Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS" in English language version.
The AP poll of sports writers was originated in 1936 and the UPI poll of coaches was begun in 1950. Representing the combined opinions of observers across the country, they are the most popularly accepted electors to mythical national title honors. Prior to the polls, the Rissman and Knute Rockne trophies, symbolized the championship from 1924 to 1936.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)The final revision of the AZZI RATEM System was completed in the spring of 1936. This revision was used to re-rate previous years.
Now the Orange Bowl is ecstatic, for right there on the Poly-Turf it has the absolute grand final battle for No. 1, the only bowl game that will truly matter among the eight or 10 thousand others to be staged through the holidays.
No. 1 Randolph Field 958, No. 2 Army 951 — The ratings listed here have been computed by a method devised by the author. It consists of a combination of a modification of the Dickinson method plus one used by the author for several years. This combination has proved highly accurate.
2 – Football: 2010, 1957
Briefly, the Bowl Coalition has been replaced by the Bowl Alliance, which will spread five conference champions (ACC, Big East, Big Eight, Southeastern, Southwest) plus Notre Dame around three different bowls. The championship game between the Nos. 1 and 2 alliance teams will be rotated among the Fiesta (this year), Sugar (1996) and Orange (1997) bowls. Unlike the coalition, the alliance has eliminated conference tie-ins to its respective bowls.
Boston College, Minnesota and Stanford were all crowned as "National Champions" by various media outlets – and each school has a case for the right to fly the 1940 championship banner. In the East and South, sentiment was strong in favor of the Eagles: the sports editor of the New York Herald Tribune wrote that the victory over Tennessee "entitled Boston College to be the undefeated champions of the United States." Twenty-five years after the Sugar Bowl game, in 1966, The Boston Globe sponsored a gala downtown honoring the declared 1940 National Champions. [...] But now – 75 years later – let's all raise our glasses and our voices to a National Championship pennant that can fly proudly and rightfully in Chestnut Hill.
1940 — An undefeated (11–0) season, capped by the Sugar Bowl championship and the claim of a national championship made this arguably the greatest season in Eagle football annals. [...] On Jan. 1, the Eagles would lay claim to the national championship with a 19–13 victory over Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl.
Football, however, is not a game where a great national championship is possible or desirable. The very nature of the sport would forbid anything like such a series of contests as are played in baseball.
Harvard and the Army Powerful, 1914 | Although the Army was the only one of the larger teams to win all games, the majority of the critics favored Harvard for the championship.(Note: The author, Alexander Weyand, was an All-American player on the Army team in 1914.)
1917 The famous 'Golden Tornado' of Georgia 'Tech.' coached by John W. Heisman (Pennsylvania) gained national recognition through the overwhelming defeat of Pennsylvania, and was entitled to rank with Pittsburgh as the best in the nation.
Undoubtedly the most spectacular team was Notre Dame, ranked by some critics as the strongest team in the country at the close of the season.
1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1937
Data created by: World Almanac
Data created by: Alexander M. Weyand — Data obtained from: "The Real National Champions"
The College Football Playoff is administered by the FBS conferences and the University of Notre Dame which are members of CFP Administration, LLC.
Handcrafted piece of art to serve as new, iconic symbol of postseason college football
The Buckeyes (14-2) finished the season ranked No. 1 in the 2024 Congrove Computer Rankings by just 0.03 points over Oregon (13-1)
The undefeated 1928 U-D squad was deemed a Co-national champion, along with Georgia Tech, by Parker [sic] Davis.
LSU was able to beat Ohio State (38-24) to claim its second BCS championship, but it was USC that finished with the top rating in the Index after dismantling Illinois in the Rose Bowl (49-17). The Trojans' domination of the Illini -- a team that had beaten Ohio State on the road during the final weeks of the regular season -- vaulted USC to the top spot while the Tigers finished No. 2.
The American Football Coaches Association Honors The National Football Champion — Texas A&M University — 1939
During college football's Poll Era, the NFF MacArthur Bowl Committee selected the recipient of the trophy. With the advent of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) in 1998, the national championship game has determined which team claimed the MacArthur Bowl, a tradition that will continue with the adoption of the College Football Playoff.
Since 1959, the MacArthur Bowl has been presented annually by The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame to the outstanding college football team of the season.
The 1927, 1946, 1968 teams were also recognized as National Champions but these were not consensus and thus not officially recognized as National Championships.
5 National Championships (1914, 1916, 1944, 1945, & 1946)
Columbia has claimed two mythical national championships: in 1875 and 1933. The 1875 team went 4–1–1 and was named national champions, while the 1933 squad defeated Stanford and was referred to as a national champ.
Washington officially claims two national championships in football: 1960 and 1991.
National Championships – 1926, 1940
The 1926 team was declared national champions by the Dickinson System, Helms Athletic Foundation, National Championship Foundation and Sagarin Ratings. Although Minnesota was declared national champions in the final 1940 Associated Press Poll, which was the best-known and most widely circulated poll of sportswriters and broadcasters in determining the national champion, Stanford was recognized as national champions by the Billingsley Report, Helms Athletic Foundation and Poling System.
In 1969, President Nixon was the decider of the national championship
This ranking is not based only on comparative scores, but on style of play, conditions under which games were contested, relative importance of games on the schedule—especially with regard to each teams's "big" game, for which it was particularly trained—as well as the season's all-round record of the elevens under discussion. My particular interest in the study is its object lesson on comparative football development throughout the country. No college is eligible for consideration here whose disregard of wholesome sport has been patent and persistent, or whose team has played an ineligible man.
The American Football Coaches Association Honors The National Football Champion — Texas Christian University — 1935
The American Football Coaches Association Honors The National Football Champion — Texas Christian University — 1938
{{cite sign}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)"After more than six months' discussion, UPI and AFCA have ended the joint polling effort which began in 1950," said Milt Capps, senior vice president for UPI, a wire service agency. For more than 40 years, UPI sportswriters gathered votes from coaches each week, tallied the results and reported them. But UPI's rankings now will be determined by the votes of the sportswriters independent of the AFCA, which will produce its own, separate coaches rankings.
In today's modern era, three undefeated teams with nearly identical records would cause a stir among fans and pollsters alike. This was the case when Navy earned its lone national championship in 1926, as the Midshipmen shared the honor with Stanford and Alabama.
A 7–7 tie between Alabama and Stanford in the 1926 Rose Bowl gave the Cardinal a 10–0–1 mark, while the Crimson Tide and the Mids each had identical 9–0–1 records.
The [Army–Navy Game] tie gave the Midshipmen a share of the national championship, as a pair of polls (sic), Boand and Houlgate, named Navy the national champion.
The criteria for being included in this historical list of poll selectors is that the poll be national in scope, either through distribution in newspaper, television, radio and/or computer online. The list includes both former selectors, who were instrumental in the sport of college football, and selectors who were among the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) selectors.
Since 1950 — AP, UPI, FW, NFF, USA/CNN, USA/ESPN, USA
Nation's sports writers pick Notre Dame football team as champions by record vote; Trophy awarded in New York January second.
[Carlisle was] defeated by Harvard last Saturday, which gives the Crimson the best chance for national championship honors this year.
The move gave MU a 10–0 season record and a 7–0 record in league play.
Texas, the nation's No. 1 team, will play Arkansas the No. 3 club, while Penn State, ranked second, waits for either to falter. The UPI national championship will be decided next Tuesday. Ratings are based on regular season performances and do not include post season play.
With the football season at an end, the critics are busily engaged in reviewing the various big games and in rating the leading elevens according to merit.
To each member of the team was presented from admiring alumni gold footballs with the inscription, "National Champions."
[The Bonniwell Trophy] is "to be awarded in such years as produces a team whose standing is so preeminent as to make its selection as champion of America beyond dispute."
Southern California's 21–12 victory over Tulane brought the Trojans the Albert Russell Erskine football trophy and the national grid championship for 1931. Presentation of the trophy was made in front of the Trojan rooting section following the game by William R. Moorehouse, member of the Erskine award board. The Erskine award brought a Studebaker President eight sedan to Coach Howard Jones, an engraved cup to the University of Southern California and a scroll signifying the national championship to the Trojan team.
List of the 11 split national titles since 1950: 1954, 1957, 1965, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1978, 1990, 1991, 1997, 2003
1950 Oklahoma, 1951 Tennessee, 1953 Maryland, 1960 Minnesota, 1964 Alabama
That Dream Match—the No. 1 team against the No. 2 outfit in the Rose Bowl—remained a reality today... but just barely. [...] Because the race is so tight, the final AP poll of the season won't be released until after the Jan. 1 bowl games.
Only luck ensures one of the many current bowl games gets the No. 1 and No. 2 teams to play each other.
The William F. Boand trophy... in recognition of the Bucks as the No. 1 football team of 1954 according to Board's Azzi Ratem system. Byron F. Boyd, editor of the Football News, will make the presentation
Places Dartmouth at the top of the column
The Foreman and Clark trophy, emblematic of the National football championship, won by SMU in 1935, will be sent to LSU. The Tigers were awarded the trophy for the past season under the ratings of Deke Houlgate, Los Angeles, grid statistician.
No Undisputable National Champions Picked; Sugar Bowl Game One of Best
At the curtain of the 1936 football season, again like for 1935, the Williamson Rating System does not name any team that could be consistently called the out and out national football champion.
Alabama 123.0, Ohio State 122.8, Notre Dame 116.5
1. Ohio State 114.3
1. Michigan 115.2
1. Nebraska 145.8, 2. Penn State 144.0
The poll was extended for another week because of the select quality of last Saturday's games, three of which had a direct bearing on the ranking.
Southern California is king of 1967 college football. [...] Tennessee, 8–1 with one regular season game remaining before its Orange Bowl date with Oklahoma, received 11 first-place votes.
In the final Associated Press football ranking poll of the year, ninety sports writers and editors chose Notre Dame as the nation's No. 1 team with Duke in third place. Texas Christian, which hoped for a Rose bowl bid, came in between them.
The AP's final poll of the top ten teams, released Dec. 8 at the conclusion of the regulation season, resulted in Notre Dame Winning first place with 1,410 points. Michigan was second with 1,289. While the latest poll—which will be released to afternoon papers of Tuesday, Jan. 6—will not supersede the regular season-end poll, it is intended to serve as a final summing up of the opinion on the two teams.
This post-season poll, conducted by the Associated Press by popular demand after Michigan thumped Southern California in the Rose bowl, 49–0, doesn't supersede the weekly A. P. poll held during the regular season. The final poll released Dec. 8 gave Notre Dame 1410 points for first place, with Michigan 1289 for second. The Irish had just polished off Southern California 38–7.
Another poll will be staged after this week's few remaining games and the final balloting, determining the national championship, will be held after the bowl games on New Year's Day. The decision to delay the final poll until after the New Year was made because of the broad growth of the post-season attractions and the involvement of most of the teams in the Top Ten. Actually, eight of the Top Ten will be in action after the regular season.
Ironically, when the Tide won last year, the poll was taken at the close of the regular season and 'Bama went on to lose to Texas in the Orange Bowl. This year the final poll of the season was conducted after the New Year's bowl games—the first time it had been held until after the bowls—because the six top teams were in action New Year's Day.
Last year, the AP took a post-Bowl game poll because Michigan State and Alabama were involved in Bowl games. This year, with the No. 1 and 2 teams not in Bowl games, so no post-season poll is planned.
The college football coaches poll, carried by United Press International since 1950, will now be distributed by USA Today.
The game would be patronized by a packed house, regardless of what city it is staged in, played up as the championship game of the season and for the benefit of some worthy cause
'It's our stated purpose to match the two highest ranked teams possible,' [Orange Bowl team selection committee chairman Jack] Baldwin said. 'Naturally, we'd like the national championship game if we could get it.'
The clause prohibits a team from playing in the [Rose Bowl] more than once in two years
This is a classic example of the Orange Bowl extending the invitation too early when they could have had the national championship game. The Orange Bowl has done this two years in a row.
Two great football teams. Leland Stanford and Notre Dame, undisputed champions of the Pacific coast and middle west, respectively, will clash in the Rose bowl here tomorrow for national gridiron supremacy.
With the Gridiron Championship of the Nation at stake, the Irish eleven of Notre Dame and the team from Leland Stanford University, at Palo Alto, will do battle in the Rose Bowl here this afternoon in the annual East-West football classic of the Tournament of Roses.
With the Albert Russell Erskine national football championship at stake, Tulane University's Green Wave today met the University of Southern California Trojans at the Pasadena Rose Bowl.
The ratings made long in advance of the Tournament of Roses game New Year's day placed Southern California first and Tulane second but when these two teams met in a 'natural' Rose bowl game, it was decided that if Tulane could overrule Dickinson's rating, he would stand corrected and give the trophy to the New Orleans lads.
A trophy symbolic of the mythical national football championship will be awarded to the winner of the Southern California–Pittsburgh game at Pasadena by Jack Rissman, wealthy Chicago sportsman who donated the Dickinson rating cup.
All that is needed now to make the football season a complete success is for someone to figure out a system to declare Colgate the undisputed national champion and to give the Red Raiders a trophy indicative of the same. [...] More national champions, more systems of picking them and more trophies to give them have long been the crying need of football. [...] It might even be worked out so Slippery Rock and Knox could have very fine trophies for their Y.M.C.A. trophy rooms. [...] Under the Beale system, I hereby award the national football championship to Bucknell (dear old alma mater)
Jack Rissman, a Chicago merchant, said that thus far the Trojans are slightly in the lead in the race for the trophy, which is now known as the Knute Rockne Cup, and can clinch the honor only by defeating the Irish Saturday.
Although Southern California's Trojans defeated Notre Dame today to finish their regular season undefeated and untied, the University of Michigan tonight was declared winner of the Knute. K. Rockne memorial trophy, symbolic of the national football championship, under the Dickinson rating system.
The result should establish one or the other definitely as the country's greatest football team—college or service. A crowd of 50,000 is expected to watch this unofficial championship battle at Notre Dame Stadium.
...the big battle for the service championship and, with it, the undisputed National collegiate grid gonfalon for 1944.
Football spotlight will be on Yankee Stadium Saturday when nation's two outstanding gridiron powers clash...to the average fan the only thing that matters will be the national championship struggle between Army and Notre Dame.
With Texas and Navy ready to battle for college football's unofficial championship... Unbeaten Texas will have to fend off the East's best to remain first in the minds of the nation's fans.
Darrel Royal's eyes flashed when he said it: 'We aren't a bit afraid to put it on the line.' He was discussing the question of whether the national championship would be decided when his Texas football team plays Navy in the Cotton Bowl Wednesday.
...college football's version of the Super Bowl. It will take place on New Year's Night in Miami's Orange Bowl when the two leaders clash for the national championship.
...it was decided not to award a championship by ballot but rather to let these teams meet on the field and play for the MacArthur Bowl.
"A championship can only truly be settled on the playing field." Richard Kazmaier, chairman of the awards committee, said in announcing that this year the committee would not vote for the MacArthur Bowl winner.
Alabama, 11–1, toppled previously top-ranked Penn State, 14–7, in the Sugar Bowl game that was billed as the battle for the championship because the Nittany Lions went into the game ranked No. 1 and Alabama was rated No. 2.
No. 1–ranked unbeaten and untied Georgia and No. 2–ranked once-beaten Penn State meet in the Sugar Bowl New Year's night for what is being billed as "the national championship game."
Brigham Young's opponents as a group have a losing record; how can a team like that be the national champion?" said Nick Crane, chairman of the team selection committee. "As far as the Orange Bowl is concerned, we think ours is a national championship game (between No. 2 Oklahoma and No. 4 Washington).
In the minds of most people, tonight's Orange Bowl game between No. 1 Penn State and No. 3 Oklahoma will decide the national championship. ... here in sunny and warm Miami everyone is calling the Orange Bowl the national championship game.
Monday afternoon's Fiesta Bowl between No. 1 Notre Dame and No. 3 West Virginia, both 11–0, is billed as the national championship game.
We're billing this as the alliance national championship, which it is. Obviously if Michigan loses, it becomes the national championship. If they win, we're hoping for a split in the polls.
No wonder "mythical" is the word that often precedes national title. "There is no official standard because there is no official national champion," said Kent Stephens, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend. "It all depends on the standard the school wishes to utilize. The national champion is in the eye of the beholder."
[T]he game will come closer than any other that will be played to identifying the national champion.
'The Eagles not only earned the national championship but they proved the greatest team ever to play in the Sugar Bowl,' said Fred Digby of the New Orleans Item.
Tulane University, the pride of the south, is gridiron champion of the United States, the national football standings show.
Last year Stanford was [Houlgate's] choice and the presentation of the trophy was scheduled to take place after the Alabama–Stanford battle.
the St. Vincent College Bearcats of Latrobe, Pa., are the undisputed national champions: By arithmetic
Final ratings: 1. Tulane, B, 36
Thirty-five of the nation's foremost football coaches will rate the country's top collegiate football teams each week for the United Press this coming season.
Well, the college football world can stop arguing about who will be No. 1 after today's Rose Bowl game.
When the University of Iowa rose to No. 1 in The Associated Press and the United Press International college football rankings last week, it was reason for elation across the state. ... The polls, since the first one began 50 years ago this month, have been the prime measuring stick for determining the champion, albeit an unofficial one.
The American Football Coaches Association, acting on a proposal by United Press International, has voted to permit member coaches to extend their future U.P.I. rankings of the top 10 teams to include results of postseason bowl games. Since their Inception in 1950, rankings by the U.P.I. board of 35 coaches—five from each of the nation's seven geographical areas—have ended each year with the final Saturday of the regular season. This action will conform with the practice of the Associated Press, whose final ratings based on the votes of sports writers and broadcasters, include the bowl results. — A.F.C.A. members for many years expressed preference for including only regular-season games in the U.P.I. board's final rankings, A factor in the decision was the circumstance of first-ranked Alabama losing to fourth-ranked Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl this season. — In a separate action, the A.F.C.A. recommended that no votes be cast by them or anyone else for football teams the National Collegiate A.A. has placed on probation, with sanctions, for violating the N.C.A.A. code.
By Wednesday, Wikipedia—perhaps the only factual authority still widely accepted in 2018—identified Central Florida's claimed national title. Got a problem with that?
Ohio State's National Champion Teams: 2014, 2002, 1970, 1968, 1961, 1957, 1954, 1942
Seven-Time National Champions
National Championships – 18 – 1925, 1926, 1930, 1934, 1941, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978, 1979, 1992, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2020
Coaches of top teams have long pretended they did not care about national rankings, but Notre Dame vs. Michigan State has changed that, and this season's excitement centers on the battle to be No. 1
The nation's two top teams, Ohio State and Southern California, get a rare opportunity to settle which is the best as an entire season of undefeated play comes down to their face-to-face clash in Pasadena.
In 1917, after Pitt beat Penn 14–6 in October, the march toward a quasi–national championship game began. In a column in The Atlanta Constitution, Dick Jemison first proposed the idea. The notion caught on. Frank Menke in the Pittsburgh Press wrote...
In recognition of their outstanding ability on the gridiron, the Mustangs were awarded several trophies, most significant being the coveted national championship honors. SMU is the first Southwest team to receive the Knute K. Rockne Memorial Trophy. Equally prized is the Deke Houlgate Cup, which designates the Ponies national champions of 1935.
National Championships: 3 (1935, 1981 & 1982)
Iowa Quick Facts – National Champions: 1921, 1922, 1956, 1958, 1960 | the Hawkeyes were named national champions by the Football Writers Association in 1958, and by various rating services in 1921, 1922, 1956, and 1960. | Mythical National Champions – Iowa football has been voted mythical national champions by different media services on five occasions. 1921, 1922, 1956, 1958, 1960
The FWAA will not give out a trophy to the national champion moving forward, but with this poll we may have some influence on just which team is holding the ultimate trophy on the night of Jan. 12.
1934, 1935, 1936 — University of Minnesota
1 Auburn — 72.49 — Co-Champion* | 2 Oregon — 71.42 — Co-Champion* | *David Rothman wrote: "Teams within 1.8 points of the leader automatically share FACT's title. Any other teams within 3.0 points of the leader share at my discretion."
1 Ohio State — 81.81 — FACT Cochampion* | 2 Oregon — 80.67 — FACT Cochampion* | 3 Alabama – 79.45 – FACT Cochampion* | 4 TCU – 79.35 – FACT Cochampion* | *David Rothman wrote: "Teams within 1.8 points of the leader automatically share FACT's title. Any other teams within 3.0 points of the leader share at my discretion."
The Albert Russell [sic] Eskine Trophy, emblematic of the national football championship as determined by 250 sports writers, will be presented to Notre Dame, 1929 winner, at the Pittsburgh–Notre Dame basketball game in this city, February 8.
On Not Finishing No. 1 – "While there is certainly some disappointment about not finishing No. 1, we prefer to look on the positive side."
Each will be out to the limit in speed, stamina and spirit to capture the honors in this classic which could rightfully be heralded as for the national football championship.
Rod Williamson, Vanderbilt's Director of Athletic Communications: 'All this said, it seems to us that to suddenly declare, as others would view it, that we have won two national championships when we had not recognized them before would be anticlimactic, after the fact. Personally, I'd like to take a middle-of-the-road approach where we let history write itself, but we come up short of modifying our record book.'
...under an agreement hammered out yesterday by the College Football Bowl Coalition that also provides enhanced opportunity for a national championship game.
The triumphant Miami and Washington teams exulted on separate coasts yesterday, each celebrating the outcome of at least one major poll that proclaimed it the national college football champion for 1991.
The College Football Playoff is administered by the FBS conferences and the University of Notre Dame which are members of CFP Administration, LLC.
In 1969, President Nixon was the decider of the national championship
When the University of Iowa rose to No. 1 in The Associated Press and the United Press International college football rankings last week, it was reason for elation across the state. ... The polls, since the first one began 50 years ago this month, have been the prime measuring stick for determining the champion, albeit an unofficial one.
[Carlisle was] defeated by Harvard last Saturday, which gives the Crimson the best chance for national championship honors this year.
Coaches of top teams have long pretended they did not care about national rankings, but Notre Dame vs. Michigan State has changed that, and this season's excitement centers on the battle to be No. 1
With the football season at an end, the critics are busily engaged in reviewing the various big games and in rating the leading elevens according to merit.
To each member of the team was presented from admiring alumni gold footballs with the inscription, "National Champions."
[The Bonniwell Trophy] is "to be awarded in such years as produces a team whose standing is so preeminent as to make its selection as champion of America beyond dispute."
The Albert Russell [sic] Eskine Trophy, emblematic of the national football championship as determined by 250 sports writers, will be presented to Notre Dame, 1929 winner, at the Pittsburgh–Notre Dame basketball game in this city, February 8.
Nation's sports writers pick Notre Dame football team as champions by record vote; Trophy awarded in New York January second.
Southern California's 21–12 victory over Tulane brought the Trojans the Albert Russell Erskine football trophy and the national grid championship for 1931. Presentation of the trophy was made in front of the Trojan rooting section following the game by William R. Moorehouse, member of the Erskine award board. The Erskine award brought a Studebaker President eight sedan to Coach Howard Jones, an engraved cup to the University of Southern California and a scroll signifying the national championship to the Trojan team.
1934, 1935, 1936 — University of Minnesota
List of the 11 split national titles since 1950: 1954, 1957, 1965, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1978, 1990, 1991, 1997, 2003
1950 Oklahoma, 1951 Tennessee, 1953 Maryland, 1960 Minnesota, 1964 Alabama
Washington officially claims two national championships in football: 1960 and 1991.
That Dream Match—the No. 1 team against the No. 2 outfit in the Rose Bowl—remained a reality today... but just barely. [...] Because the race is so tight, the final AP poll of the season won't be released until after the Jan. 1 bowl games.
Only luck ensures one of the many current bowl games gets the No. 1 and No. 2 teams to play each other.
Briefly, the Bowl Coalition has been replaced by the Bowl Alliance, which will spread five conference champions (ACC, Big East, Big Eight, Southeastern, Southwest) plus Notre Dame around three different bowls. The championship game between the Nos. 1 and 2 alliance teams will be rotated among the Fiesta (this year), Sugar (1996) and Orange (1997) bowls. Unlike the coalition, the alliance has eliminated conference tie-ins to its respective bowls.
Handcrafted piece of art to serve as new, iconic symbol of postseason college football
The Difference By Score System
The William F. Boand trophy... in recognition of the Bucks as the No. 1 football team of 1954 according to Board's Azzi Ratem system. Byron F. Boyd, editor of the Football News, will make the presentation
In recognition of their outstanding ability on the gridiron, the Mustangs were awarded several trophies, most significant being the coveted national championship honors. SMU is the first Southwest team to receive the Knute K. Rockne Memorial Trophy. Equally prized is the Deke Houlgate Cup, which designates the Ponies national champions of 1935.
The Foreman and Clark trophy, emblematic of the National football championship, won by SMU in 1935, will be sent to LSU. The Tigers were awarded the trophy for the past season under the ratings of Deke Houlgate, Los Angeles, grid statistician.
The National Collegiate Football Championship Award — Based on the Top Ten Championship Poll of Nation's Sports Writers and Sportscasters — 1966: Notre Dame; 1967: USC; 1968: Ohio State; 1969: Texas; 1970: Nebraska; 1971: Nebraska; 1972: USC; 1973: Notre Dame; 1974: Oklahoma; 1975: Oklahoma; 1976: Pitt; 1977: Notre Dame
The FWAA will not give out a trophy to the national champion moving forward, but with this poll we may have some influence on just which team is holding the ultimate trophy on the night of Jan. 12.
During college football's Poll Era, the NFF MacArthur Bowl Committee selected the recipient of the trophy. With the advent of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) in 1998, the national championship game has determined which team claimed the MacArthur Bowl, a tradition that will continue with the adoption of the College Football Playoff.
Since 1959, the MacArthur Bowl has been presented annually by The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame to the outstanding college football team of the season.
The American Football Coaches Association Honors The National Football Champion — Texas Christian University — 1935
No Undisputable National Champions Picked; Sugar Bowl Game One of Best
The American Football Coaches Association Honors The National Football Champion — Texas Christian University — 1938
The American Football Coaches Association Honors The National Football Champion — Texas A&M University — 1939
Alabama 123.0, Ohio State 122.8, Notre Dame 116.5
1. Ohio State 114.3
1. Michigan 115.2
Dr. Litkenhous traditionally determines his system's national champion after the regular season ends. Texas won in 1977.
1. Nebraska 145.8, 2. Penn State 144.0
LSU was able to beat Ohio State (38-24) to claim its second BCS championship, but it was USC that finished with the top rating in the Index after dismantling Illinois in the Rose Bowl (49-17). The Trojans' domination of the Illini -- a team that had beaten Ohio State on the road during the final weeks of the regular season -- vaulted USC to the top spot while the Tigers finished No. 2.
1. Utah 11.164 | 2. Florida 10.898 Champion
While national champion (14-2) Ohio State had a much stronger finish, Big Ten champion (13-1) Oregon had the better overall, season-long results
1. Oregon 9.598 | 2. Ohio State 9.330 Tournament champ | 3. Notre Dame 8.655
The move gave MU a 10–0 season record and a 7–0 record in league play.
The poll was extended for another week because of the select quality of last Saturday's games, three of which had a direct bearing on the ranking.
Southern California is king of 1967 college football. [...] Tennessee, 8–1 with one regular season game remaining before its Orange Bowl date with Oklahoma, received 11 first-place votes.
In the final Associated Press football ranking poll of the year, ninety sports writers and editors chose Notre Dame as the nation's No. 1 team with Duke in third place. Texas Christian, which hoped for a Rose bowl bid, came in between them.
The AP's final poll of the top ten teams, released Dec. 8 at the conclusion of the regulation season, resulted in Notre Dame Winning first place with 1,410 points. Michigan was second with 1,289. While the latest poll—which will be released to afternoon papers of Tuesday, Jan. 6—will not supersede the regular season-end poll, it is intended to serve as a final summing up of the opinion on the two teams.
This post-season poll, conducted by the Associated Press by popular demand after Michigan thumped Southern California in the Rose bowl, 49–0, doesn't supersede the weekly A. P. poll held during the regular season. The final poll released Dec. 8 gave Notre Dame 1410 points for first place, with Michigan 1289 for second. The Irish had just polished off Southern California 38–7.
Another poll will be staged after this week's few remaining games and the final balloting, determining the national championship, will be held after the bowl games on New Year's Day. The decision to delay the final poll until after the New Year was made because of the broad growth of the post-season attractions and the involvement of most of the teams in the Top Ten. Actually, eight of the Top Ten will be in action after the regular season.
Ironically, when the Tide won last year, the poll was taken at the close of the regular season and 'Bama went on to lose to Texas in the Orange Bowl. This year the final poll of the season was conducted after the New Year's bowl games—the first time it had been held until after the bowls—because the six top teams were in action New Year's Day.
Last year, the AP took a post-Bowl game poll because Michigan State and Alabama were involved in Bowl games. This year, with the No. 1 and 2 teams not in Bowl games, so no post-season poll is planned.
Thirty-five of the nation's foremost football coaches will rate the country's top collegiate football teams each week for the United Press this coming season.
"After more than six months' discussion, UPI and AFCA have ended the joint polling effort which began in 1950," said Milt Capps, senior vice president for UPI, a wire service agency. For more than 40 years, UPI sportswriters gathered votes from coaches each week, tallied the results and reported them. But UPI's rankings now will be determined by the votes of the sportswriters independent of the AFCA, which will produce its own, separate coaches rankings.
The American Football Coaches Association, acting on a proposal by United Press International, has voted to permit member coaches to extend their future U.P.I. rankings of the top 10 teams to include results of postseason bowl games. Since their Inception in 1950, rankings by the U.P.I. board of 35 coaches—five from each of the nation's seven geographical areas—have ended each year with the final Saturday of the regular season. This action will conform with the practice of the Associated Press, whose final ratings based on the votes of sports writers and broadcasters, include the bowl results. — A.F.C.A. members for many years expressed preference for including only regular-season games in the U.P.I. board's final rankings, A factor in the decision was the circumstance of first-ranked Alabama losing to fourth-ranked Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl this season. — In a separate action, the A.F.C.A. recommended that no votes be cast by them or anyone else for football teams the National Collegiate A.A. has placed on probation, with sanctions, for violating the N.C.A.A. code.
The college football coaches poll, carried by United Press International since 1950, will now be distributed by USA Today.
The triumphant Miami and Washington teams exulted on separate coasts yesterday, each celebrating the outcome of at least one major poll that proclaimed it the national college football champion for 1991.
In 1917, after Pitt beat Penn 14–6 in October, the march toward a quasi–national championship game began. In a column in The Atlanta Constitution, Dick Jemison first proposed the idea. The notion caught on. Frank Menke in the Pittsburgh Press wrote...
The clause prohibits a team from playing in the [Rose Bowl] more than once in two years
This is a classic example of the Orange Bowl extending the invitation too early when they could have had the national championship game. The Orange Bowl has done this two years in a row.
With the Albert Russell Erskine national football championship at stake, Tulane University's Green Wave today met the University of Southern California Trojans at the Pasadena Rose Bowl.
Although Southern California's Trojans defeated Notre Dame today to finish their regular season undefeated and untied, the University of Michigan tonight was declared winner of the Knute. K. Rockne memorial trophy, symbolic of the national football championship, under the Dickinson rating system.
The result should establish one or the other definitely as the country's greatest football team—college or service. A crowd of 50,000 is expected to watch this unofficial championship battle at Notre Dame Stadium.
...the big battle for the service championship and, with it, the undisputed National collegiate grid gonfalon for 1944.
Darrel Royal's eyes flashed when he said it: 'We aren't a bit afraid to put it on the line.' He was discussing the question of whether the national championship would be decided when his Texas football team plays Navy in the Cotton Bowl Wednesday.
Texas, the nation's No. 1 team, will play Arkansas the No. 3 club, while Penn State, ranked second, waits for either to falter. The UPI national championship will be decided next Tuesday. Ratings are based on regular season performances and do not include post season play.
...college football's version of the Super Bowl. It will take place on New Year's Night in Miami's Orange Bowl when the two leaders clash for the national championship.
...it was decided not to award a championship by ballot but rather to let these teams meet on the field and play for the MacArthur Bowl.
Well, the college football world can stop arguing about who will be No. 1 after today's Rose Bowl game.
"A championship can only truly be settled on the playing field." Richard Kazmaier, chairman of the awards committee, said in announcing that this year the committee would not vote for the MacArthur Bowl winner.
Alabama, 11–1, toppled previously top-ranked Penn State, 14–7, in the Sugar Bowl game that was billed as the battle for the championship because the Nittany Lions went into the game ranked No. 1 and Alabama was rated No. 2.
No. 1–ranked unbeaten and untied Georgia and No. 2–ranked once-beaten Penn State meet in the Sugar Bowl New Year's night for what is being billed as "the national championship game."
Brigham Young's opponents as a group have a losing record; how can a team like that be the national champion?" said Nick Crane, chairman of the team selection committee. "As far as the Orange Bowl is concerned, we think ours is a national championship game (between No. 2 Oklahoma and No. 4 Washington).
In the minds of most people, tonight's Orange Bowl game between No. 1 Penn State and No. 3 Oklahoma will decide the national championship. ... here in sunny and warm Miami everyone is calling the Orange Bowl the national championship game.
Monday afternoon's Fiesta Bowl between No. 1 Notre Dame and No. 3 West Virginia, both 11–0, is billed as the national championship game.
We're billing this as the alliance national championship, which it is. Obviously if Michigan loses, it becomes the national championship. If they win, we're hoping for a split in the polls.
No wonder "mythical" is the word that often precedes national title. "There is no official standard because there is no official national champion," said Kent Stephens, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend. "It all depends on the standard the school wishes to utilize. The national champion is in the eye of the beholder."
By Wednesday, Wikipedia—perhaps the only factual authority still widely accepted in 2018—identified Central Florida's claimed national title. Got a problem with that?
On Not Finishing No. 1 – "While there is certainly some disappointment about not finishing No. 1, we prefer to look on the positive side."
Rod Williamson, Vanderbilt's Director of Athletic Communications: 'All this said, it seems to us that to suddenly declare, as others would view it, that we have won two national championships when we had not recognized them before would be anticlimactic, after the fact. Personally, I'd like to take a middle-of-the-road approach where we let history write itself, but we come up short of modifying our record book.'
National Championships – 18 – 1925, 1926, 1930, 1934, 1941, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978, 1979, 1992, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2020
Ohio State's National Champion Teams: 2014, 2002, 1970, 1968, 1961, 1957, 1954, 1942
Seven-Time National Champions
5 National Championships (1914, 1916, 1944, 1945, & 1946)
1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1937
Iowa Quick Facts – National Champions: 1921, 1922, 1956, 1958, 1960 | the Hawkeyes were named national champions by the Football Writers Association in 1958, and by various rating services in 1921, 1922, 1956, and 1960. | Mythical National Champions – Iowa football has been voted mythical national champions by different media services on five occasions. 1921, 1922, 1956, 1958, 1960
The 1927, 1946, 1968 teams were also recognized as National Champions but these were not consensus and thus not officially recognized as National Championships.
National Championships: 3 (1935, 1981 & 1982)
2 – Football: 2010, 1957
Columbia has claimed two mythical national championships: in 1875 and 1933. The 1875 team went 4–1–1 and was named national champions, while the 1933 squad defeated Stanford and was referred to as a national champ.
1940 — An undefeated (11–0) season, capped by the Sugar Bowl championship and the claim of a national championship made this arguably the greatest season in Eagle football annals. [...] On Jan. 1, the Eagles would lay claim to the national championship with a 19–13 victory over Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl.
The undefeated 1928 U-D squad was deemed a Co-national champion, along with Georgia Tech, by Parker [sic] Davis.
In today's modern era, three undefeated teams with nearly identical records would cause a stir among fans and pollsters alike. This was the case when Navy earned its lone national championship in 1926, as the Midshipmen shared the honor with Stanford and Alabama.
A 7–7 tie between Alabama and Stanford in the 1926 Rose Bowl gave the Cardinal a 10–0–1 mark, while the Crimson Tide and the Mids each had identical 9–0–1 records.
The [Army–Navy Game] tie gave the Midshipmen a share of the national championship, as a pair of polls (sic), Boand and Houlgate, named Navy the national champion.
Data created by: World Almanac
Data created by: Alexander M. Weyand — Data obtained from: "The Real National Champions"
Auburn received all six first place votes in The Eufaula Tribune's post season football poll, making them national champions.
1 Auburn — 72.49 — Co-Champion* | 2 Oregon — 71.42 — Co-Champion* | *David Rothman wrote: "Teams within 1.8 points of the leader automatically share FACT's title. Any other teams within 3.0 points of the leader share at my discretion."
1 Ohio State — 81.81 — FACT Cochampion* | 2 Oregon — 80.67 — FACT Cochampion* | 3 Alabama – 79.45 – FACT Cochampion* | 4 TCU – 79.35 – FACT Cochampion* | *David Rothman wrote: "Teams within 1.8 points of the leader automatically share FACT's title. Any other teams within 3.0 points of the leader share at my discretion."
The Difference By Score System
Around April of 1970 or 1971, I came up with the method now used. [...] Championships have been awarded on this basis by the Foundation for the Analysis of Competitions and Tournaments since the 1970s, and retroactive to 1968.
1. Oregon 9.598 | 2. Ohio State 9.330 Tournament champ | 3. Notre Dame 8.655
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