re: Alabama's claim to 15 National Championships DEBUNKED

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The 1957 NCAA University Division football season saw two different national champions. Auburn University was ranked first in the AP writers' poll taken at season's end, while Ohio State University was first in the UPI coaches' poll. Auburn was ineligible for a bowl game, however, having been placed on probation indefinitely by the Southeastern Conference, after having paid two high school players $500 apiece.

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Posted by Schwaaz And the cult continues. Only members obsess on this over and over and over.

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Schwaaz Alabama's claim to 15 National Championships DEBUNKED And the cult continues. Only members obsess on this over and over and over.

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The 1957 NCAA University Division football season saw two different national champions. Auburn University was ranked first in the AP writers' poll taken at season's end, while Ohio State University was first in the UPI coaches' poll. Auburn was ineligible for a bowl game, however, having been placed on probation indefinitely by the Southeastern Conference, after having paid two high school players $500 apiece.

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The 1957 NCAA University Division football season saw two different national champions. Auburn University was ranked first in the AP writers' poll taken at season's end, while Ohio State University was first in the UPI coaches' poll. Auburn was ineligible for a bowl game, however, having been placed on probation indefinitely by the Southeastern Conference, after having paid two high school players $500 apiece

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In ‘57, Ralph “Shug” Jordan’s seventh season at Auburn, the college poll was open to all media, a tidbit discovered by Bill Beckwith and held in abeyance by the Tigers’ sports information director.

After four straight years of seven or eight victories, Auburn was off to a 7-0 start, including a season-opening victory at Tennessee – a result that earned an uncommon eight-column headline in The New York Times.

Somehow, Auburn had to push past Ohio State in the polls and Buckeye coach Woody Hayes who questioned the Tigers’ manhood by asking, “But whom have they played.” At that point, the poll had evolved into the South and West against the East and Midwest, and the numbers favored the Buckeyes.

According to Paul Hemphill in his Nelson-provided book, “Lost in the Lights,” Beckwith made some phone calls and found out that about two dozen small radio stations in Alabama were not aware they could vote in The AP Poll. He advised them of their right and asked them not to act until Auburn played its next three games.

Auburn beat Georgia 6-0 and Florida State 29-7 and, on the eve of the Alabama game, Beckwith, a friendly sports editor, and four secretaries called small radio stations and newspapers across the South. Auburn is going to kill Alabama, they said, and as soon as the game is over, vote for the Tigers.

“The people at Ohio State never knew what hit them,” Hemphill wrote.

Jordan pulled his starters before halftime and Auburn won 40-0.

Hemphill continued: “The votes for Auburn began rolling in at The Associated Press headquarters at Rockefeller Center in New York in such an avalanche that The AP sports editor, Ted Smits, phoned Beckwith around dark that evening. ‘Call ‘em off, Bill,’ he said. ‘You’ve won the national championship.’”

The AP quickly closed that loophole and these days, the AP ballot is a point of pride. There are only 65 voters in the country and AP in Little Rock normally alternates the state’s lone ballot between Arkansas’ two largest news organizations.

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