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re: Bama "national championships" (with data)

Posted on 11/14/14 at 5:35 pm to
Posted by Eitla
Trussville
Member since Nov 2014
118 posts
Posted on 11/14/14 at 5:35 pm to
And on to the actual seasons. 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. 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. (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 kept bursting apart cherished 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 Champions by this time.

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 Alabama.(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. ('Bama 10-1)

If the BCS decided to give out NC trophies before bowl games in 2013, I am sure whomever 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, especially in light of the new bowl system that is soon beginning, 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\960, with Alabama at 8\96-1-\961 (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, denied the '64 national title it deserved, 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 during this stage in the continuing evolvement of college football.

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)

The rest of them aren't really worth going over because you should all be more familiar with them.
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