Re: Auburn Booster to Go After Bob Stoops if Auburn Loses Iron Bowl
Not the first time the Alabama student newspaper has been wrong.
Folks are kind of missing the point.
There were contemporary media references to Bama as National Champions after the game.
I assume (correct me if I'm wrong here) this is in reference to the 1926 Rose Bowl (I say this because years ago I saw a news clipping someone posted on here).
You're by no means wrong here.
To what they were referring, if anything, is unknown to me.
It appears to be quite a flexible or malleable term depending on precisely whom is doing the talking. Just note I'm doing some long-term research on newspaper searches that will either validate or modify what we're discussing just a bit here. Here's one example:
“To be frank about it, the verdict in favor of Yale (which was defeated by Georgia) was rendered in this column with the reservation that Pittsburgh was not really a representative of the ‘Eastern’ sector. The reservation was entirely mental, which seems to have been a mistake. On the record, Pitt has shown as much strength as Yale (which was defeated by Georgia). If the Panthers defeat Penn State and Yale (which was defeated by Georgia) wins from Harvard, the best way to settle the question of supremacy will be to chop the mythical crown in half and make a double presentation. One might start another argument by comparing the Pitt schedule with Yale (which was defeated by Georgia) schedule. But there are too many arguments on hand now. As for Georgia, it is the only major team from coast to coast with a record clear of ties or defeats so far in this campaign. If it gets by Alabama and Georgia Tech,
it can put in a reasonable bid for the mythical national championship. But the supremacy of the East is something for the Eastern teams to settle among themselves. The Bulldog and the Panther are leading in the balloting to date.” (John Kieran, New York Times, 16 November 1927, p 23)
That the term ("mythical national championship") existed is not in dispute.
That there were what we now call "polls" - or at least a modified version of such - is also not in dispute as the teams were clustered into what were called "tiers," and they were usually ranked geographically.
But by my own reckoning any team that was undefeated/untied with an 8+ game schedule then won the only post season game in the country, a truly national game (even though, IMO, the thought that the Rose Bowl was the de-facto NC game is overstated), has a legit claim. The contemporary references to Bama as NC only confirm my opinion.
Respectfully, even this is overstated - but fantastic on the admission that the Rose Bowl as an NC game is overstated because in those early days, Notre Dame and the Big Ten (known in ancient history as "The Western Conference") and most of the Eastern schools refused to play in the game. It's kind of hard to have a 'de facto championship game' when it's actually an exhibition tied to a parade showing flowers.
I'd be very interested (as I did see the clipping here years ago):
a) which specific paper is making the claim of a MNC
b) what criteria is being used
Is it an actual designation or is it hyperbole.....or is it a typical case of a regional newspaper angry at the regional bias inherent in the coverage at the time and using the fact that "a team from the South beat a team from the West, therefore national?"
IMO, anything between 1916 and 1935 is nebulous anyway but doesn't mean there are not legit claims, even if not exclusive.
I concur, but I'd probably move the date to around 1992 (more on this in a moment). However, for whatever reason - the proliferation of mass communication, the role of TV, whatever - at some point in history, the AP poll became accepted by pretty much everyone as some sort of standard as to the recognized champion, joined in the 1950s by the United Press (later UPI and now coach's poll).
But let me add that the word emphasized in this whole thing is not "championship," it's the word "claim." Tide fans like to talk about our legitimate "claims," but the only reason that word exists is because there was no recognized championship game at the time (unlike virtually all other sports).
At the same time, there needs to be a cognizance of what precisely happened. "Championship claim" is not the same as "best team in the country" or established as such in anything resembling an objective manner. One of the complaints registered by contemporary writers of the 1960s against Alabama was the tendency for the Southern voters to vote as a bloc for their teams (usually 1-2 at most). Eastern voters, by contrast, would divide their allegiances - of course the part never mentioned in most cases was the fact they had attended the schools upon which they were voting.
Once the AP began, I choose to acknowledge only wire service NCs, ignoring 1941, as well as any selectors who choose 1945, 1966, etc. Actually, Bama has been chosen by some national selector in 30 or 31 different years. Many are ridiculous.
This is an excellent summary as well. Where I part company is with the vocal segment of our fan base that pulls the old, "We never should have recognized 1941, we should recognize 1945" - which is just another way of saying, "We've got a total we're going to defend, and we will defend that total by any means necessary - oh and look at these other claims we could make," which does nothing to resolve anything.
The reason I say 1992 isn't because we won the title, it's because that was the first actual attempt to have a 1 vs 2 championship game, the Bowl Coalition. The national championships of 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1990 and 1991 were all disputed to some degree. So the schools that weren't bound to the Rose Bowl agreed to a selection process of squaring off the top two teams. That - in my view - is totally legitimate for a championship claim, just as much so as the BCS.
Let me be clear so nobody misunderstands me:
I have ZERO problem with us "claiming" or "recognizing" (probably a better word) whatever number of national titles we choose. I have no problem with any school doing this for some of the reasons you outline above. Furthermore, you will not find a more ardent defender of our disputed (by opposing fan bloggers) 1964 national championship and the whole "they lost the bowl game" nonsense (none of these jokers ever talks about 1950 Oklahoma, 1951 Tennessee, 1953 Maryland - or 1957 Auburn not playing in one because they were on probation).
The whole argument, though, needs to be framed more along the lines of what 81 is doing. Get them to commit FIRST to a methodology of counting. Scrybe did what OU fans have done for years and started with 1936. That is a completely legitimate argument as OU fans present it because it has always been consistent (how "objective" such criteria are is debatable because the assumption of that start date is that somehow the AP and/or UPI votes were legit in a way previous systems were not.....a finding that is laughable to put it mildly).
But we need to remember that in those older cases, the emphasis is on the word "claim", not on the words "national champions."
That's all I mean.
Here's a funny quote that everyone here will love:
“Alabama, according to reports of those who saw the Southern Conference champions in action, had one of the best defensive teams in the country, a fast, brawny eleven that was worthy of stacking up with the leaders. But unfortunately Alabama did not meet any opposition of a serious character and so just how good a team it was cannot be told until it journeys to the Pacific Coast in December.” (NYT, 11/28/1926, p 130).
Apparently, Alabama was expected to go play thousands of miles from home - and what makes this so funny is that the Eastern schools (Penn, Harvard, Yale, etc) were REFUSING to schedule "home and home" games back then because of the costs (travel, etc), but the Eastern newspaper is demanding Alabama play an extra game in Pasadena to show how good they are......in a game Eastern teams refuse to play.
It hasn't changed in a century, folks.
