Post by hifigator on Jan 22, 2009 14:14:43 GMT -5
Here is a piece on "Dubious National Championship Claims."
sauriansagacity.blogspot.com/...mpionship.html
One of many interesting parts of that article:
At sites like the College Football Data Warehouse, there are “recognized National Champions” going back to 1869. However, prior the 1930’s, most of the National Championship claims are retroactive. What happened was this – starting in the 1930’s, the interest in college football was such that entities began creating processes of deciding who was “number 1”. Some such processes were mathematical, and starting in 1936, the AP created the first poll. Whatever the situation, the important point to remember is this – prior to about 1930, teams were totally unaware that the “National Championship” even existed. The teams certainly were not playing for it.
Take the example of the Dickinson System, devised by Frank Dickinson, a professor of economics at the University of Illinois. The system rated college teams. Dickinson mentioned his mathematical system in class one day, and the Daily Illini wrote about his system in an article. A wealthy Chicagoan, Jack Rissman, decided he would like to use Dickinson’s system to select the top team in the Big Ten each year for a special trophy. When Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne heard about this, he invited both Dickinson and Rissman to South Bend, and said “Why don’t you make it a national trophy that Notre Dame will have a chance to win?” Rockne also persuaded the duo to predate the whole thing several years, so the 1924 Irish of Four Horseman fame could be the first official champion.*
Presto! The 1924 Fighting Irish were National Champions, several years after the fact. Notre Dame, in fact, still considers this “backdated” 1924 Championship via the Dickinson system as their first.
So, any claim of a “National Championship” prior to the AP’s first poll of 1936 is highly suspect. Most of them are backdated or retroactive. This includes 3 of Notre Dames 11 titles, and four of Alabama’s 12. With the majority of the pre-1936 titles being awarded to Princeton or Yale anyway, no one very much cares.
IMO if a "national championship" was awarded retroactively it is not a national championship.
What most fans today can't understand is that for many years college football did not place much importance on a national championship. We are used to the Super Bowl and World Series and other season ending pinnacles, but college football simply lacked a similar mechanism because it wasn't important to it.
There's not really anything "new" here, but it puts a slightly different perspective on what we are used to.
sauriansagacity.blogspot.com/...mpionship.html
One of many interesting parts of that article:
At sites like the College Football Data Warehouse, there are “recognized National Champions” going back to 1869. However, prior the 1930’s, most of the National Championship claims are retroactive. What happened was this – starting in the 1930’s, the interest in college football was such that entities began creating processes of deciding who was “number 1”. Some such processes were mathematical, and starting in 1936, the AP created the first poll. Whatever the situation, the important point to remember is this – prior to about 1930, teams were totally unaware that the “National Championship” even existed. The teams certainly were not playing for it.
Take the example of the Dickinson System, devised by Frank Dickinson, a professor of economics at the University of Illinois. The system rated college teams. Dickinson mentioned his mathematical system in class one day, and the Daily Illini wrote about his system in an article. A wealthy Chicagoan, Jack Rissman, decided he would like to use Dickinson’s system to select the top team in the Big Ten each year for a special trophy. When Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne heard about this, he invited both Dickinson and Rissman to South Bend, and said “Why don’t you make it a national trophy that Notre Dame will have a chance to win?” Rockne also persuaded the duo to predate the whole thing several years, so the 1924 Irish of Four Horseman fame could be the first official champion.*
Presto! The 1924 Fighting Irish were National Champions, several years after the fact. Notre Dame, in fact, still considers this “backdated” 1924 Championship via the Dickinson system as their first.
So, any claim of a “National Championship” prior to the AP’s first poll of 1936 is highly suspect. Most of them are backdated or retroactive. This includes 3 of Notre Dames 11 titles, and four of Alabama’s 12. With the majority of the pre-1936 titles being awarded to Princeton or Yale anyway, no one very much cares.
IMO if a "national championship" was awarded retroactively it is not a national championship.
What most fans today can't understand is that for many years college football did not place much importance on a national championship. We are used to the Super Bowl and World Series and other season ending pinnacles, but college football simply lacked a similar mechanism because it wasn't important to it.
There's not really anything "new" here, but it puts a slightly different perspective on what we are used to.