re: national championships using bama logic

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1978 USC was the champs but bama trys to claim it and their only loss that year you guessedit USC.

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In 1978 Alabama was ranked #2 going into the Sugar Bowl where they beat undefeated #1 ranked PSU, and won the AP title. There's no 'try' to it; that title is as legit as they come.

the same could be said about LSU's NC in 2007....a 2 loss team? I'm both an LSU and a Bama fan so I see it from both perspectives. It's also pretty hard to compare seasons that happened so long ago, as 1908 and 1936 were, when college football was nothing in any way, shape, form, or fashion comparible to college football today or even 10 yrs ago. Even if you back to the 60's the difference in athletes is like the difference between night and day. If you don't believe me, go back to any team at all and compare physical statistics to todays' players. The difference is quite startling as any of you who've done it can attest. Just sayin....

Joke of an article.

1925- Bama finished 10-0 and was awarded the NC by 8 polls including the Billingsley Report which has been used since 1869. The closest team was Dartmouth at 8-0.

1926- Bama finishes 9-0-1 with a tie to Stanford who also finished with no losses. Essentially a "true" split national championship as the two best teams TIED. Bama is awarded the NC by 5 polls, including BR.

1930- Bama finishes undefeated (10-0). They shut out 8 teams and only allowed 13 frikin points the entire year. They are named NC by three polls including the Sagarin Ratings which were established in 1919.

1934- The author keeps going on about "better" records throughout this article yet he fails to mention that Bama finishes 10-0 and the closest teams is Minnesota at 8-0. Bama shuts out 5 opponents and destroys Stanford in the Rose Bowl 29-13. They are named NC by 4 polls and including one convenient one that the author left out: The Houlgate Poll.

1941- A joke.

1961- "Finally" a legit championship my white arse. This is Alabama's 5th legit, bona fide, championship. Bama allows 25 points all season.

1964- I'll agree that this one is subject. Bama lost to Texas and Arky beat Texas. Still, the author again fixes his own opinions by saying "ALTHOUGH" the AP awards Bama the championship here. He is looking for any excuse in every year.

1965- Alabama and Michigan State are the only teams awarded a NC by ANY polls here. And again the author contradicts himself by saying that winning your bowl game is important and then saying it isn't important here. Bama beat #3 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl and Michigan State LOST theirs to UCLA. Bama is awarded the NC by 4 polls including the AP. Completely legitimate, Bama's 6th legit.

1966- Bama is awarded the NC by two polls after going 11-0, shutting out 6 opponents and winning their bowl game agaisnt Nebraska 34-7 in the Sugar Bowl. Bama has better "records" than Michigan State and Notre Dame, both of whom are 9-0-1. Bama DOESN'T claim this NC. 7th legit

1973- Correct, this championship isn't legitimate. Bama loses to Notre Dame in their bowl game 24-23.

1978- Bama beats the number one team in the nation in their bowl game (which normally means you get to be #1), Penn State, and finishes 11-1. They lose to USC but USC also lost to an unranked ASU that year. Bama is awarded the AP national championship. 8th legit.

1979- Bama finishes 12-0 and claims their 9th legit and Bear's last NC.

1992- Bama beats Miami in the Sugar Bowl, finishes 13-0 and gets its 10th legit NC.

2009- Bama finishes 14-0, Saban gets his first NC and Bama's 11th legit NC.

2011- Bama finishes 12-1, defeating the LSU Tigers in a rout of 21-0. Bama 12th legit NC. Saban's second.

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961- "Finally" a legit championship my white arse. This is Alabama's 5th legit, bona fide, championship

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No. there is nothing bona fide about titles before 1936. In some cases rankings were made years later (this doesn't just apply to Bama of course).

They have 9 legit "titles" based on the systems in place at the time

We will start with '25 and '26. Many, many, many teams claim NC's from this time period and Alabama doing it is nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary at all.

1.) 1925. The facts in the case for 1925 are that Alabama, at the time, was widely considered to be the champions of college football during that year to all the football going public alive at that time. If you were a football fan and followed football, the University of Alabama was the team to be envied this particular year.

'Bama (10-0) traveled out to sunny LA for their first of many Rose Bowls. They defeated a 10-0 Washington team.

Dartmouth, the team that was even halfway in the picture, was 8-0, didn't play a bowl game, and played 4 non-1a teams out of 8 opponents.


'Bama, if there was no such thing as a NC at that time, was certainly the best team in the country. Deal with it. This is the game that made 8,000 Northern sportswriters and West Coast fans commit suicide, lol. Bama(10-0)



2.) 1926. This one is really easy. People were not stupid back in those days. They had just as much sense as modern day folk. They knew champions when they saw them. Let me lay it out for 'ya:

Stanford was 10-0-1 after the TIE in the Rose Bowl with 'Bama. Alabama was 9-0-1 after the TIE with Stanford in the Rose Bowl. Pretty close, right?

Wrong.

Stanford played 6 of what are now considered non-1A opponents out of a total of 10 reg. season games. How many non-1-A opponents did 'Bama face? One, yes, just one.


Therefore, Alabama was what we call in our time National Champions 2 years in a row.


3.) 1930 Another clear cut NC for 'Bama. 'Bama went 9-0 reg. season and then ventured out to sunny LA again, they got tired of seeing us, and stomped a hole clean through the chest cavities of a very strong 9-0, at the time, Washington State team. The final score = Champions 24, Wash. State 0.

Ouch, that one hurt the pride of lot's of folks out on the West Coast.

What did Notre Dame do? They went undefeated at 10-0 just like 'Bama but they stayed at home and said "no mas, no mas" we don't wants to play no bowl game.

Advantage = 'Bama. Number 3 baby, number 3 on our way to greatness. (Bama 10-0)



4.) 1934. A very strong Alabama team this year. Gritty and determined.

In 1934, Alabama surged through a regular season destruction, utter destruction of all opponents, and finished it all off with a face shattering pummeling of a very strong Stanford team whose record, at the time, stood at 9-0-1.

We shamed them and once again made everyone curse those stupid Southern boys who keep bursting apart cherised ideas about football supremacy on the West Coast and in the North.

The score was 29-13 in favor of who? That's right, 'Bama.

3 time Rose Bowl Champ-Ions by this time. You can't stop a team that drops 316 points on the heads of their opponents and lets them only score 46, you just can't stop that type of juggernaut.

What did any team that was even close do? Minnesota went 8-0 and beat a bunch of 4 win teams and naturally, didn't play in a bowl game, no sir, not their style.

Chalk another one up for what very well may be the greatest football team to ever strap on helmets, the Alabama Crimson Tide. (Bama 10-0)


And on we go:

1941. Not a NC. The year 1941 was put on the list to keep Alabama fans humble.



#5.) 1961. AP + UPI + just about everything and everyone else chose 'Bama. Enough said. 5 so far, many more to come. ('Bama 11-0)



#6.) 1964. The AP & UPI, the two big dogs, chose Alabama plus a couple of other selectors. To hell with Arkansas or anyone else. Sure, the AP gave out their trophy before bowl games, that is the way it was. Who is Alabama to tell the AP that what they were doing was wrong? They were just a humble football team doing it's best.

If the BCS decided to give out NC trophies before bowl games in '08, I am sure whoever won it would take it. Let's get real everyone. Don't revise history. 50 years from now, BCS championships may be considered to be invalid, that does not negate the fact that your team may have won a BCS championship. It is what it is. ('Bama 10-1)



#7.) 1965. #7. A great one. This particular trophy is very beautiful and well designed. For this one, I am going to give a link to a much more well thought out summary than I can come up with.

Here you go:

Anxious to avoid the uproar that followed its regular season final poll last year, AP waited until after New Year's to crown the 1965 national champion.

Good move. At the end of the regular season Michigan State, Arkansas and Nebraska were all 10?0, with Alabama at 8?1?1 (the Tide lost their opener to Georgia and tied Tennessee). The bowl match-ups had Arkansas playing LSU in the Cotton, Michigan State vs UCLA in the Rose, and Nebraska vs Alabama in the Orange. Each game followed the other on TV.

The three top-ranked teams all lost. Arkansas had its 22?game winning streak snapped in Dallas. LSU took a 14?7 lead in the second quarter then shut the Razorbacks out in the second half.

Michigan State, UPI's national champ, had opened the regular season with a 13?3 win over UCLA. The Spartans hoped to close the year on the same note, but couldn't overcome the Bruins' 14?0 halftime lead. The victory was UCLA's first Rose Bowl win ever.

So the Orange Bowl, in its second year at night, became the national championship game. Underdog Alabama built up a 24?7 lead by halftime then held off a Nebraska comeback to win 39?28.

Bama's Bear Bryant joined Minnesota's Bernie Bierman (1940?41), Army's Red Blaik (1944?45), Notre Dame's Frank Leahy (1946?47) and Oklahoma's Bud Wilkinson (1955?56) as the only coaches to win back-to-back national titles.


LINK

End of story. For 'Bama fans, it was a story book ending. ('Bama 9-1-1)




#8.) 1973. Love this one. 'Bama was undefeated at the end of the season and the UPI decided we were the best team in the country. It is a nice trophy too, kind of big. See, what many people don't understand is that at this time and during the preceding years, bowl games did not determine NC's, they weren't really important.

Wait, wait, how can that be, you may say. That is just the way it was. Bowl games were meant to be consolation prizes, not determinants of who was the NC. That was already decided after the regular season.

Once again it comes down to modern man attempting to place his mindset and values and ideas about how things should have been done to times past. Guess what? It doesn't work that way.

'Bama shared this one with Notre Dame, the team that beat them in a fantastic and 6 or 7 lead changing Sugar Bowl game. Don't believe Alabama won a NC this year? Come on down and take a look at the UPI trophy. That ain't no People's Championship, folks. ('Bama 11-1)

Alabama claims 4 titles from before the AP poll was created in 1936. Prior to the establishment of the AP and UPI/Coaches Polls, there was no "gold standard" in regard to football polls.

Since the inception of the AP and UPI polls, each of Alabama's national titles but one were awarded by either the AP or UPI/Coaches poll. 1941 is completely bogus.

You can argue the merits or procedures used by the AP and UPI polls, but the bottom line is that many other teams claim titles from these polls in their official records (Notre Dame, OU, etc.)

People argue that Alabama claims titles that were awarded before bowl losses. Many people fail to realize two things.

1) Prior to the late 60s/early 70s, bowls were not widely used as evaluating tools for final rankings. They were exhibition games to reward teams and fans for a successful season, but there wasn't a whole lot of value placed in the outcome of the games. It wasn't like today when anyone with a pulse at the end of the season can go play in the Chuck E. Cheese Bowl. Some time ago, bowls were a legitimate reward for the best teams, but most voters placed more value on the body of work during the regular season.

2) Some teams elected to not participate in bowl games. Notre Dame is a prime example. The Irish, as an independent school, declined bowl invitations for almost 40 years! MANY of their national titles were won during seasons when they did not participate in a postseason bowl. From the 30s or 40s until the early 70s they did this. Notre Dame claims about 15 national titles now, but had the luxury of not playing in a game they'd have likely lost on the postseason during many of those "championship runs."

Now tell me...how is it fair on one hand to say that a team like Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, etc. that stepped up and played real competition in a bowl game should not have won a title because they lost said bowl game, but on the other hand, saying it's okay for ND to claim umpteen national titles while they played a weak schedule and declined the challenge of a bowl game?

How many of their elite teams in the 40s-60s would have had their records tarnished because of a bowl loss, as you're claiming Alabama did?

Finally, Alabama went undefeated and untied in 1945 and 1966. To honor Army during the 1945 season, they were awarded the national title in '45. I won't argue the legitimacy of that title because they deserved it and it was a gesture of patriotism and solidarity to do that. But still, Alabama had a very good team and could lay claim to that title. We do not.

In 1966, Alabama had claimed a share of the title in 64 and 65, but the national media wanted to send a message to Southern football teams because many Southern schools had not integrated their athletic programs yet. ND an MSU played to a tie in East Lansing, and both teams basically sat on the ball the entire second half playing for a tie. Meanwhile, Alabama went undefeated and outscored opponents by an average of 20+ points and obliterated their opponent in the bowl game. ND and MSU claim a split national title, and Alabama finished third in voting despite starting the season ranked #1. We do not claim this title.

Now, as for H-Town Tiger and his theory that football started when the AP was created, well, that's just silly and chidish. The AP didn't create American football, come on y'all. LSU fans are smarter than that.

An undefeated rose bowl win , Is just that. An undefeated rose bowl win. Not a defecto title! Sorry. Every one but gumps thinks this.

Man I love those out of conference schedules in recent times.

i'm a fan, what can i say