It’s been with us since the dawn of college football, a big piece of some of the most memorable seasons.
And whatever happens between now and the college football playoff final on Jan. 8, the chances of that going back down will be slim starting with the 2024 season.
I’m referring, of course, to the split championship.
Don’t you forget about such an event or don’t even know what it is?This is the time when the bodies that bestow a national name on school football are divided over which team will be in the lead at the end of the season. .
The first example comes from the first year of football. In 1869, widely acknowledged as the inaugural college football season, Princeton and Rutgers were the only schools then playing the game, described as a mix of soccer and rugby.
The two schools have met twice. They have won once. And now, retroactively, Princeton and Rutgers are indexed as co-champions through the NCAA. In the decades since, rivalries have increased, public interest in the game has increased dramatically, and the variety of a champion has remained. , at best, a confusing proposition.
At the time of the voting, from about 1936 (i. e. , when the Associated Press began its voting of sportswriters on soccer) through the 1998 season, there was no official game for the high school football title. The organization can exist, they’ve been following the season and just making their pick for the most productive team and that’s made a decision. The national championship was preceded by the adjective “mythical” in the newspapers.
There were bowling games, but as many as today, especially in the early days, with fewer corporate sponsors and no mayonnaise baths for winning coaches.
Strange things happened at the time of the polls, a fact that was largely due to a truth that came to my attention through my friend and former colleague Ralph Russo, school football editor of the Associated Press, who said, “In high school football, we never have enough information. “
In other words, with over a hundred groups betting on football, and yet the school only betting about 10% of them on any given season, it can be a bit difficult to say who is the best.
Not only did sportswriters weigh in through the AP, and later the Football Writers Association of America, among others, but also through a poll of coaches conducted through the United Press and eventually sponsored through USA Today. It was not until 1968 that the final AP ballot was published after bocce, while coaches waited until the mid-1970s for it.
So weird stuff was kind of bound to happen.
Just for example, Brigham Young went undefeated against a notably weak schedule in 1984, the only ranked opponent it beat was No. 3 Pittsburgh in the opening game, yet the Cougars won the national championship by defeating a 6-5 Michigan team in the mid-level Holiday Bowl.
Penn State, where I worked for more than 11 years, went undefeated in 1968, 1969, 1973 and 1994, but was not elected national champion in any of those seasons.
These even split or debatable titles.
Undefeated Oklahoma won the AP championship in 1974, USC, with one loss and one tie, won the coaches poll. For what? Because the Sooners were on probation in the NCAA and were ejected by the coaches.
In 1978, Alabama lost to No. 2 USC but won the AP title because the Trojans also lost – to Arizona. The coaches gave their trophy to USC, head-to-head being a tough argument to top.
In the end, the powers that be of school football grew tired of the visual test model. Wanting something more definitive and better for television, they created the Bowl Championship Series (the two most sensible teams play for the title) in 1998, followed by 2014. through the College Football Playoff (the top 4 play the playoffs in two rounds).
Each style mitigated the controversy, but it didn’t. At the end of the 2003 season, USC, once defeated, was eliminated from the BCS naming game, however, sportswriters presented their trophy to the Trojans when LSU, also defeated once, defeated Oklahoma, 21–14. Coaches had to opt for LSU as a component of the BCS system.
This year, Florida State topped the standings but, with starting quarterback Jordan Travis injured late in the season, it was knocked out of the CFP in favor of SEC champion Alabama with one loss and Big 12 champion Texas, who beat Alabama early in the season.
Exhausted by injuries, the trade portal and NFL draft rejections, the Seminoles are now big underdogs compared to the former No. 1 from Georgia in Saturday’s Orange Bowl. But if the Noles manage to disappoint the Bulldogs, there’s an argument that FSU would be a valid option. Winning name.
Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde encouraged the AP electorate to vote for an undefeated FSU if that were to happen. and just vote them No. 1,” Forde said on the “Yahoo Sports: College Football Enquirer” podcast.
It is highly unlikely that such a staggered finish will be created in the new playoff formula that will take over starting in the fourth season of 202, when the CFP will be expanded to 12 teams. Football writers and coaches would possibly not be able to distinguish the No. No. 2 or No. 2 No. 4 in a given year, but the difference between the most productive team and the thirteenth most productive team in school football is substantial. The danger of leaving a potential national champion out of the new CFP will be minimal.
College football is finally going to crown its champion, absolutely definitively, on the field. So why be even a little nostalgic?
Matt Brown, school football editor at The Athletic and a student of football history, acknowledges the upheavals of the poll era, but also said in a recent interview that he “didn’t hate it. “The four-team playoffs have placed so much emphasis on being the champion that interest has waned both for players and enthusiasts of those excluded from that earlier verbal exchange in the season, as well as for the traditions that have made school football great, such as rivalry games.
“There were too many unintended consequences,” Brown said.
Personally, my reaction to what we’re wasting with this transition is funny, at least for the fans.
Psychologists say that the identity of sports enthusiasts with their groups makes them happier and more engaged. And the absurdity of the school football formula required not only loyalty, but also cunning: the ability to convince undecided voters, or at least fans of their own team, that your school deserves to have been number one.
In a global sport that evolves series after series and series after series, leaving the final resolution on a national name to a discussion was refreshing.