ESPN
Atleast they list UCF before tearing into our titles.
ESPN is full of idiots that miss the story (which is a lot of why their "woke" nonsense leaves me cold - they're not even good at what they're SUPPOSED to to).
Before anyone anywhere can criticize ANYONE about anything - you FIRST, I repeat FIRST - you have to agree on the criteria BEFORE discussing the subject. Plain and simple. You have to spell out your assumptions BEFORE offering criticism. Let's look at a good one here.
1936: Minnesota, Pitt or ... Slippery Rock?
The AP Poll has become one of the pillars of college football rankings, standing side by side with the coaches' poll in many newspapers and websites, but that wasn't always the case.
In fact, the first championship the AP awarded to Minnesota in 1936 wasn't even unanimous.
UPI -- another news gathering service -- instead ranked Pitt as No. 1. And the stats-based Boand and Duke Houlgate systems would back that assessment, bolstering the Panthers' argument for the seventh of its nine championships. Even a look at the final AP poll favors that conclusion: Whereas Minnesota (7-1) beat two ranked teams, Pitt (8-1-1) beat three, including a 21-0 rout of Washington in the Rose Bowl.
But those claims were child's play compared to the little known (and mostly satirical) campaign to crown unranked Slippery Rock as national champs that season. It is perhaps the first and most ridiculous application of the ever popular transitive theory to college football. The
school's official website continues to tell the story of one brave journalist who was so disenchanted by the Minnesota-Pitt debate that he set about to compare the scores of the 1936 season and came to his own conclusion: "Slippery Rock beat Westminster, which beat West Virginia Wesleyan, which beat Duquesne, which beat Pitt, which beat Notre Dame, which beat Northwestern, which beat Minnesota."
So what if the Rock finished the season at 6-3? The math totally checks out.
1) Now I'm open to correction on this, but I'm not aware of UPI (now the coaches' poll) providing a ranking system before 1950. They MIGHT have "recognized" Pitt, but I don't see it anywhere on Pitt websites so.....
2) Why didn't these ignorant blowhards ask the more important question: why was Minnesota selected over Big Ten champion Northwestern as national champion?
RECORD
Northwestern 7-1 (lost to #11 Notre Dame, 26-6)
Minnesota 7-1 (lost to #3 Northwestern, 6-0)
Shouldn't the imbeciles who in this same article wrote - and I quote - "The Tide lost to Auburn in that year's Iron Bowl and missed the SEC championship game altogether"......have pointed out Minnesota wasn't even the Big Ten champion (something about conference championships mean something something)?
I mean, if you're gonna criticize Alabama for 1978, how in the world do you give Minnesota a pass in 1936? If you're gonna criticize Alabama as "didn't even win their conference," how do you not point this out about Minnesota?
And why not point out t
he nation's only unbeaten team in 1936 was 8-0-1 Alabama?
See, this is why I tire of this garbage. I will open admit my bias without shame, but I think my analytics and reviews show I can evaluate situations fairly EVEN when it involves my own team. But the problem is that most articles that offer such criticism START with the assumption the criticism is VALID. The criticisms of UCF in 2017 and Alabama in 1941 are FULLY legitimate and in the bounds of fairness. But for reasons that still tick me off royally, we have nonsense like the 1936 title, where if you applied the very same argument, you'd wind up with a different champion other years, too.
There ARE legitimate reasons why Alabama did not win the 1936 title, but you find none of that discussed here or even hinted at that the writers even know about this. LSU had a legit claim, too, but nothing.
Alabama's 1964 title is often attacked with the old notion that we lost to Texas and Arkansas beat Texas and therefore if the polls were after the bowl games something something. Okay, fine. But my problem is you NEVER see those same writers mention the following:
1950 - Oklahoma voted national champ (loses to Bryant's Kentucky team in the bowl game, who ends the year with the same losses, one extra win, and a head-to-head bowl win. Either Kentucky or the Vols should be #1)
1951 - Vols win national title, lose to UNDEFEATED Maryland in bowl game by 15 points
1953 - Unbeaten Maryland loses Orange Bowl to #4 Oklahoma (9-1-1) after winning title.
Why don't these same writers pontificate about how Oklahoma and Tennessee and Maryland didn't REALLY win national titles? And who wins it in 1953? Unbeaten #2 Notre Dame? Or does Oklahoma pole vault Notre Dame using the "the team that beats #1 in the last game becomes #1 logic" of 1973, 1977, 1978, 1983, and 1993 but set aside in 1989?
1973
"Alabama doesn't deserve that title because they lost to Notre Dame in the bowl game after the title was awarded."
Why don't these inconsistent idiots after say, "You know, Texas was given the 1970 UPI title and then lost their bowl to Notre Dame by a score of 24-11"?
Why don't they ever say, "You know, Michigan State was given the UPI title in 1965 and then lost the Rose Bowl to UCLA"?
There's an answer to this: their concern is NOT with fair and just outcomes or consistency, their concern is with ALABAMA.
You'd be amazed how many people I absolutely bury with that because they didn't bother to research anything beyond "How can I criticize Alabama." And just like everyone else, they'll never admit it.
Count it however you want. We're still on top.