Auburn could claim 9 National Championships

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While the idea of a National Champion was discussed in the early years of college football, there really was no means to determine a national champion and so newspapers would name regional champions. The 1908, 1910, 1913, and 1914 Auburn teams under Coach Donahue were all named “Champions of the South” and it wasn’t until 1936 that the Associated Press developed the first college football ranking poll that named a National Champion. Certainly, the information I found suggests that those Auburn teams, and students and alumni, were very proud of the fact that they were Champions of the South. Auburn football was very important in that era when it was by far the dominant football team in this state and was only challenged for dominance in the entire South, from Louisiana to Virginia, by two other schools.

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