Auburn Now Claims They Won The 1983 National Championship (And Two Others)

[BamaJama17]

The 1945 choice comes down to sentiment AND achievement. Army was the beloved team for a lot of great reasons at the time - but they also played a really tough schedule and dominated.

Yes, Alabama did everything that it could do that year in that it beat every team that it faced convincingly, but giving Alabama that championship would be like giving Boise State a championship now when you have an undefeated SEC team out there. I had not even considered 1977 until now. I will have to do a little research on that season.

The first part is right. However the second part you wrong.

Trying to make a Boise State comparison is just completely inaccurate. You can't compare the WAC and Mountain West to the SEC. By 1945 4 teams in the SEC had already won NC's.

Alabama- 1925, 1926, 1930, & 1934. I'll leave off 1941.

Georgia- 1942

Georgia Tech- 1917 & 1928

Tennessee- 1938

All of those teams had also made Rose Bowl appearances as well.

Also Alabama played a total of 4 ranked teams in 1945.

#14 Tennessee 8-1-0
#15 LSU 7-2-0
#18 Georgia 9-2-0
#11 USC 7-3-0

Bottom line is that it was nothing more than politics and a jab at southern football. Alabama had just as much to claim that title as Army does.


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[BamaMoon]

I doubt this debate can ever be settled to everyone's liking.

But this much we know Bama has as many undisputed NCs than most team can ever dream about.

If I'm talking to a Barner about it I just admit a couple of them are debatable, but that doesn't mean we don't have more than just about any team in college football history!!!

 

[NationalTitles18]

Article from SI in 1967:

http://www.cnnsi.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1080269/1/index.htm

Please noted the list on the righthand side listing national champions. It includes Alabama as NC in 1941. This was not a 1980's invention by an overzealous SID.

For better or for worse, Dickinson's system was relatively simple. At the end of a season he divided all teams into two categories—those that won more games than they lost, and those that did not. He then awarded points for victories over teams in the first division and fewer points for victories over teams in the second division. Quality of schedule was not a factor but, just as inequitably, the number of games played was, except for bowls. Still, the Dickinson system was accepted by football fans as the law until well into the 1930s. By then a lot of other systems had been originated.The first followed Dickinson by one year. It was perfected by a man in Los Angeles named Deke Houlgate who would later write a ponderous 9-x-13 work titled The Football Thesaurus. Houlgate bluntly admitted that his rating system, begun in 1927, was designed to counter the "Midwest sectionalism" of Dickinson's...
...And now it was time for the popularity polls to begin. The first of these was that of the Associated Press, which started in midseason of 1936. Under the present AP system, 59 sportswriters and sports-casters from around the nation whose organizations subscribe to AP are asked to vote on their top 10 teams each week. Through skillful promotion the AP has managed to have its poll generally regarded as the most reliable of all. Of course, it is no more reliable than the insular tendencies of the writers and announcers involved.The United Press International poll of 35 college coaches began in 1950, and it is becoming more respected with the years. However, a lot of coaches admit that they vote for forthcoming opponents and for teams from their own area....
...e of the Football Writers, the UPI and the AP. But no coach or school would turn down any of the others. As Bear Bryant has said, "We'll take what they'll give us, and our folks will act like we got 'em all."

And regarding Houlgate:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19490904&id=hlwbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RE0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=3980,1245072

Pretty interesting article there. It names Houlgate as the "foremost authority on the gridiron game".

For those who question 1941, do you not realize 1926, 1930, 1934, 1964, and 1973 are contested nearly as much as 1941? Here's the deal: Alabama has just as legitimate a claim to any or all of the titles it claims as anyone else in any other year or the same years. There is no perfect system to choose a national champion that has ever been implemented in college football. It is what it is. I do like that Alabama's method of recognizing championships is at least consistent with other major schools like OU, Michigan, and USC. Not every school can say that.

 

[BamaJama17]

Article from SI in 1967:

http://www.cnnsi.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1080269/1/index.htm

Please noted the list on the righthand side listing national champions. It includes Alabama as NC in 1941. This was not a 1980's invention by an overzealous SID.



And regarding Houlgate:

[/FONT][/COLOR]http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19490904&id=hlwbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RE0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=3980,1245072

Pretty interesting article there. It names Houlgate as the "foremost authority on the gridiron game".

For those who question 1941, do you not realize 1926, 1930, 1934, 1964, and 1973 are contested nearly as much as 1941? Here's the deal: Alabama has just as legitimate a claim to any or all of the titles it claims as anyone else in any other year or the same years. There is no perfect system to choose a national champion that has ever been implemented in college football. It is what it is. I do like that Alabama's method of recognizing championships is at least consistent with other major schools like OU, Michigan, and USC. Not every school can say that.

[/FONT][/COLOR]

Reading this article makes me that much happier that Alabama embarrassed Notre Lame in the 2013 BCSNCG.


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