Washington.

Iowa beat Kansas 21-7 who beat Missouri 23-7 = +30 Iowa
Iowa lost to Minnesota 10-27 who beat Kansas State 48-7 who lost to Iowa State 7-20 who lost to Missouri 8-34 = +15 for Missouri
Iowa beat Ohio State 35-12 who beat Southern Methodist 24-0 who lost to Navy 7-26 who lost to Missouri 14-21 = +21 for Iowa
Iowa beat Michigan State 27-15 who tied Pittsburgh 7-7 who lost to Penn State 3-14 who lost to Missouri 8-21 = +12 for Missouri
Iowa beat Oregon State 22-12 who beat Southern California 14-0 who beat UCLA 17-6 who beat Air Force 22-0 who beat Colorado 16-6 who lost to Missouri 6-16 = +57 for Iowa
Result: +81/5 = Iowa wins by 16.

Mississippi beat Memphis 31-20 who beat Hardin-Simmons 42-7 who lost to Arizona State 0-28 who beat Washington State 24-21 who lost to Oregon 12-21 who lost to Washington 6-7 = +11 for Mississippi
Mississippi beat Arkansas 10-7 who lost to Duke 6-7 who beat Navy 19-10 who beat Washington 15-14 = +12 for Mississippi
Mississippi beat Tennessee 24-3 who beat Vanderbilt 35-0 who beat Marquette 23-6 who lost to Wisconsin 6-35 who lost to Minnesota 7-26 who lost to Washington 7-17 = +15 for Mississippi
Mississippi beat Rice 14-6 who beat Texas Christian 23-0 who beat Southern California 7-6 who beat UCLA 17-6 who lost to Washington 8-10 = +41 for Mississippi
Mississippi beat Houston 42-6 who lost to Oregon State 29-20 who lost to Washington 29-30 = +44 for Mississippi
Result: +123/5 = Mississippi wins by 25

Mississippi beat Memphis 31-20 who lost to Mississippi State 0-21 who lost to Auburn 12-27 who beat U of Miami 20-7 who beat Notre Dame 28-21 who lost to Michigan State 0-12 who lost to Iowa 15-27 = +29 for Iowa
Mississippi beat Arkansas 10-7 who beat Texas Christian 7-0 who lost to Kansas 7-21 who lost to Iowa 7-21 = +18 for Iowa
Mississippi beat Tennessee 24-3 who beat Alabama 20-7 who tied Texas 3-3 who lost to Nebraska 13-14 who lost to Minnesota 14-26 who beat Iowa 27-10 = +38 for Mississippi
Mississippi beat Rice 14-6 who beat Southern Methodist 47-0 who lost to Ohio State 0-24 who lost to Iowa 12-35 = +8 for Mississippi
Mississippi beat Houston 42-6 who lost to Oregon State 20-29 who lost to Iowa 12-22 = +17 for Mississippi
Result: +16/5 = Mississippi gets their national championship in 1960 by 3 points. (So we can keep ours from 1959)

Vautravers often says that an inferior schedule doesn’t mean that you have an inferior team – and often forgets it. Also, the one thing that comparative scores does well is to factor out segregation. Even though they were an all-white team playing all-white teams those Johnny Vaught Mississippi teams were really good.

 

[kcsu]

Off the chart. Thank you.

 

[SWC75]

1941

1941 College Football National Championship

1941 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1941 AP Poll

Minnesota had the only perfect record among national championship contenders and their reputation in this period was similar to Alabama’s now. They had been the consensus national champion from most observers in 1934-35 and finished atop the AP poll in 1936, 1940 and 1941 and the Big Ten had the sort of reputation the SEC has now.

Texas might have had the most powerful team but they weren’t consistent enough to be a national champion. If there had bene a BCS, the title game would have bene Minnesota vs. Duke but the Blue devils, in their last season as a national title contender, blew it by losing to Oregon State in a Rose Bowl held in Durham because of Pearl Harbor.

I have to wonder if there would have been a clamor for the Golden Gophers to take on Frank Leahy’s first Notre Dame team, who went 8-0-1 with a 0-0 tie with Army their only blemish. They were ranked third in the final poll, which was after the regular season. Army wound up 5-3-1 but they were 4-0 going into the Notre Dame game. The Irish beat Northwestern by the same margin Minnesota did, (7-6 vs. 8-7) and also were the only team to beat 7-1-1 Navy, (20-14). I also think that the playoffs of 1936-38 and 1940 would have whetted the appetite of the public to have at least one game, as compared to the anti-climax of 1939. Besides, this is Notre Dame we’re talking about, not Cornell, (the most logical team to have faced Texas A&M in 1939 had there been a playoff that year).

I think I might have voted for Notre Dame to play Minnesota and I think a lot of other voters might have done the same thing.

1941
Minnesota beat Illinois 34-6 who lost to Notre Dame 14-49 = +7 for Notre Dame
Minnesota beat Northwestern 8-7 who lost to Notre Dame 6-7 = Even
Minnesota beat Michigan 7-0 who beat Michigan State 19-7 who beat West Virginia 14-12 who lost to Navy 0-40 who lost to Notre Dame 13-20 = +26 for Notre Dame
Minnesota beat Washington 14-6 who beat Montana 21-0 who beat Brigham Young 20-7 who tied Utah 6-6 who beat Arizona 12-6 who lost to Notre Dame 7-38 = +23 Minnesota
Minnesota beat Nebraska 9-6 who beat Kansas 32-0 who lost to West Virginia 0-21 who lost to Army 6-7 who tied Notre Dame 0-0 = +13 Minnesota
Result: +3/5 = Minnesota wins the national championship by a point.

 

[SWC75]

1961

1961 College Football National Championship

1961 NCAA University Division football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1961 AP Poll

What interests me most about Vautraver’s article on the national championship is the uniforms. First we see a shot of Alabama playing Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl. The Tide is playing in white helmets, giving them a “Penn State look”, except that the color is crimson, not blue. Yet below we see a shot of quarterback Pat Trammell in a crimson helmet. The Tide sometimes used both in those days.

Then we see a shot, taken from the back of the end zone of Alabama running a play against arch-rival Auburn. Both are wearing colored jerseys, as many shots form the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s show. But this one is from 1961. I’ve never read a confirmation of this but I’ve always assumed that it was normal for both teams to wear jerseys with their school colors during the era when most of the money was coming from paid attendance and the fans could see that, in this case, Alabama was in crimson and Auburn in dark blue. Newsreels were in black and white and couldn’t tell the difference but they were not a source of revenue. When television became the primary source of viewership and was in black and white, the practice was started to have on team, (usually the road team in football but usually the home team in other sports) wear white jerseys so that fans watching on black and white TVs could tell the difference. By the 1960’s color TV sets were available, but they’ve never switched back and I think a lot of interesting color combinations were lost in the process. But ‘Bama and Auburn were still going old-school in 1961.

Then there are the shots of the Ohio State team wearing what was known as the MacGregor Helmet. The hard plastic helmets we are used to were first produced by the Riddell company in the late 30’s, although some schools were still going with leather helmets as late as the mid 1950’s:
Autographed Signed Paul Hornung 8x10 Photo Notre Dame - Certified Authentic
the Riddle helmet with the hard surface and straps to support the head on the inside was supposed to prevent concussions and did so compared to the leather helmets but there were still too many of them. The McGregor company came up with the idea of putting a wide strip of heavy padding on the outside of the helmet. This further reduced concussions but it also tended to increase neck and back injuries. Collisions bounced off of Riddell helmets but, even though lessened by the McGregor helmet, the padding tended to lengthen their duration as the strip provided too much traction and that transferred the force of the blow from the brain to the neck and back. So they were abandoned by the end of the decade. But you can see them in old pictures of the schools that used them, including Ohio State, Duke, Harvard and Cornell.

It seems amazing that this was the first year Alabama finished atop one of the two polls, 25 years after they AP poll started. They were 4th in 1936 and 1937 and 3rd in 1945 but had fallen on hard times in the 1950’s, incredibly going 0-10 in 1955. But Bear Bryant came to the rescue beginning in 1958 and his rebuilding program reached fruition in 1961 when the Tide rolled over 11 opponents buy a combined 297-25. Nobody since has given up that few points. They were in a stretch of 28 straight games where they gave up single digits in points, including 12 shutouts, which included the last 5 games of the 1961 regular season. It ended when they gave up exactly 10 points in an 6-10 loss to Florida in 1963. This site has “the bear Bryant Show” after every one of their games:
(I wish we still had “Coaches Corner”, Coach Mac’s old show., going over each game play by play.)

Here is Ohio State’s 1961 highlight film: Buckeye Classics Episode 203 1961 Season
I feel that Vautravers was a littler too dismissive of Ohio State’s case for at least sharing the national championship with Alabama. Sure they had a tie but it was in their first game to a team that later defeated Texas when they were ranked #1. They then won 8 in a row and they’d have bene favored to beat UCLA had they gone to the Rose Bowl. Woody Hayes’ rolling up the score in Michigan was ugly but t he fact that Ohio State played the more difficult schedule is more important. Alabama played one team that Vautravers ranked during their regular season and that was aa 7-4, 16th tanked Georgia Tech team. They then played #9 Arkansas in the bowl game. State didn’t get to play a bowl game and yet beat four ranked teams. The obvious thing it to match the Tide and the Buckeyes for the title.

But I’m a big-tent guy. Alabama actually tied for the SEC title with Louisiana State, (10-1, 259-57)who dropped their open to Rice but then ripped out 10 wins in a row, including a 25-7 win over Colorado’s 9-1 Big 8 champs in the Orange Bowl. Yes, Alabama won the SEC by playing one more game but they both won all their conference games and that’s a tie in my book. Then there’s Texas, (10-1, 303-66), who was ranked #1 for two weeks before losing, 0-6 to the same TCU team that had tied Ohio State 7-7, (they were the greatest 3-5-2 team in history). Is there a huge difference in those scores? The Longhorns then beat the highest scoring team in the country, Mississippi, (9-2, 333-52), in the Cotton Bowl. How about having “Bama play the Tigers to decide the SEC and then match TCU’s two victims in the other semi-final?

Orange Bowl: not available
Sugar Bowl: 1962 Sugar Bowl, #9 Arkansas vs #1 Alabama (Highlights)
Cotton Bowl: not available

Alabama beat Tulane 9-0 who lost to Louisiana State 0-62 = +53 for Louisiana State
Alabama beat Mississippi State 24-0 who lost to Louisiana State 6-14 = +16 for Alabama
Alabama beat Georgia Tech 10-0 who lost to Louisiana State 0-10 = Even
Alabama beat Arkansas 10-3 who lost to Mississippi 0-16 who lost to Louisiana State 7-10 = +12 Louisiana State
Alabama beat Tennessee 34-3 who lost 21-22 to North Carolina who lost to U of Miami 0-10 who lost to Colorado 7-9 who lost to Louisiana State 7-25 = Even
Result: +49/5 for Louisiana State wins by 10 points.

Ohio State tied Texas Christian 7-7 who beat Texas 6-0 = +6 for Ohio State
Ohio State beat Michigan 50-20 who beat Duke 28-14 who lost to Georgia Tech 0-21 who lost to Louisiana State 0-10 who beat Mississippi 10-7 who lost to Texas 7-12 = +11 for Ohio State
Ohio State beat Wisconsin 30-21 who lost to Michigan State 0-20 who beat Notre Dame 17-7 who beat Pittsburgh 26-20 who lost to Baylor 13-16 who lost to Arkansas 13-23 who lost to Texas 7-33 =+34 for Texas
Ohio State beat UCLA 13-3 who beat Air Force 19-6 who lost to Baylor 7-31 who lost to Texas 7-33 = +27 for Texas
Ohio State beat Iowa 29-13 who beat California 28-7 who lost to Kansas 7-53 who beat Rice 33-7 who lost to Texas 7-34 = +10 for Texas
Result: +54/5 for Texas who won by 11 points.

Louisiana State lost to Rice 3-16 who lost to Texas 7-33 = +39 for Texas
Louisiana State beat Texas A&M 16-7 who lost to Texas 0-25 = +16 for Texas
Louisiana State beat Mississippi 10-7 who lost to Texas 7-12 = +2 for Texas
Louisiana State beat Colorado 25-7 who beat Oklahoma 22-14 who lost to Texas 7-28 = +5 for Louisiana State
Louisiana State beat Georgia Tech 10-0 who beat Rice 24-0 who lost to Arkansas 0-10 who lost to Texas 7-33 = +2 for Texas
Result: +54/5 = Texas wins by 11 and are the national champions.

 

[SWC75]

1942

1942 College Football National Championship

1942 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1942 AP Poll

This season is famous for what happened on the last weekend of the regular season. The #1 team, Boston College, lost to Holy Cross 12-55 while the #2 team, Georgia Tech lost to Georgia 0-34. It’s unusual for the top two teams in the rankings to lose on the same day but this is the only time they lost by such scores. Both of them went on to lose bowl games and take themselves completely out of consideration for the national title. The Boston College players, however, had something to be thankful for. They had scheduled a party celebrating their national championship for the night after the Holy Cross game at the Coconut Grove nightclub in Boston. When they lost, they canceled the celebration and that was the night the place burned down with an appalling death toll of 492.
Cocoanut Grove fire - Wikipedia

Meanwhile there was a national championship to be decided. The only undefeated team at the end of the regular season, was Tulsa, a mid-major who had risen to be ranked #4 in the final AP poll. But they got beat by an 8-1-1 Tennessee team in the Sugar Bowl, 7-14. That leaves Ohio State, who lost 7-17 to Wisconsin, (who wound up 8-1-1) and Georgia, who lost to Auburn 13-27 in their second-to-last game but made up for it with the destruction of Georgia Tech. The Buckeyes stayed home for the Holidays, as did most of the #1 ranked teams of the 1940’s. The Big Ten, the service academies and Notre Dame didn’t play bowl games in those days. But Georgia went to it’s first ever Rose Bowl and beat UCLA, (also there for the first time), 9-0.

Vautravers explains at length why Wisconsin wasn’t a national title contender, even though the Helms foundation gave them recognition for their win over Ohio State. They’d had an upset tie and loss and weren’t that impressive in their other games. Besides the Buckeyes had come down with dysentery that weekend and were a shell of themselves. He also descries Ohio State’s and Georgia’s long rise to prominence, both first gaining elite status in this decade. It’s worth a read.

An Ohio State - Georgia game to decide the title is the obvious choice here. They were the two highest scoring teams in the country and were ranked #1-2 in the first and last polls. Georgia had the Heisman Trophy winner in Frankie Sinkwich and another star in the making, Charley Trippi in their backfield and an advanced passing game for the time. Auburn beat them on the blackboard, changing their offense from a single wing to a T-formation and inventing the ‘flex’ defense, (long before the Cowboys did), just for that game. It’s a sign of the times that they put their tackles into pass coverage and used their ends to rush the passer. Imagine Bear Williams in pass coverage… Ohio State had that kind of versatility, switching back and forth from the single wing to the T. It was almost as if Jim Boeheim switched back and forth from a zone to a man-for-man, if you can imagine that. It would have been an exciting game.

UPDATE

1942
Ohio State lost to Wisconsin 7-17 who beat Purdue 13-0 who lost to Fordham 7-14 who lost to Boston College 6-56 who lost to Alabama 21-37 who lost to Georgia 10-21 = +81 for Georgia
Ohio State beat Indiana 32-21 who beat Pittsburgh 19-7 who lost to Duke 0-28 who lost to Jacksonville NAS 0-13 who lost to Georgia Tech 0-19 = +37 Georgia
Ohio State beat Michigan 21-7 who beat Michigan State 20-0 who tied Oregon State 7-7, who lost to UCLA 7-30 who lost to Georgia 0-9 = +2 Ohio State
Ohio State beat Iowa Pre-Flight 41-13 who lost to Notre Dame 0-28 who lost to Georgia Tech 6-13 who lost to Georgia 0-34 = +41 for Georgia
Ohio State beat Illinois 44-20 who lost to Notre Dame 14-21 who tied Great Lakes 13-13 who beat Marquette 24-0 who beat Detroit 10-0 who lost to Auburn 6-14 who beat Georgia 27-13 = +57 for Ohio State
Result: +100/5 = Georgia wins the national championship by 20 points.

Some great color footage of Georgia in the Rose Bowl, (vs. UCLA):

 

[SWC75]

1944

1944 College Football National Championship

1944 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1944 AP Poll

To a generation of football fans, the 1944 Army team was the definition of football excellence and power. They out-scored nine opponents by an average of 56.0-3.9. The next year they did it again, this time by a margin of 45.8-5.1. The most memorable scores were their two resounding victories over the acknowledged kings of college football, the Notre dame fighting Irish, 59-0 in 1944 and 48-0 in 1945. Although, like most schools, they were impacted by Notre Dame did not have a weak team. In fact they were ranked #1 when Army destroyed them in 1944 and wound up being ranked #9, (Vautravers who only ranks 4 years schools, not military training stations, rated them the #5 collegiate team). They were ranked #2 when Army buried them in 1945, and wound up #9 again despite the second straight devastating loss, (Vautavers has them #8). You can understand the awe the Back Knights of the Hudson created amongst those who saw them or followed their exploits. When you hear a reference to the “wartime Army teams”, this is what they are talking about.

I have a method for ranking teams, both within years and historically. I call it ‘point differential rankings’. I you beat a team by more than anyone else did, beat a team that lost only to your team, tied a team that beat everyone else they played or lost to an all-conquering team by the smallest margin of their opponents, you get a ‘1’: by point differentials, you were the best team they played. If one team did better than you, you get a ‘2’. If two teams did better, you get a ‘3’. Add up the point differential rankings and divide by the number of opponents and you have an average point differential ranking. If you did better against each opponent than any of their other opponents did, you’d wind up with an average of 1.0. No postwar team reached that level of consistent domination. But the 1944 Army team did.

The had the combination of Doc Blanchard, a powerful fullback known as “Mr. Inside” and Glenn Davis, a speedy halfback known as “Mr. Outside”. They are the model for the two running back backfield everyone aspired to have for decades afterwards, (and which I still think could be useful today). Blanchard averaged 5.5 yards per carry and was an excellent blocker, punter and kick-off guy as well as a linebacker on defense. Davis set a still-standing record in 1944 of averaging 11.5 yards per carry, as well as 17.0 yards per receptions. He scored 18 touchdowns in 1944 and 59 for his career. Blanchard scored 30. He won the 1945 Heisman trophy and Davis the 1946 Heisman.

Vautravers talks about how this amazing team was assembled. First Coach Earl “Red” Blaik had to convince the surgeon general to withdraw a rule limiting military academy candidates to 181 pounds because “statistics that showed thinner people to have longer average lifespans”. (The biggest threat to a long lifespan in the military is not what’s on the scale.) Then during the war, the service academies, (just West Point and Annapolis), were allowed to ‘draft’ players from college campuses. Blanchard had player for North Carolina in 1942. Quarterback Doug McKenna and end Barney Poole had come from Mississippi. McKenna’s back-up and successor, Arnold Tucker, had played for U of Miami. Guard John Green played for Tulane. End Hank Foldberg had played for Texas A&M. All told, their roster in 1944 included 6 Hall of Fame players and 13 who were named on All-American listings during their careers. It kind of gained them a bit of an advantage over their opposition. In two years the only team to get withing 21 of Army was Navy, who lost to the Cadets 7-23 in 1944 and 13-32 in 1945.

There was one other team with a perfect record in 1944: Ohio State, also 9-0 and featuring the 1944 Heisman trophy winner, quarterback Les Horvath. Vautravers says of them that “They had a helluva season, and most any year it would be a slam dunk MNC season.” They had a lot of players still there from their 1942 champions and were billed as the “"civilian national champions”. Unlike Purdue’s 1943 team, they played a reasonable schedule, beating Great Lakes Naval Training Station, (coached by their 1942 coach, Paul Brown), 26-6 and winning teams from Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. The writer ranked Michigan #8 and Illinois #15. Vautravers has them at #3 and #13, with Indiana at 14 and Minnesota #16. The Buckeyes won every game except the Michigan game by at least two touchdowns, outscoring their opposition by 287-79.

The question is: was that enough to get them a post-season match up with Army? State was clearly very good but Army was clearly better. Still, I think a 9-0-0 Ohio State team should not be left out of a shot at a national title and I’d vote to have them play Army. Army’s game with Navy was set up as a benefit: you had to buy war bonds to get tickets. They raised an astounding $58.6 million that way and something similar could be done here. Besides it would be one chance to see what may have been the greatest team of all time in action.

1945
1945 College Football National Championship

1945 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1945 AP Poll

Army brought back essentially the same team as 1944 with essentially the same results. They went 9-0 and out-scored their opponents by an average of 46-5. One difference was the strength of their schedule. It hadn’t been weak in 1944: They beat #10 Duke 27-7, #8 Pennsylvania 25-6, #5 Notre Dame 59-0 and #4 Navy 23-7, (Vautraver’s ratings). In 1945 they beat #19 Wake Forest 54-0, #9 Duke 48-13, #8 Notre Dame 48-0, #7 Pennsylvania 61-0, #6 Michigan 28-7 and #3 Navy 32-13. And those ratings were with Army beating them by those scores. The 1944 Army team had the bigger numbers but they were probably even better in 1945.

Alabama put up Army-like number sin 1945, outscoring their opposition 430-80 in 10 games, including a 34-14 win in the Rose Bowl over Southern California, the first time the Trojans had bene beaten in Pasadena in 9 tries. Army’s closest game was the 19-point win over Navy. The Tides’ closest game as a 28-14 win over…Georgia. Vautravers has Southern Cal as #21, Georgia #13, Tennessee who the Tide beat 25-7 as the #10 team and LSU, who they beat 26-7 as #12. But that still doesn’t quite compare to the Black Knight’s amazing run through the top ten.

The other undefeated teams were the best ever teams at Oklahoma State and Indiana. Both were the only undefeated teams in the history of those schools. The Cowboys, led by the nation’s total offense leader Bob Fenimore, outscored 9 teams by 285-76, including #11 St. Mary’s, 33-13 in the Sugar Bowl. They also beat #14 Tulsa, 14-6. Nobody else they played even had a winning record, putting them in a place similar to Purdue’s in 1944. State was not yet a member of what became the Big Eight. They were in the Missouri Valley Conference and Vautravers describes them as a ‘mid-major’.

Indiana won the Big Ten, the most prestigious conference. They were tied, 7-7, in their second game by 4-4 Northwestern. They beat nine other opponents by 272-49. The Big Ten’s rose Bowl agreement did not begin until the following season, so they stayed home. If it had been in effect in 1945, the Hoosiers would have been favored to beat USC in the Rose Bowl and Okie State would have faced Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.

I would have been tempted to Include Oklahoma State and Indiana in a playoff but I suspect that Army-Alabama would have been the game most people wanted to see.

1944

Army beat Pittsburgh 69-7 who lost to Ohio State 19-54 = +27 for Army

Army beat Notre Dame 59-0 who beat Great Lakes 28-7 who lost to Ohio State 6-26 = +60 for Army

Army beat Navy 23-7 who beat Purdue 32-0 who beat Iowa 26-7 who lost to Minnesota 0-46 who lost to Ohio State 14-34 = +1 Army

Army beat Coast Guard 76-0 lost to Yale 3-7 who tied Virginia 6-6 who beat West Virginia 24-6 who lost to Pittsburgh 13-16 who lost to Indiana 0-47 who lost to Ohio State 7-21 = +26 for Army

Army beat Pennsylvania 62-7 who lost to Michigan 19-41 who lost to Ohio State 14-18 = +29 for Army

Result: +143/5 = Army wins the national championship by 29 points.



1945

Army beat Navy 32-13 who beat Georgia Tech 20-6 who beat Tulane 41-7 who lost to Rice 7-13 who beat Arkansas 26-7 who lost to Oklahoma State 14-19 who beat St. Mary’s 33-13 who beat Southern California 26-0 who lost to Alabama 14-34 = +101 for Army

Army beat Duke 48-13 who beat Georgia Tech 14-6 who beat Auburn 20-7 who lost to Mississippi State 0-20 who lost to Alabama 13-55 = +6 for Alabama.

Army beat Notre Dame 48-0 who beat Tulane 32-6 who lost to Louisiana State 0-33 who lost to Alabama 7-26 = +22 for Army (Note: Notre Dame didn’t play USC in 1945)

Army beat Pennsylvania 61-0 who beat North Carolina 49-0 who lost to Tennessee 6-20 who lost to Alabama 7-25 = +78 for Army

Army beat Michigan 28-7 who lost to Indiana 7-13 who beat Tulsa 7-2 who lost to Georgia 6-20 who los to Alabama 14-28 = +8 for Alabama

Result: +187 = Army wins the national championship by 37 points

 

[SWC75]

1946

1946 College Football National Championship

1946 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1946 AP Poll

The most anticipated college football game ever played occurred on November 9th, 1946 in Yankee Stadium, New York City. Army had dominated college football for two years, taking advantage of their ability to draft players from other college teams. They won 25 games in a row by a combined 1,124-136. Along the way, they’d beaten once-mighty Notre Dame 59-0, 48-0. Notre Dame wasn’t what it had been, (especially in 1943 when they had a team almost as dominant), because their players were off fighting the war, (when not playing on service teams), while the Cadets were still studying it. Frank Leahy had coached service ball while he was away and he knew who the best players were and invited the best of them to come back to South Bend with them so many of them that the Irish had begun a four stretch of 36-0-2, which gave them three national championships. They had 10 players who had played on their 1943 champions, 25 who played in the 1944-45 games and wanted revenge and 20 other stars Leahy had gotten rom service ball. Sports Illustrated once declared them the best college team ever as they had 47 players who on their roster who later played pro ball.

The result was a game which one headline described as “much ado about nothing to nothing”, which was the final score. Army had been the #1 ranked team all year, with Notre Dame #2. The #1 team would retain that ranking 20 years later, when Notre Dame and Michigan State tied but in 1946. Notre Dame closed out the season with one-sided wins over Northwestern, Tulane and Southern California. Army did the same against Pennsylvania but when they barely held on to beat a 1-8 Navy team, 21-18, after Notre Dame had beaten Navy 28-0. The voters decided to invert the rankings and make Notre Dame national champion.

Army had out-scored its nine opponents 263-80, normally an impressive total but a shadow of what they did in 1944-45. They’d beaten Michigan in 1945, 28-7. In 1946 it was 20-13. The Duke score went from 48-13 to 19-0. Villanova fell from 54-0 to 35-0. Notre Dame, of course, went from 48-0 to 0-0. Penn was 61-7 to 34-7 and Navy 32-13 to 21-18. The Cadets still had Blanchard and Davis and several other star players from the previous two years. But they also had less depth and their opposition had more talent due to war veterans signing up to play for them. It was impressive that Army still beat anybody but Notre Dame, but they were no longer historically dominant. Notre Dame had bene slightly more impressive at 271-24.

And Army-Notre Dame rematch was a no-brainer and would have bene an idea Red Cross fundraiser, (a popular trend of the times). But another former national title contender had gotten several players back from the war: Georgia, led by Charlie Trippi, Frankie Sinkwich’s co-star on their 1942 team. Like Alabama in 1945, they swept through the SEC, going 11-0, outscoring their opposition 392-110, including 14-0 over the Tide and a 20-10 Sugar Bowl win over North Carolina, in the “Battle of the Charlies”, (the Tar Heel star was Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice).

Meanwhile out west, UCLA went 10-0 and wanted Army invited to the Rose Bowl. Instead they got 7-2 Illinois, the Big Ten Champs, who smashed them 45-14 to take the Bruins out of out consideration.

I’d go for an Army-Georgia game, with the winner playing Notre Dame. Hopefully, the other writers would see the wisdom of it.

Update:

1946

Army tied Notre Dame 0-0 who beat Tulane 41-0 who lost to Georgia Tech 7-35 who lost to Georgia 7-35 = +15 for Georgia
Army beat Pennsylvania 34-7 who beat Virginia 40-0 who beat West Virginia 21-0 who lost o Kentucky 0-13 who lost to Georgia 13-28 = +60 for Army
Army beat Michigan 20-13 who beat Michigan State 55-7 who lost to Boston College 20-34 who beat Alabama 13-7 who lost to Georgia 0-14 = +40 for Army
Army beat Oklahoma 21-7 who beat North Carolina State 34-13 who didn’t play North Carolina but did lose to Virginia Tech 6-14 who tied North Carolina 14-14 who lost to Georgia 10-20 = +17 for Army
Army beat Columbia 48-14 who beat Navy 23-14 who lost to Duke 6-21 who lost to Tennessee 7-12 who beat Chattanooga 47-7 who lost to Georgia 27-48 = +42 Army
Result: +144/5 = Army wins by 29 points.

Army tied Notre Dame 0-0 = Even
Army beat Navy 21-18 who lost to Note Dame 0-28 = +25 for Notre Dame
Army beat Pennsylvania 34-7 who beat Navy 32-19 who lost to Penn State 7-12 who lost to Pittsburgh 7-14 who lost to Ohio State 13-20 who beat Southern California 21-0 who lost to Notre Dame 6-26 = +22 for Army
Army beat Michigan 20-13 who lost to Illinois 9-13 who lost to Notre Dame 6-26 = +23 for Notre Dame
Army beat Oklahoma 21-7 Who beat Nebraska 27-6 who lost to Iowa 7-21 who lost to Notre Dame 6-41 = +14 for Notre Dame
Result: +40/5 = Notre Dame wins the national championship by 8 points.

 

[SWC75]

1963
1963 College Football National Championship

1963 NCAA University Division football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1963 AP Poll

This was the first year since 1959 when no additional games were needed to determine a national champion, (Heh…heh…). Texas was 11-0-0 and the only other unbeaten team was mid-major Memphis State at 8-0-1 and ranked #14 by the coaches and #8 by Vautravers, (the writers only had a top 10 and Memphis didn’t make it). Texas faced two big challenges from teams ranked #2, Oklahoma and then Navy in the Cotton Bowl and they dominated them by almost the same decisive score: 28-7 and 28-6. These were huge games, only the 3rd and 4th times since the war that teams ranked #1 and #2 had played each other, (the others: the 0-0 tie between Army and Notre Dame in 1946 and the 42-37 shoot out at the previous season’s Rose Bowl between Southern Cal and Wisconsin). Those games left quite an impression.

But so did other games. This was not an historical great Texas team, although they had a great defense. Their 1961 team outscored their actual opposition 303-66. Their 1969 and 1970 teams outscored t heir actual opposition 435-119 and 423-149. This 1963 team out-scored theirs 243-71 and had a six game stretch were they won games 17-13 over a 5-5 team, 10-6 over a 6-4 team, 17-12 over a 4-7 team, 7-0 over an 8-3 team, 17-0 over a 4-5-1 team and 15-13 over a 2-7-1 team, a total of 83-44. Vautravers points out that Texas quarterback Duke Carlisle, who started all year, threw NO touchdown passes during the regular season.

I recall that Roger Staubach was leading Navy to some more impressive scores (314-137 going into the Cotton Bowl), and the feeling was that Texas was lucky to win their games and that Navy would put on a show against them. But that Texas defense swallowed Roger and his mates whole in his first visit to the Cotton Bowl while Carlisle amazingly threw 58 and 63 yard bombs which sunk the Navy and leaving now doubt as to who the national champion was.

Cotton Bowl:

 

[SWC75]

1947

1947 College Football National Championship

1947 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1947 AP Poll

1947 was about two teams: Notre Dame and Michigan. There were other undefeated teams but they kept stubbing their toes with ties. Pennsylvania was undefeated except for a tie with Army, (who dropped to 5-2-2 this year without Blanchard and Davis). Kansas was undefeated except for two ties – with Texas Christian and rising Oklahoma. Southern California suffered only a tie with Rice in their first 8 games. Southern Methodist won their first 9 games before tying Texas Christian and then, in the Cotton Bowl, they tied 9-0 Penn State, 13-13.

There was also a nice selection of one-loss teams, including 10-1 Texas, who Vautravers sees as a national title contender despite the loss. The Longhorns did exactly what they did 17 years later: losing one game by 1 point, 13-14 to an unbeaten conference rival before beating Alabama in a bowl game. Georgia Tech, another rising power under Bobby Dodd, was also 10-1, losing only to Alabama. California, starting a great run under SU grad Pappy Waldorf, saw an otherwise perfect record spoiled by a dreadful 14-39 loss to USC. They took that less to heart and didn’t lose another regular season game until 1951.

But in the end, this was between Notre Dame and Michigan. They were #1-2 in the polls all season, changing places based on who was most impressive each season. Notre Dame defeated 9 opponents by a combined 271-52, with only one close game, 26-19 vs. Northwestern. The Wolverines also beat 9 opponents 345-53 but had close games over both Minnesota, 13-6 and Illinois 14-7, both teams with winning records. Notre Dame had so much talent that 46 of the 47 players on their roster later played pro ball. Michigan had so many good players that Coach Fritz Crisler instituted the two-platoon system to take advent age of them so their opposition was always facing fresh players, specializing in what they were doing. Michigan’s success caused other schools with sufficient depth to copy Crisler’s system.

The two schools tried to out-do each other with the margin by which they clobbered their opponents. Their opponents knew that they weren’t the real opposition: Michigan was Notre Dame’s real opponent and Notre Dame was Michigan’s. They had two common regular season opponents and Michigan won both comparisons. Notre Dame beat Pittsburgh 40-6 but Michigan beat them 69-0 Notre Dame beat Northwestern 26-19, (the Wildcats got that close on a late pick six when Notre Dame was passing to win by a more impressive margin and it backfired). Michigan beat them 49-21. Notre Dame seemed to have sealed the deal with an awesome 38-7 season ending crushing of old rival Southern California. That set up the Rose Bowl where Michigan, under the new Big Ten contract was scheduled to play them. The Wolves set out to top the Irish and did so, 49-0.

There was great public pressure for a game to be played between Notre Dame and Michigan. Frank Leahy was all for it but Fritz Crisler and the Big Ten were against it so it never happened. All the public got was the first ever post-bowl poll, which was not for a top 25 but just asked who should be #1. Michigan won by a 2-1 margin. But Southern Cal Coach jeff cravat insisted that Notre Dame was better. The AP declared this final poll to be ‘unofficial’. But the AP Poll is unofficial anyway, so what did that mean?

In my fantasy, I and everyone else would have voted for a Notre Dame Michigan game and they would have played it.

Notre Dame beat Pittsburgh 40-6 who lost to Michigan 0-69 = +26 for Michigan
Notre Dame beat Northwestern 26-19 who lost to Michigan 21-49 = +21 for Michigan
Notre Dame beat Southern California 38-7 who lost to Michigan 0-49 = +18 for Michigan
Notre Dame beat Army 27-7, (finally avenging their war-time debacles), who beat Villanova 13-0 who lost to Kentucky 14-24 who beat Michigan State 7-6 who lost to Michigan 0-55 = +35 for Michigan
Notre Dame beat Purdue 22-7 who loos tot Minnesota 21-26 who lost to Michigan 6-13 = +3 for Notre Dame
Result: +97/5 = Michigan, one of the great teams of all time, wins the national championship by 19 points.

The Rose Bowl:

 

[SWC75]

1964

1964 College Football National Championship

1964 NCAA University Division football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1964 AP Poll

This year was “another fine mess” but the solution seems obvious. I have relatives in Arkansas, (my Mom came from there), and down there they KNOW who was the 1964 national champion.

The writer’s poll came out first and had Mississippi #1. But this was the year the Rebel’s coach turned back into pumpkin. From 1952-1963 they’d gone 96-16-7 with four unbeaten regular seasons and five more with 1 loss. Their last such season before that was in 1910 and they’ve never had one since. They lost their second game to Kentucky 21-27, then to Florida two weeks later, 14-30, and later were tied by Vanderbilt 7-7, beaten by LSU 10-11 and Mississippi State 17-20 before losing a minor bowl game to Tulsa 7-14 to finish 5-5-1. Their years of contending for a national championship were over, probably due to the rise of Georgia and Florida on the Gulf Coast and then the integration of the SEC, which was slower at Ole Miss than elsewhere. They had been the primary focus of the war between segregationists and the rest of the country.

The second writer’s and the first coach’s poll had Texas #1and they remained there for three weeks until they lost an epic duel with Arkansas, 14-14. This was when that rivalry became nationally prominent and several of the best remembered games of the 1960’s were Texas-Arkansas games. Ohio State then took over #1 for two weeks until a too close 21-10 win over Iowa combined with Notre Dame’s 40-0 demolition of Navy, who had lost their star quarterback, Roger Staubach to injury, put them at #1 for the first time since the beginning of the 1954 season. The Buckeye then got totally taken out of contention by Penn State 0-27.

The Irish were the big story of the year. Sports needs their stars to shine and college football is better when Notre Dame is Notre Dame. They’d been through a fallow period, going 34-45 from 1956-63. They kept losing to Northwestern, coach by Ara Parseghian, who beat them four straight times from 1959-62, the last by 35-6. So they hired him and he immediately took over a team that had gone 2-7 (108-159) in 1963 and won their first 9 games in a row by a combined 270-57 (30-6) with the same players, (remember that freshmen weren’t eligible and there was no transfer portal). He took John Huarte, who was playing safety in 1963 and put him at quarterback, where he won the 1964 Heisman Trophy. They led Southern California 17-0 going into the fourth quarter of their last game. I was eleven years old at the time and had seen “Knute Rockne, All-American” and was rooting them to win their first national title since 1949, (although I agree with Vautravers that they should have been considered the 1953 national champion). The Trojan rallied to win 20-17 and I cried myself to sleep humming the Notre Dame victory march.

That left two 10-0-0 teams at #1 and #2: Alabama (233-67) and Arkansas. (221-57). The Tide had by far the greater history and an edge in recent success, having beaten the Razorbacks in the Sugar Bowl after the 1961 season to win their first national championship of the poll era. So they were #1. Actually Arkansas’ 1964 record looks a lot like Alabama’s 1961 record. Bama had shut out their last 5 regular season opponents that year and Arkansas did it this year. Behind them were 9-1, (by one quarter), Notre Dame, Michigan, who had their best team since 1948 and won the Big 10 with an 8-1 record, and 9-1, (by one point) Texas, and Nebraska, who had started out 9-0 before being upset by Oklahoma, 7-17.

In the bowl games, Arkansas won a defensive duel with Nebraska on a late touchdown, 10-7 in the Cotton Bowl. Michigan ran past Oregon State, 34-7 in the Rose Bowl and, in an unprecedented night game, Texas stopped Alabama at the goal line, (we think), in the Orange Bowl to win 21-17. (The Sugar Bowl featured a battle of two 7 win teams, LSU beating Syracuse 13-10).

Cotton Bowl: Rose Bowl: 1965 Rose Bowl: Michigan 34 Oregon State 7
Orange Bowl: 1965 Orange Bowl, #5 Texas vs #1 Alabama (Rites of Autumn)

That left Arkansas as the only 11-0 team with Alabama, Texas, Notre Dame and Michigan all have single losses. Some kind of five team playoff, (or a four team one to see who would face Arkansas) might have bene fun but it seems unnecessary. The thing is, we were still in the era when the last poll was at the end of the regular season and Alabama went into the ‘books’, (I don’t know where they keep them), as the 1964 national champion. That created enough controversy that the following year, the Associated Press decided to have a poll after the bowls that ‘counted’ for the first time – and Alabama, who had a loss and a tie and had bene ranked #4, won that two, for their second straight national championship in a year when they didn’t have the best record. Karma came the next year when the Tide went 11-0 and found themselves ranked behind Notre Dame and Michigan State, who had tied each other.

But there is no doubt in Arkansas who was #1. Frank Broyles had quite a coaching tree. Barry Switzer and Johnny majors were assistants on his staff and Jimmy Johnson, Ken Hatfield and Jerry Jones played on that team.

 

[SWC75]

1948

1948 College Football National Championship

1948 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1948 AP Poll

The three dominant programs of the 1940’s, Michigan, Notre Dame and Army were petal to the medal in 1948. In the second to last poll on November 22, they were ranked #1, #2 and #3 with records of 9-0, 8-0 and 8-0, respectively. Michigan’s season was already over and Vautravers speculates that they were ranked #1 partially out of sympathy for the previous season, when the Associated Press had conducted a post-bowl poll that declared them #1 over Notre Dame and then pronounced it “unofficial”. But Notre Dame and Army still had games to go. Navy, 0-8, played Army to an epic 21-21 tie on November 27th. The November 29th poll dropped them to #6, with 9-0-1 North Carolina, (who had been tied 7-7 by William and Mary, a pretty good team in the late 40’s) 10-0 California and 9-1 Oklahoma, (a rising power who lost their opener 17-20 to Santa Clara, also a good team in those days, and were now on a 31-game winning streak that would carry through 1950). Notre Dame played Southern California on December 4 and were also the victim of an upset tie, 14-14. As Vautravers has said, one of the pitfalls of having the national title decided just based on a regular season poll is that sometimes games are scheduled after the last poll. Fortunately, the sympathy for Michigan had already placed them #1 and all sources regard the Wolverines as the champions of 1948.

California lost to Northwestern in the Rose Bowl on a disputed touchdown, (the ball was fumbled as the Wildcat was going over the goal line), the first of three straight unbeaten Golden bear teams to lose in the Rose Bowl. They were the Buffalo Bills of that era. Oklahoma beat North Carolina 14-6 in the Sugar Bowl. There was also Clemson, who went 11-0, including a 24-23 Orange Bowl victory over Missouri. But their schedule was weak and they were only ranked #11 in the final poll and #8 in Vautravers’ “Fixed” (post bowl) poll.

Curmudgeon that I am, I would have voted for a four-team playoff of Michigan, Notre Dame, Army and Clemson. I think the public would have gone for the top three.

For the heck of it, I’ll do Army at Notre Dame and Clemson at Michigan, rather than having Notre Dame wait for the other game.

Clemson beat Boston College 26-19 who beat St. Mary’s 19-7 who lost to Oregon 13-14 who lost to Michigan 0-14 = +4 for Clemson
Clemson beat Missouri 24-23 who lost to Ohio State 7-21 = +13 for Michigan
Clemson beat Wake Forest 21-14 who beat George Washington 27-13 who lost to Kansas 0-12 who beat Nebraska 27-7 who lost to Minnesota 13-39 who lost to Michigan 14-27 = +10 for Michigan
Clemson beat Mississippi State 21-7 who beat Tennessee 21-6 who tied Kentucky 0-0 who beat Marquette 25-0 who lost to Purdue 9-14 who lost to Northwestern 0-21 who lost to Michigan 0-28 = Even
Clemson beat South Carolina 13-7 who lost to West Virginia 12-35 who lost to Penn State 7-37 who tied Michigan State 14-14 who lost to Michigan 7-13 = +53 for Michigan
Result: +72/5 = Michigan wins by 14

Army tied Navy 21-21 who lost to Notre Dame 7-41 = +34 for Notre Dame
Army beat Cornell 27-6 who beat Syracuse 34-7 who lost to Northwestern 0-48 who lost to Notre Dame 7-12 = +5 for Notre Dame
Army beat Villanova 29-0 who beat Duquesne 46-0 who lost to Holy Cross 13-16 who beat Temple 13-7 who lost to Penn State 0-47 who tied Michigan State 14-14 who lost to Notre Dame 7-26 = +12 for Army
Army beat Pennsylvania 26-20 who lost to Penn State 0-13 who lost to Pittsburgh 0-7 who lost to Notre Dame 0-40 = +54 for Notre Dame
Army beat Harvard 20-7 who beat Yale 20-7 who beat Wisconsin 17-7 who lost to California 14-40 who beat Southern California 13-7 who tied Notre Dame 14-14 = +16 for Army
Result: +65/5 = Notre Dame wins by 13

Notre Dame beat Michigan State 26-7 who lost to Michigan 7-13 = +13 Notre Dame
Notre Dame beat Purdue 28-27 who lost to Michigan 0-40 = +39 for Michigan
Notre Dame beat Northwestern 12-7 who lost to Michigan 0-28 = +23 Michigan
Notre Dame beat Navy 41-7 who lost to Michigan 0-35 = +1 for Michigan
Notre Dame beat Indiana 42-6 who los tot Michigan 0-54 = +18 for Michigan
Result: +68/5 = Michigan wins the national championship by 13.

 

[SWC75]

1965

1965 College Football National Championship

1965 NCAA University Division football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1965 AP Poll

Michigan State is my second most favorite college football program. Syracuse’s entire coaching staff moved over there after the 1946 season. Biggie Munn, who had bene an assistant under Ossie Solem before the war, wanted a serious upgrade in the SU program and didn’t get what he wanted. The Spartans agreed to upgrade their program and Munn and his staff, including SU grad Duffy Daugherty. Taking advantage of the administration support, Munn built the Spartans into a national power, winning 28 games in a row and the 1952 national championship and, after finally getting full membership in the Big 10, the 1954 Rose Bowl. Munn then retired to the athletic director’s chair and Duffy took over for him, winning the 1956 Rose Bowl and going 8-1 in 1957 and 7-2 in 1961 after being ranked #1 for several weeks. But overall, his results were up and down. in 1964, the Spartans, with a very young team, went 4-5.

The next year they grew up with a vengeance, going 19-1-1 over the next two years, out-scoring their opponents by 556-175. Four more points and it could have been 21-0:
Michigan State Football - Duffy's Giants (1965-1966): Not only were the Spartans, as Vautravers points out, ahead of the curve in the integration of the game but it’s of special interest to current Syracuse fans that they were also out front in recruiting pacific islanders to come to some not very tropical locations to play football. The Spartans had taken a trip to Hawaii in the late 40s to play the local team and Munn and Daugherty had forged friendships with local coaches. It resulted in a recruiting pipeline that produced fullback Bob Apisa, kicker Dick Kenny and wideout Charlie Wedemeyer for the 1965-66 teams.

The Spartans demonstrated their power by crushing Penn State 23-0, Michigan 24-7, Ohio State 32-7 and Notre Dame 12-3. Incredibly, the out-rushed Woody Hayes’ Buckeyes by an amazing 387 to -22. They also held Notre Dame’s second ranked rushing attack to 12- yards rushing and 12 total yards. In a scenario that would be duplicated a decade later but with Ohio State and UCLA, they beat the bruins 13-3 in their opening game but lost to them 12-14 in the Rose Bowl when a two-point conversion was stopped just in front of the goal line. They’d out-gained the Bruins 314-212 but had 5 turnovers and we stopped on fourth down three other times in Bruin territory. That’s football. But they’d beaten every team they’d played and no one else could say that in 1965.

Two teams that came close were Arkansas and Nebraska. The Razorbacks had gone 11-0 in 1964 and are the proper team to view as the national champions that season. They kept rolling in 1965 and extended their winning streak to 22 straight games including 10-0 and 324-104 until they were upset by a 7-3 LSU team, 14-7, in the Cotton Bowl. I watched both that and the Rose Bowl and was rooting for Arkansas, (my Mom came from there), and the Spartans so it was a very frustrating day. Nebraska had rolled through the Big Eight, going 10-0, 321-90. Meanwhile Alabama had overcome two early disappointments, a 17-18 loss to Georgia on a controversial, (and bad) no call and a 7-7 tie to Tennessee to gain some momentum down the stretch, beating LSU 31-7, South Carolina 35-14 and Auburn 30-3. They kept that moment tum going against the Cornhusker sin the orange Bowl, taking a 24-7 halftime lead and building it up to 32-13 going into the fourth quarter before some late scores made it the final look like a shoot-out at 39-28. They outgained Nebraska 516-377, an absurd amount of yardage in a game between highly ranked teams in those days. ‘Bama was 9-1-1 but three points away from 11-0.

To the coaches, (UPI), the national championship had already been decided. They still didn’t hold a poll after the bowls so Michigan State was already in the books as their national champion. But the AP decided, (as they had every right to do, since the national championship was ‘mythical’ anyway), decided for the first time to do a full-scale poll after the bowls. That poll voted Alabama #1, with Michigan State #2, Arkansas #3, 8-2-1 UCLA #4 and 10-1 Nebraska #5. I remember being surprised that there was a such a poll and that a 9-1-1 team got voted #1 over three 10-1 teams. Vautravers sort of agrees, although he downgrades Arkansas and Nebraska due to weak schedules. But the Spartans didn’t have a weaker schedule and performed more consistently well than Alabama so he has them at #1.

Cotton Bowl: no highlight film available
Rose Bowl: no highlight film available
Orange Bowl: 1966 Orange Bowl, #3 Nebraska vs #4 Alabama (Crimson Classics)

Reading Vautraver’s articles on this season, the inferiority of parsing schedules and margins of victory compared to settling things on the field in a playoff. The obvious one here is a four-teamer, with Michigan State being paired with Nebraska and Arkansas taking on Alabama.

Michigan State vs. Nebraska
Michigan State beat UCLA 13-3 who tied Missouri 14-14 who lost to Nebraska 14-16 = +8 for Michigan State
Michigan State lost to UCLA 12-14 who lost to Tennessee 34-37 who tied Alabama 7-7 who beat Nebraska 39-28 = +6 for Michigan State
Michigan State beat Purdue 14-10 who tied Southern Methodist 14-14 who lost to Texas Christian 7-10 who lost to Nebraska 14-34 = +19 for Nebraska
Michigan State beat Notre Dame 12-3 who beat California 48-6 who beat Kansas 17-0 who lost to Iowa State 7-21 who lost to Nebraska 0-44 = +10 for Michigan State
Michigan State beat Ohio State 32-7 who beat Wisconsin 20-10 who tied Colorado 0-0 who lost to Nebraska 13-38 = +10 for Michigan State
Result: +15/5 = Michigan State wins by 3.

Arkansas vs. Alabama
Arkansas lost to Louisiana State 7-14 who lost to Alabama 7-31 = +31 for Alabama
Arkansas beat Tulsa 20-12 who lost to Tennessee 6-27 who tied Alabama 7-7 = +13 for Alabama
Arkansas beat Texas Tech 42-24 who lost to Georgia Tech 21-31 who lost o Georgia 7-17 who beat Alabama 18-17 = +1 for Alabama
Arkansas beat Texas 27-24 who beat Tulane 31-0 who lost to Mississippi 7-24 who lost to Alabama 16-17 = +16 for Arkansas
Arkansas beat Texas Christian 28-0 who lost to Nebraska 14-34 who lost to Alabama 28-39 = +3 for Alabama
Result: +32/5 = Alabama wins by 6.

Michigan State vs Alabama
Michigan State beat UCLA 13-3 who tied Missouri 14-14 who lost to Nebraska 14-16 who lost to Alabama 28-39 = +3 for Alabama
Michigan State lost to UCLA 12-14 who lost to Tennessee 34-37 who tied Alabama 7-7 = +5 for Alabama
Michigan State beat Purdue 14-10 who beat Minnesota 35-0 who lost to Missouri 6-17 who lost to Kentucky 0-7 who beat Mississippi 16-7 who lost to Alabama 16-17 = +32 for Michigan State
Michigan State beat Notre Dame 12-3 who tied U of Miami 0-0 who lost to Louisiana State 27-34 who lost to Alabama 7-31 = +21 for Alabama
Michigan State beat Ohio State 32-7 who beat Michigan 9-7 who lost to Georgia 7-15 who beat Alabama 18-17 = +20 for Michigan State
Result: +23/5 = Michigan State wins the national championship by 5 points.

 

[SWC75]

1949

1949 College Football National Championship

1949 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1949 AP Poll

This was the last year of what I call the ‘double-class’ situation: the guys who, by their age would normally have bene in college in the late 1940’s were joined by, essentially their older brothers who had fought the war and then joined them in college. At any school that had a strong team in this time, it was said for decades afterwards that that team in the late 40’s was their best team, even above similarly accomplished teams from the 1950’s and 60’s.

Notre Dame, Michigan and Army had dominated the wartime and post-war era. The Wolverines were the first dynasty to crack. Army ended their 25-game winning streak with a 21-7 win in the Big House for which they had prepared as if it were D-Day. Then came a 20-21 defeat to a Northwestern team that wound up 4-5. A four-game winning streak kept them in the Top Ten, the first school to be in the Top Ten every year of a decade, (a record not matched until Nebraska and Florida State in the 1990’s). Bennie Oosterbaan had replaced Fritz Crisler as their coach in 1948 but he was unable to maintain the expected level of excellence. He continues to have winning seasons, but with 2-3 losses per year until a 2-6-1 collapse in 1958. Bump Elliott replaced him and had one excellent season, 9-1 with a Rose Bowl win in 1964 but also had 5 losing season in ten years. Basically, in the 1950’s and 60’s, Michigan and Michigan State switched positions before the Wolverines hired Bo Schembechler in 1969 and he brought them back into something close to the prominence they had under Crisler in the late 40’s.

Notre Dame had perhaps the most dominant of their four straight undefeated teams in 1949, out-scoring ten teams 360-86, with only one close game, an epic win over SMU in Dallas, 27-20, a week after the last regular season poll, securing their last national championship for 17 years. From time to time, Note Dame tries to re-establish its academic credentials and reign in the football program and they did it after this season, telling Frank Leahy that they were having trouble scheduling teams because he’d acquired too much talent and won too much. The Irish fell with a thud in 1950, to 4-4-1. Leahy rallied them to contend for another title in 1953 but retired for his health after that season. Terry Brennan, like Oosterbaan, got off a to a good started, going 9-1 in 1954 but faded badly after that, falling all the way to 2-8 in 1956, the season that Paul Hornung inexplicably won the Heisman over Jim Brown, Johnny Majors and others. Joe Kuharich came in from the pros, once again proving that coaching in the pros is different than coaching in college. He had a 2-8 season of his own in 1960. He was the coach when the Irish pulled off the upset of Syracuse in 1961 on the controversy over the roughing the kicker call. He bugged out just before the 1963 season and old alum Hugh Devore filled in for a 2-7 season. The Irish then got serious about football again and hired Ara Parseghian, who had been beating them regularly with his Northwestern teams.

Army continued to be strong until they were upset by Navy at the end of the 1950 season. Then came the cribbing scandal, where team members were found to have been cheating on examinations. Army fell to 2-7 in 1951. Coach Red Blaik managed to get the program back on its feet and even went undefeated, but with a tie, in his final season of 1958. But Army’s never been a national championship contender since.

But in 1949, the Irish and the Cadets looked like the glory would never end. Army beat 9 teams by a combined 354-68. But there was a new kid on the block: Oklahoma, about whom Vautravers has some choice words concerning their player acquisition technique, (they bought them), went 10-0 and then crushed LSU 35-0 in the Sugar Bowl, outscoring their eleven opponents 399-88. They had a 21-game winning streak as the season ended. California went 10-0 for the second consecutive season and for the second consecutive season they lost a frustrating Rose Bowl game, this time to Ohio State, 14-17 to knock them out of the title race, (Vautravers erroneously described this as their third straight such defeat: that would come the next year). Then there was Pacific, then a mid-major, maybe the ultimate mid-major, out-scoring eleven opponents, 575-66:
Pacific Game by Game Results
They played no team that wound up in the final rankings but could Notre Dame, Army or Oklahoma have done any better. I’ve run lines of comparative scores between those teams and the Tigers look pretty good.

I’d love to see Pacific take on, say, Oklahoma while Notre Dame and Army renewed acquaintances but I think the public and writers would have dismissed them as a small-time team so we’d probably get Army-Oklahoma with the winner playing Notre Dame. They would have been great games, any way they did it.

Update:

Army vs. Oklahoma
Army beat Michigan 21-7 who beat Stanford 27-7 who tied Santa Clara 7-7 who lost to Oklahoma 21-28 = +27 for Army
Army beat Fordham 35-0 who beat Georgetown 42-0 who lost to Texas Western 20-33 who lost to Texas Tech 0-13 who lost to Texas 0-43 who lost to Oklahoma 14-20 = +2 for Army
Army beat Penn State 42-7 who beat Nebraska 22-7 who beat Iowa State 7-0 who lost to Oklahoma 7-34 = +30 for Army
Army beat Pennsylvania 14-13 who lost to Virginia 14-26 who lost to Tulane 14-28 who lost to Louisiana State 0-21 who lost to Oklahoma 0-35 = +81 for Oklahoma
Army beat Navy 38-0 who lost to Wisconsin 13-48 who tied Illinois 13-13 who lost to Missouri 20-27 who lost to Oklahoma 7-27 = +24 for Oklahoma
Result: +46/5 = Oklahoma wins by 9 (after a big comeback)

Notre Dame vs. Oklahoma
Notre Dame beat Tulane 46-7 who lost to Louisiana State 0-21 who lost to Oklahoma 0-35 = +17 for Oklahoma
Notre Dame beat Michigan State 34-21 who lost to Michigan 3-7 who beat Illinois 13-0 who tied Iowa State 20-20 who lost to Oklahoma 7-34 = +5 for Oklahoma
Notre Dame beat North Carolina 42-6 who lost to Rice 13-27 who beat Southern Methodist 41-27 who beat Missouri 28-27 who lost to Oklahoma 7-27 = +17 for Notre Dame
Notre Dame beat Southern California 32-0 who lost to Stanford 13-34 who tied Santa Clara 7-7 who lost to Oklahoma 21-28 = +4 for Notre Dame
Notre Dame beat Southern Methodist 27-20 who beat Texas 7-6 who lost to Oklahoma 14-20 = +2 for Notre Dame
Result: Notre Dame wins the national championship by 1 point in what must have bene one of the greatest games of all time.

FWIW:

Notre Dame vs. Pacific
Notre Dame beat Tulane 46-7 who beat Virginia 28-14 who beat George Washington 27-13 who beat Georgetown 28-7 who lost to Texas Western 20-33 who beat New Mexico A&M, (State) 69-7 who lost to San Diego State 18-39 who lo0st to Pacific 14-62 = +68 for Notre Dame
Notre Dame beat Michigan State 34-21 who beat Marquette 48-7 who lost to San Francisco 20-39 who lost to Pacific 6-7 (How did Pacific get in a 7-6 game?) = +34 for Notre Dame
Notre Dame beat North Carolina 42-6 who beat Georgia 21-14 who lost to Kentucky 0-25 who beat Cincinnati 14-7 who lost to Pacific 7-34 = +2 for Pacific
Notre Dame beat Southern California 32-0 who lost to Stanford 13-34 who beat San Jose State 49-0 who lost to Pacific 7-45 = +22 for Notre Dame
Notre Dame beat Southern Methodist 27-20 who lost to Rice 27-41 who beat Texas Tech 28-0 who beat Hardin-Simmons 23-13 who lost to Loyola (Marymount) 35-39 who lost to Pacific 0-52 = +25 for Pacific
Result: +97/5 = Notre Dame wins by 19. Still, the Tigers were one of the best small college tams of all time. They had been coached by none other than Amos Alonzo Stagg from 1933-46. Then his assistant, Larry Siemerling, took over and took the program to its greatest height:

Larry Siemering - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1949 Pacific Tigers football team - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[SWC75]

1950

1950 College Football National Championship

1950 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1950 AP Poll

This was the first year of the Coach’s Poll, run by United Press International, creating the possibility of split titles, (although we wouldn’t have one until 1954). This was also the first year a poll champion lost a bowl game. There wasn’t much opportunity for that to happen before this: the service academies and Notre Dame didn’t play in them and the Big Ten didn’t do so until after the 1946 season and they had a rule that teams couldn’t go their twice in a row. Texas Christian in 1938 and Texas A&M in 1939 were the only #1 ranked teams that went to bowls in that time and they both won.

As Vautravers points out, not only was there no poll after the bowl games: there was no AP, (writers) poll after the regular season, either. They did their last poll on November 27th and thus missed Navy’s 14-2 upset of Army. Army is listed as being 8-1 in their final poll but they were actually 8-0 at that point. The Coaches had their last poll on December 5th and were thus aware of Army’s defeat and lowered them to #5.

Oklahoma’s 7-13 loss to Kentucky in the Sugar Bowl blew open the race for the national title. Although I agree with Vautravers’ conclusion that Tennessee should be ranked #1, I don’t think it’s a “slam dunk” and t here are numerous contenders. The issue is: would any of them capture the imagination of the public such that there would be a demand for an extra game of games?

The Sooners had lost their 31-game winning streak but they were still 10-1 having out-scored their opponents 352-148 after the bowl game. Kentucky, who had been ranked #7 and had lost to Tennessee 0-7, blew away the rest of their opponents and wound up 11-1, (393-69). Their schedule may have bene weak but their performance wasn’t. Tennessee was 11-1, (335-71), and had beaten Kentucky and then 9-1 Texas, who had lost by 1 to Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl, 20-14. Army was the last of the reigning dynasties from the 1940’s and had out-scored their nine opponents 267-40, including another win over Michigan, 27-6. The Wolverines were only 6-3-1 but that included a 14-6 victory over California, who still wound up 9-1-1 (224-90). Two teams won all their games: Princeton, 9-0 (349-94) and Wyoming, 10-0 (363-59) but both were regarded as what we would now call ‘mid-majors’ and could have played in my fictional “Pesci Bowl”. The Cowboys won the Gator Bowl, 20-7 over Washington and Lee, who had lost to Tennessee by only 20-27. Also regarded as mid-majors were Clemson, 9-0-1 (344-76), who beat U of Miami 9-1-1 (251-97) in the Orange Bowl. Also, Michigan State, a former mid-major now beginning the process of joining the Big Ten, was 8-1 (243-107).

Would there have been a big cry for a Tennessee-Kentucky rematch? How about a four-team tourney including Army and Oklahoma? I think that with all those one loss teams at the top, the fans and writers might have bene persuaded to do that. Match Oklahoma and Tennessee, (which Vautravers said should have been the Sugar Bowl match-up) and Kentucky with Army. The Vols deserved the #1 ranking and #1 seed but you are splitting hairs to rank them as the best one loss team and handing them the championship. Besides, who doesn’t want more football?

More Football:

Tennessee vs. Oklahoma
Tennessee beat Kentucky 7-0 who beat Oklahoma 13-7 = +13 for Tennessee
Tennessee beat Texas 20-14 who lost to Oklahoma 13-14 = +5 for Tennessee
Tennessee beat Alabama 14-9 who beat Mississippi State 14-7 who lost to Mississippi 20-27 who beat Texas Christian 19-7 who beat Kansas 14-7 who lost to Oklahoma 13-33 = +4 for Tennessee
Tennessee beat Duke 28-7 who beat Pittsburgh 28-14 who lost to Penn State 20-21 who lost to Nebraska 0-19 who lost to Oklahoma 35-49 = +1 for Tennessee
Tennessee beat Washington & Lee 27-20 who lost to Wyoming 7-20 who beat Baylor 7-0 who beat Texas A&M 27-20 who lost to Oklahoma 28-34 = +2 for Tennessee (all close but the same winner)
Result: +25/5 = Tennessee wins by 5.

Kentucky vs. Army
Kentucky lost to Tennessee 0-7 who be Duke 28-7 who beat Pittsburgh 28-14 who lost to Penn State 20-21 who lost to Army 7-41 = +7 for Army
Kentucky beat Oklahoma 13-7 who beat Boston College 28-0 who lost to Holy Cross 14-32 who lost to Colgate 28-35 who lost to Army 0-28 = +19 for Army
Kentucky beat Florida 40-6 who beat Duquesne 27-14 who lost to Boston University 7-21 who lost to Syracuse 7-13 who lost to Cornell 7-26 who beat Pennsylvania 13-6 who lost to Army 13-28 = Even
Kentucky beat Georgia Tech 28-14 who lost to Southern Methodist 13-33 who beat Ohio State 32-27 who lost to Michigan 3-9 who lost to Army 6-27 = +28 for Army
Kentucky beat Mississippi 27-0 who beat Boston College 54-0 who lost to Fordham 6-26 who beat San Francisco 21-14 who lost to Stanford 7-55 who lost to Army 0-7 = +13 for Kentucky
Result: +41/5 = Army wins by 8.

Tennessee vs. Army
Tennessee beat Kentucky 7-0 who beat Villanova 34-7 who beat St. Mary’s 13-7 who lost to California 25-40 who tied Stanford 7-7 who lost to Army 0-7 = +18 for Tennessee
Tennessee beat Texas 20-14 who beat Purdue 34-26 who lost to Wisconsin 7-33 who lost to Michigan 13-26 who lost to Army 6-27 = +46 for Army
Tennessee beat Alabama 14-9 who beat Florida 41-13 who beat Duquesne 27-14 who lost to Boston U. 7-21 who lost to Syracuse 7-13 who lost to Colgate 14-19 who lost to Army 0-28 = +7 for Army
Tennessee beat Washington & Lee 27-20 who beat West Virginia 26-7 who lost to Maryland 0-41 beat Navy 35-21 who lost to Pennsylvania 7-30 who lost to Army 13-28 = +39 for Army
Tennessee beat Duke 28-7 who beat Pittsburgh 28-14 who lost to Penn State 20-21 who lost to Army 7-41 = Even
Result: -74= Army wins the national championship by 15 points. An upset but a decisive one.


This imaginary result ends the era of 1943-50 in which Army and Notre Dame won three national championships and Michigan won the other two.

 

[SWC75]

1951

1951 College Football National Championship

1951 NCAA football rankings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fixing the 1951 AP Poll

If #3 beats #1, do they become #1 or does #2 become #1? That’s one question. Another is that #3 defeated #2 decisively, (34-7), in #3’s own place - but they did it the previous year. Should that matter?

#1 was Bob Neyland’s Tennessee, who likely would have been ranked #1 in post-bowl poll in 1950. They tore through their ten-game schedule, out-scoring their opponents 373-88, winning every game by at least two touchdowns. #2 was Michigan State, a former mid-major who had joined the Big ten under ex-Syracuse coach Biggie Munn, (who brought the entire SU staff there in 1946). They went 9-0, struggling with their new level of opposition but finding ways to win, outscoring their opponents 270-114, with four wins of a touchdown or less. They did impress in beating Woody Hayes’ first Ohio State team in Columbus, 24-20 and blowing away Frank Leahy’s rebuilding Notre Dame team 35-0 in nationally televised games. Those are the games that got them their #2 ranking. They didn’t win the Big 10 title because they weren’t yet playing enough Big Ten games and they couldn’t go anywhere but the Rose Bowl being a member of the conference, so their season ended there. They’d finished 8-1 the previous year, their one loss to another upstart, Jim Tatum’s Maryland team, who also went 9-0 against a weak schedule, outscoring their opponents 353-62, with only one close game, a 14-7 win over Tatum’s Alma Mater, North Carolina, who had beaten the terps 11 times in a row.

Also in the mix were the actual Big Ten Champions, Illinois, tied by Ohio State 0-0, who went 8-0-1, (180-76) and Georgia Tech, tied 14-14 by Duke who went 10-0-1 (278-76). They were ranked 4th and 5th. Also undefeated were 9-0 (310-82), Princeton with Heisman Trophy winner Dick Kazmaier and 9-0 (286-72), San Francisco, with future pro football stars Ollie Matson, Gino Marchetti, Bob St. Clair and Ed Brown. They were ranked #6 and #14 in the AP Poll. The coaches had the same ranking for each team, except they had Illinois ranked ahead of Maryland.

Then came the bowls. The big result came in the Sugar Bowl where Maryland rolled over Tennessee 28-13 after building up a 21-0 lead. Illinois broke open a close game against 9-1 Stanford in the Rose Bowl, scoring 27 fourth quarter points to win 40-7. Georgia Tech beat 8-1-1 Baylor 17-14 in the Orange Bowl. Michigan State, Princeton and San Francisco watched on TV, the latter going uninvited because of their use of black players, which the southern bowls didn’t want. On top of that, their school had opted to give up football, so the Dons went out undefeated.

Vautravers sees this as a straight comparison between Maryland and Michigan State and chooses Maryland. Obviously a game between them would have resolved things but should Illinois and Georgia Tech be left out of it because of their ties? I’d put Princeton and San Francisco in my mythical “Pesci Bowl” as the best of the mid-majors and opt for a four-team playoff with tech playing Maryland and State going for an informal Big Ten title against Illinois. Maybe the public would, too, due to the prominence of the Big Ten: how could the champion of the most prestigious conference not be their highest rated team? And Tech would find out if Maryland was for real or if their win over Tennessee was a fluke.

Update:

Michigan State vs. Illinois
Michigan State beat Michigan 25-0 who lost to Illinois 0-7 = +18 for Michigan State
Michigan State beat Ohio State 24-20 who tied Illinois 0-0 = +4 for Michigan State
Michigan State beat Indiana 30-26 who lost to Illinois 0-21 = -17 for Illinois
Michigan State beat Notre Dame 35-0 who beat Southern California 19-12 who lost to Stanford 20-27 who lost to Illinois 7-40 = +2 for Michigan State
Michigan State beat Colorado 45-7 who lost to Northwestern 14-35 who lost to Wisconsin 0-41 who lost to Illinois 10-14 = +28 for Illinois
Result: +21/5 for Illinois who wins by 5 points.

Maryland vs. Georgia Tech
Maryland beat Georgia 43-7 who lost to Georgia Tech 6-48 = +6 for Georgia Tech
Maryland beat Louisiana State 27-0 who lost to Georgia Tech 7-25 = +9 for Maryland
Maryland beat Washington & Lee 54-14 who beat Virginia Tech 60-0 who lost to Virginia Military 7-20 who lost to Georgia Tech 7-34 = +60 for Maryland
Maryland beat West Virginia 54-7 who lost to South Carolina 13-34 who beat Wake Forest 21-6 who lost to Baylor 0-42 who lost to Georgia Tech 14-17 = +4 for Georgia Tech
Maryland beat Tennessee 28-13 who beat Kentucky 28-0 who lost to Georgia Tech 7-13 = +37 for Maryland
Result: +96/5 for Maryland who wins by 19 points.

Maryland vs. Illinois
Maryland beat Tennessee 28-13 who beat Mississippi State 14-0 who beat Tulane 10-7 who beat Holy Cross 20-14 who beat Fordham 54-20 who lost to Syracuse 20-33 who lost to Illinois 20-41 = +38 for Maryland
Maryland beat Louisiana State 27-0 who beat Rice 7-6 who beat Texas A&M 28-13 who beat UCLA 21-14 who lost to Illinois 13-27 = +36 for Maryland
Maryland beat Washington & Lee 54-14 who beat Richmond 39-7 who lost to William & Mary 14-20 who beat Pennsylvania 20-12 who lost to Wisconsin 7-16 who lost to Illinois 10-14 = +61 for Maryland
Maryland beat Georgia 43-7 who beat North Carolina 28-16 who lost to Notre Dame 7-12 who beat Southern California 19-12 who lost to Stanford 20-27 who lost to Illinois 7-40 = +10 for Maryland
Maryland beat West Virginia 54-7 who lost to Pittsburgh 12-32 who lost to Ohio State 14-16 who tied Illinois 0-0 = +25 Maryland
Result: +170/5 for Maryland who wins by 34 points.