Fake National Titles Article

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1924
Claimed by: Notre Dame (10-0)
Also claimed by: Penn (9-1-1)
Ranking services: N/A

There were no true ranking services in 1924. The Irish and Quakers were retroactively declared national champs by various bodies throughout the years, but Penn played all 10 of its games at home and played a far weaker schedule. Notre Dame beat Georgia Tech and beat Stanford in the Rose Bowl. More importantly, the Irish beat Army at the Polo Grounds that October and inspired New York Herald Tribune writer Grantland Rice to wax eloquent about the Four Horsemen, forging a key link in Notre Dame's football mythology.

1925
Claimed by: Alabama (10-0)
Also claimed by: Dartmouth (8-0)

Alabama, led by halfback Johnny Mack Brown, went west to Pasadena and beat Washington in the Rose Bowl in a watershed moment for southern football. Were the Crimson Tide the nation's best team that year? That's debatable. In an era when the Ivy League teams were still major players, Dartmouth fielded probably the best team in school history. Dartmouth ran an offense that -- at the time -- was considered a wide-open spread. Halfback Andy "Swede" Oberlander was the Johnny Football of his day, throwing six touchdown passes and accounting for almost 500 yards of offense in Dartmouth's signature win against Cornell.

1926
Claimed by: Alabama (9-0-1)
Also claimed by: Stanford (10-0-1) and Lafayette (9-0)

This was the first year in which someone actually attempted to determine a national champ using a ranking system. Frank Dickinson, an economics professor at the University of Illinois, created the Dickinson System to determine a champ at the end of the season. Dickinson used math -- sort of -- to determine his rankings. For example, he awarded 30 points for a win against a "strong team" and 20 for a win against a "weak team." In the 14 years the Dickinson System existed, it was widely mocked for its choice of champion. In 1926, Stanford finished ranked No. 1, Lafayette finished ranked No. 4 and Alabama finished ranked No. 10. This was a ludicrous disparity considering the fact that Alabama and Stanford tied in the Rose Bowl at the end of that season.

1929
Claimed by: Notre Dame (9-0)
Also claimed by: N/A

Pittsburgh might have staked a claim to the title had it simply stayed home. Notre Dame beat USC, 13-12, in a regular-season meeting in Chicago. The Trojans, considered the best team in the West, were selected to play in the Rose Bowl. After the Rose Bowl following the 1924 season, Notre Dame didn't play in another bowl -- by choice -- until the Cotton against Texas following the 1969 season. The Rose selected Pittsburgh to face the Trojans, and USC rolled to a 47-14 win that only further reinforced Notre Dame's place at the top of college football.

1930
Claimed by: Alabama (10-0) and Notre Dame (10-0)
Also claimed by: N/A

All those people who now say the media unfairly pumps up the SEC's best teams would have been aghast at how much Notre Dame was pumped up by the media in this era. In this season, most of the readers of the nation's leading newspapers would have picked Notre Dame as the national champ because they read so much about the Irish. Of course, it wasn't just the sportswriters. Legendary coach Glenn "Pop" Warner gave the following quote to the Universal news service: "Notre Dame of 1930, the squad that crushed the Trojans 27 to zero Saturday, deserves to be listed as the greatest football squad of all time." Alabama of the Southern Conference was more of a curiosity. The Dickinson System -- published before the bowls -- chose 10-0 Notre Dame No. 1, 9-0 Washington State No. 2 and 9-0 Alabama No. 3. In the Rose Bowl, Alabama crushed Washington State, 24-0. In 1930, Notre Dame did play in a new stadium, though: Notre Dame Stadium opened on Oct. 4 of that season.

1934
Claimed by: Alabama (10-0)
Also claimed by: Minnesota (8-0)

While we're arguing about which of these teams was the actual national champ, we may as well argue about which one had the best nicknamed halfback. All-America Francis "Pug" Lund led the Golden Gophers, while Millard "Dixie" Howell led the Tide. That Alabama team also featured end Don Hutson -- who would later revolutionize pass-catching in the NFL -- and a less-heralded end named Paul Bryant who would go on to become a coach of some renown. Minnesota's biggest win came at Pittsburgh, which finished 8-1 and could have claimed the national title instead of Minnesota had it won the game. Alabama's best wins came against Tennessee (8-2) and in the Rose Bowl against Stanford (9-1-1). The Associated Press poll didn't become a fixture until 1936, but in November 1934 the news service surveyed writers to rank the teams. The writers voted Minnesota first, Stanford second and Alabama third.

1941
Claimed by: Alabama (9-2)
Also claimed by: Minnesota (8-0)

This one is no contest. The following two scores are all anyone needs to determine if Alabama's claim on the 1941 title is legitimate: Mississippi State 14, Alabama 0 and Vanderbilt 7, Alabama 0. In the AP Poll, which was released before the bowl games at the time, Alabama finished ranked No. 20. So how did the Crimson Tide come to claim this title? Because a man named Deke Houlgate declared them the national champs. Houlgate was a football statistician and historian who compiled rankings using a mathematical formula from the 1920s until the 1950s. Had computers or the BCS existed back then, the Houlgate rankings probably would have been one of the computer rankings used in the formula. Like the purely mathematical computer rankings used today, the Houlgate formula produced some screwy results -- but none screwier than declaring Alabama the 1941 national champion. Unlike most of the people behind the computer rankings used by the BCS, Houlgate actually revealed his formula. Houlgate's grandson explains it in this video.



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