I don't know about that...our 1941 team went 8-2, finished 3rd in the SEC, and finished 20th in the AP.

I'm pretty convinced that the athletic department meant to claim 1945 instead of 1941. The 1941 and 1945 teams were selected by one poll each, but the 1945 team went 10-0, won the SEC, won the Rose Bowl, and finished #3 in the AP, which is way better than what the 1941 team did. The claim to 1945 still isn't much better though...we won one poll while Army won every single other one.

Here's what I think happened:
Some dude in the athletic department was told to go through Alabama football history and figure out which of the older titles should be considered legitimate. He looked at the 1945 team, decided that one was worth claiming, then tried to use the fact that 1945 was the last year of WWII as a way to remember the date.
Later, possibly when he was really drunk, he got confused and accidentally wrote 1941, the year America entered the war, instead of 1945, the year the war ended. By the time he realized his drunken mistake, the 1941 championship was listed in programs and media guides, printed on t-shirts, and represented with a flag over Bryant-Denny Stadium. So instead of trying to change it, he just kept his mouth shut and hoped no one would notice.

This explanation seems incredibly unlikely, but it's more realistic than someone looking at the 1941 season and thinking that it was a championship year.

This post was edited on 11/19/12 at 5:16 pm