NEW ORLEANS – In the official NCAA Division I record book, there is no segment directory of national champions at the sport level: the Football Bowl Subdivision.
As he has never cared about organizing an FBS championship, the governing framework of college athletics does not recognize the winners of the name in the same way as it does for all other sports. The FCS Logbook, for example, a bankruptcy in the FCS Playoff winners. The men’s basketball record eBook is a segment about March Madness participants and champions.
But the FBS? Nothing.
However, the NCAA added a link to its online page to a directory of pages that FBS champions decided through the top-reputed surveys of that era. Of the 151 years indexed, adding 187 champions in total (32 years with at least two champions) – a year of singleness carries with it the feared and error-free symbol of the asterisk: 2004, Southern California.
A sentence is scrinched in italics at the back of the page.
* Southern California participation in the 2004 Championship cancelled through the NCAA Offenses Committee.
Matthew Emmons / USA TODAY Sports
There is no asterisk compared to the early years of the sport, when participation in school football was almost exclusive to the Ivy Leagues, resulting in all Ivy League champions in their first 31 years. There are no asterisks next to 1943, 1944 or 1945, when World War II provoked an influx of skills in military academies, which became football powers through the players of their former rivals who opposed them on the grid.
Perhaps more specifically, there is no asterisk next to 1918, when a mixture of World War I and the influenza pandemic caused such disruption in sport, with fitness restrictions, that some groups played one game and nine others. his season, in fact, and was quite general for the groups, having had a canceled opponent, schedule a game in a week.
Does it look familiar?
“I don’t think anything compares to this year,” says Kent Stephens, a veteran football historian at the College Football Hall of Fame, “however, the 1918 season would be the closest. The season was interrupted on October 1 and then restarted in November, not yet because of the flu due to World War I. This has killed a lot of schedules.
One hundred and two years later, an equally interrupted school football season came to an end, and in the end, when the semi-finals of the school football playoffs arrive on Friday, a question arises: how will history see the champion of this tournament?and crazy 2020 season?
It has its roots in history itself. As in 1918, when Pittsburgh and Michigan split from the title, and at 44-45, when the Army ruled a war-torn sport, the champion will be . . . The champion.
Of course, there may now be a discussion on such an issue, and there will still be a dispute next year or the following year, but what about 25 or 50 years?Don’t count on that.
“A few years later, they’re just another national championship in the book,” says Jeremy Swick, curator and historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. “I don’t think he’s questioning his legitimacy this season. “
In fact, some college sports leaders feel that this year’s champion is more deserving than most: they had to deal with sudden game cancellations, quarantine or isolate themselves for weeks, and win matches without key players affected by COVID-19. Protocols.
Clemson spent a whole week preparing for the State of Florida for the Seminoles to cancel the game on the morning, and Ohio State played a game without three beginner offensive linemen. Alabama coach Nick Saban missed a game after coming back positive, and Notre Dame had four weeks off during an era of about two months.
“It will be judged in the same way as MLB, NBA and other champions,” said Clemson’s athletic director Dan Radakovich. “They all had truncated seasons. The Lakers and Dodgers are partying. These groups deserve it. There’s no asterisk” next door. “
But wait, should I?
Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek says the 2020 champion will be known as exclusive, for a smart reason.
“This year it may have an asterisk, but it means something else, not less,” yurachek says. “We’re going to put an asterisk between now and this year because they all survived. “
So . . . asterisk or not asterisk?
“Excellent question,” says Scott Stricklin, Florida AD. Right now it’s speculation. Until we’ve addressed the history factor, I don’t think we have that answer. It’ll be nice to know how we get back to that. I think it will be “the chaotic year: pandemic, choice and social unrest. “
With an asterisk or not, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey shared an appointment with his sports administrators throughout the year.
“Whoever wins a championship this year will have to go through anything that no one has experienced,” Texas A recalls
There have been similar seasons, as in 1918, when so many groups played another number of games, a complaint from this year’s Buckeyes, who played six games compared to other playoff participants, who played 11.
The challenge has reached some of the highest grades in the sport, said Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who criticized osU’s inclusion in the playoffs frame based on the game differential. In his last voting circular. At a press conference on Monday, Swinney explained that it is a prerequisite for his 10 most sensible matches played.
“I just don’t think it’s fair,” he says. It’s not that they’re not smart enough. I don’t think it’s fair that three groups have to play thirteen games to be champion and a team has to play eight. “. So if other people have a challenge with that, I don’t care. That’s my survey. And it doesn’t matter who [the team] was. This has nothing to do with the state of Ohio. “
Buckeyes will participate in school football playoffs after betting six games, five fewer than the other 3 participants.
Adam Cairns / Columbus Dispatch / USA Today Sports
In 1918, a year with a variable number of games played, Pittsburgh was named champion retroactively despite betting only five games, adding a 10-9 defeat to the Cleveland Naval Reserve, a team of school football stars amassed when players joined the army in preparation for World War I.
Michigan, at 5-0, joined them in a shared title. That year, Texas 9-0 and Oklahoma 6-0. Texas A
Discuss everything you need now, though you haven’t done much at the time, Stephens says.
“College football is a regional sport,” he says. There’s not much noise about a national champion. Teams were more concerned about “Am I the most productive team in the South or West?”
Now, of course, there are.
There has not been a national shared name identified in school football since 2003, when the Associated Press crowned usC as champion the same year LSU won the BCS name. And the only way it’s going to take place this year, experts say, is that the state of Ohio wins everything. Even then, it’s a long time. Would the electorate or AP coaches penalize the Buckeyes, then 8-0, for betting so few games on getting rid of a championship after beating two of this year’s playoff participants?all, they’re number four in any of the polls at the start of the playoffs.
“I’ve played the most of the year with the average number of games those groups play,” Stephens says. “A few weeks ago, the average DI team played about 8. 4 games this year. If the state of Ohio has 8 games and the average team plays 8 games and a part, I will legitimize it in my mind.
Stephens pauses for a minute and laughs.
“But I went to graduate there, so of course I’d say that. “
Asterisk or no asterisk, split national name or solo champion, the point of history of the winners of the 2020 name will be shrouded in mystery until it is, well, hitale.
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