#i refuse to acknowledge past mistakes and so i got more than 3/4ths of the way through this thing without reading the og scene at all. so.

[bloodysparklez]

i redrew one of my favorite scenes from the novel! they're literally so silly. it's comedy central out here in puqi shrine

[thecollegefootballguy]

The Real Champions: A Look Back at the 1950′s

Alright, so we’re going WAY back at this point. We’ve certainly left what you would call modern college football behind a while ago. Indeed if there’s such a thing as “early modern college football” we’re reaching the outer edges of that period as well. If you’re still curious about the goings on in the sport over half a century ago, I like you, and let’s keep going.

As always, the goal is to try to figure out which teams actually deserve to claim national championships by applying consistent criteria outlined here. If you have the time, check out my analysis of the 2010′s, 2000′s, 1990′s, 1980′s, 1970′s, and 1960′s.

-

1959

A legendary season for a few reasons. First is that, if you’re a computer guy, it’s one of those freak coincidences of all time. Two of the best teams to ever play the game were playing in the same season, an insanely rare occurrence. Then there’s all the national championship interest that came with the culture of the game at the time.

There were more than a few teams in the national championship hunt, and then there was Syracuse. The Orangemen were 10-0 in the regular season, completely annihilating their opposition save a dangerous road trip to then-#7 Penn State which they won 20-18. They were named the #1 team by all major polls because they were the only undefeated team left. Still, there was a cadre of one-loss teams that were right on Cuse’s heels in case they slipped up in their bowl game. 9-1 Washington didn’t get a lot of poll attention but the Huskies were dangerous as the AAWU representative to the Rose Bowl. They’d only lost to an 8-2 USC and played a pretty good schedule. Texas was the champion of the SWC. The Longhorns were unbeaten until their second to last game of the season when they fell to 8-2 TCU in Austin. The SEC was easily the most competitive conference. Georgia was the official league champion, the Bulldogs went 7-0 in SEC play but an early loss to South Carolina prevented an undefeated season. Meanwhile, LSU and Ole Miss both looked very good on the western side of the conference. The Rebels in particular were hot, they had only surrendered 21 points all season, but they were crucial. Both teams were undefeated going into the Magnolia Bowl. The Tigers managed to pull out a 7-3 home victory over Mississippi, but the very next week LSU was upset by Tennessee in Knoxville.

The Bowl season was incredible, but we didn’t get the Ole Miss-Syracuse matchup that everyone wanted. It was an impossibility for the Rebels to play the Orange due to the segregation rules at the time, which Mississippi was perfectly content to follow. The Orangemen, of course, would refuse to play in a bowl game without their star halfback Ernie Davis. In the end, Syracuse went to the Cotton Bowl to play Texas and Ole Miss played LSU in a novel rematch in the Sugar Bowl. The Orangemen beat out the Longhorns 23-14 and the Rebels totally shut down the Tigers 21-0. For their parts, #5 Georgia beat #18 Missouri 14-0 in the Orange Bowl and #8 Washington buried #6 Wisconsin 44-8 in the Rose.

Syracuse was named the national champions by every major poll and most official selectors (15 in total). Ole Miss received support from three different selectors. Georgia and Washington were very good teams but they clearly aren’t on the same level as the Orangemen and the Rebels.

Look, normally I would say Syracuse easily gets the nod and Ole Miss doesn’t because they have a loss. But this case is a bit special in more ways than one. The Orangemen were a fantastic team, they outscored their opponents 413-73, an insane margin of victory. Still, there’s an extremely good chance that the Rebels were even BETTER. They had an unbelievable 350-21 overall scoring margin. Few teams have managed to dominate their opponents like this Mississippi team did. God, if only they could have played each other. The saving grace for Ole Miss is that the team they beat in their bowl game was LSU, the only team they lost to in the regular season. I’ll admit that it’s a shaky precedent, but one that has still been observed multiple times so far, is that a win in a rematch can more or less undo an earlier loss. It worked for Alabama in 2011 and for Oklahoma in 1978 (as far as this blog is concerned). I think that this little technicality of the process, along with the OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that this Ole Miss team was one of the best ever, should make this a cause for a co-championship.

Verdict: Syracuse’s claim has been verified. Ole Miss’ selector support has been acknowledged and a retroactive championship has been awarded.

-

1958

The year my dad was born. No PCC team won the championship though so that might disappoint him, even worse is that the conference champ was Cal. Oh well, they got trucked in the Rose Bowl so maybe that makes up for it.

The national championship race essentially boiled down to two conferences: the Big Ten and the SEC. Oklahoma was pretty much the only exception. The Sooners won the Big 7 pretty easily, and were 9-1 overall with only a loss to Texas in the Red River Shootout. Otherwise, it was a Midwest vs Southeast affair. The Big Ten was contested by about four teams: Iowa, Ohio State, Purdue, and Wisconsin. The Hawkeyes tied Air Force 13-13 on October 4th, but it would end up being a well timed mistake going down the road. Wisconsin beat up on Purdue 31-6 the next week. On the 18th, the rival Badgers and Hawkeyes met in Madison looking to gain a lead in the conference title race. Iowa took home a 20-9 road win and poll position in the Big Ten race. Next week, Wisconsin traveled to the undefeated Buckeyes and tied OSU 7-7. On November 1st, the Buckeyes were upset by a feisty Northwestern team 21-0 in Evanston. Returning home the next week, Ohio State tied Purdue 14-14. The Buckeyes and the Hawkeyes met in Iowa City, with Iowa being the only team left in the conference without a loss. OSU upset the #2 Hawkeyes 38-28 to correct this. Still, Iowa ended up being the Big Ten champions with their 5-1 conference record; 5-1-1 Wisconsin and 4-1-2 Ohio State followed them, and Purdue fell to 3-1-2 in the league standings with a tie to Indiana to end the season.

It was a different story in the SEC. Instead of the best teams all playing each other, the two national championship contenders didn’t meet on the gridiron at all. Auburn and LSU were two of the best teams in the nation that year, but they were from the more or less separate halves of the conference that didn’t mix much. Auburn mostly played teams from the east including Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Florida. Louisiana State mostly played western teams Tulane, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State. In fact, they only played three of the same teams even though they shared the conference. Both Tigers squads beat Alabama, Florida, and Kentucky that year, but there was no overlap in their schedules otherwise. LSU had close calls against Florida and Mississippi State, but otherwise wrecked most of the teams they played. Auburn, meanwhile, tied Georgia Tech in Atlanta early in the season, but otherwise had a spotless record. The Tigers wouldn’t play in a postseason bowl, and would lose the chance to repeat at being the national champions because of the tie.

#5 Oklahoma beat #9 Syracuse 21-6 in the Orange Bowl. In the Sugar Bowl, #1 LSU edged past #12 Clemson 7-0. As I mentioned earlier, #2 Iowa dump trucked #16 California 38-12 in the Rose Bowl.

LSU was undefeated and untied, the only remaining team in the nation with that mantle. They were awarded the championship by all but one major selector, as the FWAA chose Iowa as their national champions.

I think this is an easy call. 11-0 LSU has a much better resume than 8-1-1 Iowa for the title.

Verdict: LSU’s claim is verified. Iowa’s claim has been rejected.

-

1957

An interesting year, and for our purposes it’ll be controversial because one team clearly doesn’t have as good of a claim as another.

Fun fact, NC State went 7-1-2 and didn’t even get a bowl invite because the ACC was extremely new as a conference an nobody thought they were any good. Although their loss was at home to William & Mary, so maybe they really weren’t that good. Anyway, as far as major college football was concerned, Oklahoma was looking like the best team in the country, as they had for a couple of years. The Sooners hadn’t lost since 1953 and didn’t seem like they were slowing down. So when OU was stunned by unranked Notre Dame in Norman in mid-November it was a nation-wide shocker and a serious dent in Oklahoma’s championship bid. In the Big Ten, Ohio State went 7-0 in league play and were by all means one of the best teams in the country. However, a week one loss to TCU hurt the Buckeye’s chances as well. Michigan State was also 8-1, but their loss to Purdue kept them from tying OSU for the Big Ten championship. Auburn won the SEC and were the only undefeated team in the regular season, going 9-0 with a 7-0 mark in conference play. One of the problems with this season is that the Tigers were on probation and weren’t allowed to play in the postseason, meaning that they would remain undefeated but they wouldn’t be challenged by a Sugar Bowl caliber opponent. Ole Miss was almost as good, losing only to Arkansas and tying Mississippi State on the last game of the season. Auburn was named the champions by the AP Poll and Ohio State was by the UPI and the FWAA. Just because it’s fun to mention, VMI went 9-0-1 in the Southern Conference. Hooray Keydets!

#4 Oklahoma torched #16 Duke in the Orange Bowl 48-21, and #2 Ohio State edged by unranked Oregon 10-7 in the Rose Bowl. #7 Ole Miss blew out #11 Texas in the Sugar Bowl 39-7. Fun fact, Rice played in the Cotton Bowl this year, but they lost to Navy. As if you didn’t need another reminder how different the game was back in the 50′s.

As I said earlier, both Auburn and Ohio State had poll national titles and both teams claim them. Michigan State and Oklahoma each had one selector support them. So the issue is deciding whether an undefeated Auburn team on probation has a better claim than a one-loss Ohio State or Oklahoma or Michigan State. I say that based on the evidence, they do. They played a pretty tough schedule for the standards of the time and were the only team in the regular season to go undefeated. The Tigers didn’t play Ole Miss, the second best team in the conference, but they played and beat Tennessee, Florida, and Mississippi State, the other teams from the SEC to finish ranked. The Rebels and the Tigers both beat the Volunteers by the same seven point margin, but Auburn beat the same MSU Bulldogs that tied Mississippi. Also, Ohio State and Michigan State didn’t play each other in the Big Ten, so it’s not like they played the other best team in their conference to one up Auburn. To their credit, OSU did beat pretty good Iowa and Wisconsin teams, the Spartans beat the Badgers as well. Oklahoma only played one team that ended the season ranked, and that was Notre Dame, who they beat the Sooners.

Verdict: Auburn’s claim has been verified. Ohio State’s claim has been rejected. Michigan State’s and Oklahoma’s selector support has been thrown out.

-

1956

Remember how I said that Oklahoma didn’t lose from 1953 to 1957? Yeah well that obviously means that they were undefeated in 1956. Oddly enough, despite this, there are three one loss teams with selector support for a championship. Is there any good reason for this? Not really.

Oklahoma was the wire to wire #1 team in the AP Poll. They demolished the rest of the Big 7 and everybody else they played. The Sooners were named champions by every major poll and ten other selectors. 10-1 Tennessee is backed by Sagarin (who also picked OU), as the only other team to have an undefeated regular season, it makes sense that they get some support. However, the Volunteers lost 13-7 to #11 Baylor in the Sugar Bowl to ruin their claim. 10-1 Georgia Tech lost only to those Vols, and they’re supported by two selectors. Iowa was 9-1, losing only to 7-2 Michigan. The Hawkeyes have been named the champions by the CFRA. Curiously, 9-0-1 Texas A&M had no selector support despite being the only other major conference team not to lose a game that season.

Still, there was only one unbeaten and untied program, so they get the nod.

Verdict: Oklahoma’s claim has been verified. Georgia Tech’s, Iowa’s, and Tennessee’s selector support has been thrown out.

-

1955

A somewhat more interesting year, because we got pretty close to an actual championship game. Bud Wilkinson’s Oklahoma Sooners were undefeated, as you might have guessed, but so was Maryland. The Terrapins were dominant in the newly formed ACC, with a win over 9-1 PCC champions UCLA in week two doing wonders to solidify their position. Michigan State, Ole Miss, and TCU were the other one loss champions of the major conferences.

The Orange Bowl proved to be the de-facto national title game, as #1 Oklahoma faced off against #3 Maryland in a battle of the only remaining undefeated teams. The Sooners prevailed 20-6 to put a bow on their championship season. #2 Michigan State defeated #4 UCLA 17-14 in the Rose Bowl. The Spartans were named the champions by the Boand System. Just to round everything out, #10 Ole Miss beat #6 TCU 14-13 in the Cotton Bowl.

Verdict: Oklahoma’s claim has been verified. Michigan State’s selector support has been thrown out.

-

1954

Now THIS year is a great example for how much of a decentralized mess college football was back in the 1950′s. There are two teams that claim national championships in 1954 and neither of them were undefeated Oklahoma.

The Sooners went 10-0 in the regular season, thoroughly dominating the Big 7. OU shut out four of their six conference opponents! Ohio State went 9-0 through the Big Ten, and only once did the Buckeyes win by less than a touchdown (when they beat Iowa 20-14). UCLA won the PCC behind their own 9-0 record. The Bruins had a few close games early on but they caught fire at midseason and wrecked the rest of their conference schedule. They beat USC 34-0 to claim the conference championship.

Bowl season doesn’t help a lot. Oklahoma didn’t accept a bowl invitation and UCLA couldn’t play Ohio State in the Rose Bowl because they’d played Michigan State in the prior season. The Buckeyes beat USC 20-7 for what it’s worth, but the Trojans weren’t the same caliber as these other teams we’ve mentioned as potential champions.

As far as the polls were concerned it was either Ohio State or UCLA. The AP ranked the Buckeyes first, the Bruins second, and Oklahoma third. The Coaches reversed OSU and UCLA, keeping the Sooners in the third spot. In total, 12 selectors chose Ohio State and seven chose the Bruins. Nobody picked OU.

All three teams have a claim to a championship based on the criteria. Should we allow them all to claim it? I guess we might as well. There’s no good way to prove one team was better than another, they were all pretty dominant in their own leagues. Normally I would say that since Oklahoma doesn’t have selector support and that they don’t claim the championship that they should even be considered. But COME ON, they were in the middle of an amazing win streak that clearly should identify this team as one of the best in the country. They were clearly as dominant as the other two teams, if not more so. I’m gonna have to call an audible here and back them up as well as the other two.

Verdict: Ohio State’s and UCLA’s claims are verified. Oklahoma is awarded a retroactive national championship.

-

1953

An intricate season to look at, but an easy decision for crowning a champion. One of the biggest things you’ll notice is that the official poll champion is Maryland. The Terrapins were the only team to finish the regular season without a loss or a tie and were awarded a national championship by both the AP and UPI Polls. Notre Dame was the only other undefeated squad, but the Fighting Irish tied Iowa in November to put them just behind the Terps in the polls. Michigan State is the only other school to have selector support, the Spartans finished the season 8-1 with a loss to Purdue and they beat #5 UCLA 28-20 in the Rose Bowl. Also, because I love mentioning it, Rice won the Southwest Conference and beat #13 Alabama 28-6 in the Cotton Bowl.

The problem with according a team a national championship at the end of the regular season is that they can lose their bowl game. Guess what happened to Maryland? Yeah, the #1 Terrapins fell to #4 Oklahoma 7-0 in the Orange Bowl. Tough break. The Sooners lost their first game of the season to Notre Dame, tied their second game against Pittsburgh, and would not lose again until 1957. The fact that the Irish chose not to play in a bowl at all makes me want to call them cowards, but that was pretty commonplace back then. You can’t lose a game you don’t play, that’s why we’ve had all these problems calling certain teams champions because there was no good system for them to play each other. But they get the title since they’re the only team that never lost a game in 1953.

Verdict: Notre Dame’s selector support has been recognized and a retroactive championship has been awarded. Maryland’s claim has been stripped. Michigan State’s selector support has been thrown out.

-

1952

Two schools finished the season undefeated: 9-0 Michigan State and 11-0 Georgia Tech. You can tell that this was over 60 years ago because the Spartans were a football independent (they’d join the Big Ten in the coming year) and the Yellow Jackets were in the SEC (and would leave in 1964). This time period was so interesting I swear. MSU didn’t play in a bowl and the #2 Jackets beat #7 Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl.

Michigan State was the wire to wire AP Poll #1 and won the UPI as well. In total they would be endorsed by 11 officially recognized selectors as national champions. Georgia Tech was backed by five.

I don’t know about you guys, but I think this is a textbook case of declaring both teams eligible to claim the championship for their unbeaten records. One may have been better than the other, but there’s no way to prove it.

Verdict: Georgia Tech’s and Michigan State’s claims have been verified.

-

1951

This is more of a mess than most years in the 1950′s. Too many undefeated teams and some post bowl confusion.

Illinois won the Big Ten, going 8-0-1 with a 0-0 tie against Ohio State in Columbus being the only blemish on their record. Stanford would meet them in the Rose Bowl, the Indians were 9-1 with their only loss coming to archrival Cal in the last game of the season. Georgia Tech and Tennessee tied atop the SEC. The Yellow Jackets were 10-0-1 with a tie to Duke in out of conference play while the Volunteers went a perfect 10-0 and were named the national champions by the AP and UPI. Maryland was 9-0 in the Southern Conference, as was independent Michigan State.

There are plenty of teams angling for a potential title with our criteria at play, and bowl season helps to sort things out. #5 Georgia Tech beat the SWC runners-up, #9 Baylor, 17-14 in the Orange Bowl to preserve their unbeaten but not unblemished season. #4 Illinois ran all over #7 Stanford 40-7 in the Rose Bowl to emphatically make their case as one of the best teams in the country. Perhaps most important, is the 28-13 win that #3 Maryland gained over #1 Tennessee. #2 Michigan State didn’t play in a bowl.

Five teams (the Jackets, the Illini, the Terps, Sparty, and the Vols) have been awarded selector support. Let’s see what the previously laid out criteria for declaring national champions says.

First we have 10-1 Tennessee. As the perceived best team in the regular season, the Volunteers were accorded both major poll championships, but their resounding defeat at the hands of Maryland shuts them out of the debate. Then there are the undefeated yet tied Illinois and Georgia Tech squads. Both teams were very good, and may indeed have been good enough to beat the undefeated and untied schools, but their blemishes obviously contrast poorly with an unblemished record. That leaves the Terrapins and Michigan State as the only teams with a claim on the title. They both did what needed to be done to win a championship.

Verdict: Maryland’s and Michigan State’s claims have been upheld. Georgia Tech’s, Illinois’, and Tennessee’s claims have been denied.

-

1950

I might have to end this series with this decade, as you’ll see, 1950 is a year where we can make a judgement call and say that any championships won before this period have no relevance to modern college football. I say it’s a judgement call because you could say that year was 1940 or 1960 or 1991. Any date you personally believe that the game was so far removed from its current incarnation as to not matter. I’ll tell you why I think this is the year where perhaps I have to call it quits. It’s the last time that an Ivy League team received selector support as major college football’s national champions, and they made a pretty good case for themselves as well. Yeah, let’s check 1950 out.

Basically, it was a near apocalypse scenario, where nearly every team beat each other in the regular and postseason, making it very very difficult to suss out who has the best championship claim. It was almost 2007 status, or for our purposes 1984 status but instead of BYU we have Princeton.

Oklahoma was the only major conference team to finish the season undefeated. The Sooners went 10-0 and completely demolished the Big 7 conference. Their most contested game was a 14-13 victory over SWC Champion Texas. The 9-1 Longhorns only suffered that one defeat and were definitely one of the best teams in the nation. Cal went 9-0-1, the Golden Bears were perfect until the very last game of the season, when they were tied at home by archrival Stanford. 10-1 KENTUCKY won the SEC but lost to 10-1 Tennessee 7-0 in the last game of the season (who lost to Mississippi State earlier), putting their candidacy in doubt. Army was 9-1, with their one loss coming in a huge upset at the very end of the season to Navy. Then, of course, there was 9-0 Princeton. The Tigers were 9-0 and finished 6th in the polls behind the major players.

Bowl season turned into a catastrophe for virtually every team who wanted a piece of the championship pie. #5 California fell to #9 Michigan in the Rose Bowl 14-6, giving the Bears their first and only loss. #4 Tennessee beat #3 Texas 20-14 in the Cotton Bowl. Finally, #1 Oklahoma was upset 7-13 by #7 Kentucky in the Sugar Bowl. Army didn’t play in a bowl, as was common for independent teams at the time, and as an Ivy League member Princeton didn’t either.

Of course, Oklahoma received the championship accolades from the two major polls for their unbeaten regular season as well as four other official selectors. Tennessee likewise has six selectors supporting them. Princeton is backed by two selectors and Kentucky by one.

Let’s check the criteria. There’s one undefeated team: Princeton. If they were a major conference program they’d be named champions easily, but they weren’t. The Tigers played a criminally easy schedule and despite not losing a single game they didn’t even crack the Top 5 in either poll. I think it’s safe to write them off this time, they simply don’t have the resume. The further back we go the more seriously we’ll need to take the Ivy League teams, but not in 1950. Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Tennessee all had one loss, but the Sooners lost to the Wildcats in the Sugar Bowl, so they should be ineligible. So we have the Wildcats and the Volunteers, with UK losing 7-0 in Knoxville in the regular season. Of course, this loss is much easier to understand than UT’s 7-0 loss to Mississippi State in week 2 in Starkville. Still, I think the head to head win at the end of the season is a bit more telling than an early in the season slip up. I understand if Kentucky wants to claim this championship, but I’m gonna give it to the Vols.

Verdict: Tennessee’s claim has been verified. Kentucky’s, Oklahoma’s, and Princeton’s claims have been denied.

-

12 separate champions in 10 years. The 1950′s really was in the way back mists of the decentralized game. There’s something fun about it though, every team that won a title in the decade is still playing Power 5 football, but there was a veneer of parity that we no longer have nowadays. Well, then there was Oklahoma. The Sooners’ insane run in the mid-1950′s was head and shoulders beyond the rest of the college football world at the time. It was the last three-peat we’ve seen in college football. Or at least it should be if we declared the right teams champions. 

Final Count:

Oklahoma: 3 (1954, 1955, 1956)

Michigan State: 1 (1951, 1952)

Auburn: 1 (1957)

Georgia Tech: 1 (1952)

LSU: 1 (1958)

Maryland: 1 (1951)

Ole Miss: 1 (1959)

Notre Dame: 1 (1953)

Ohio State: 1 (1954)

Syracuse: 1 (1959)

Tennessee: 1 (1950)

UCLA: 1 (1954)