A lot of people don't realize how successful Illini football was when Bob Zuppke was coaching them, (1913-41). A few years back I tried to collate the opinions of every source I could find on the internet and in the books I have on the history of college football to see who the consensus national champion was each year prior to the first AP, (writer's) poll in 1936, to bring the early history of the game into shaper focus. I found that, by this measure, Illinois had 'won' four national championship in this period.
I decided to take a look at which teams were chosen by the most selectors as national champions in the years before the AP Poll began in 1936, starting with 1906, which, with the formation of the NCAA and the legalization of the forward pass, is the real beginning of what we now know as “American Football”.
I’ll include the points accrued from these rankings for each team selected by somebody as a national champion for each year. The system I used is 25 points for finishing first in a poll, 24 for 2nd, 23 for 3rd, etc. down to 1 point for finishing 25th. I’ll also give 25 points for being picked as national champion by one of the sources below that only list their national champion picks. The “consensus” will be based on the number of selectors who chose a team first. The ranking points will be used to break ties.
1914
ILLINOIS 7-0-0 recognized by Dolphin, Entropy, Hatch, Libby, Parke Davis, Vautravers, Waits and Wilson (8) 214 ranking points.
ARMY 9-0-0 recognized by Helms, Houlgate, Leckie, National Championship Foundation, Parke Davis, Taylor and Vautravers (7) 358 ranking points.
HARVARD 7-0-2 recognized by Sorenson and Taylor (2) 239 ranking points.
AUBURN 8-0-1 recognized by Howell (1) 92 ranking points.
TEXAS 8-0-0 recognized by Billngsley (1) 157 ranking points.
Other teams that beat or tied them: Brown, (5-2-2), tied Harvard 0-0. Georgia, (3-5-1), tied Auburn 0-0. Penn State, (5-3-1), tied Harvard 13-13.
Top ten teams with similar records: Nebraska 8-0-1, Tennessee 9-0-0, Washington and Lee 9-0-0
Consensus National Champion: ILLINOIS, coached by Bob Zuppke, the first non-Ivy league consensus national champion. (But this is the first year the team picked as #1 by most selectors was not #1 in ranking points and it wasn’t even close. Basically, Illinois finished atop 6 of the 7 top 25’s but were chosen #1 by only two selectors who didn’t show a top 25. Army wasn’t #1 in any top 25 but was chosen #1 by 7 selectors who didn’t show a top 25. We don’t know how many ranking points Illinois might have accumulated from their top 25s if they chose them.)
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