The BCS pairings have been announce for this year ’s football game time of year , so here ’s a question for you college football game nuts : what NCAA school claims the most football home championship ?
Who did you hazard ? Alabama ? The Crimson Tide have only won a paltry 13 titles . Michigan ? Notre Dame ? USC ? They ’re all bond with a pedestrian 11 championships . No , there ’s only one major championship owner : Princeton . Yes , that Princeton . The Tigers take 28 backing , which gives them a slight bound over Yale ’s 26 titles . Bama ’s 13 deed of conveyance makes it a rather distant third . The example : if you want genuine football tradition , head to New Jersey . If that does n’t shape , you could always settle for Tuscaloosa or South Bend .
Of naturally , as you might expect , these numbers are a chip misleading . Neither Princeton nor Yale has hoisted a title since Princeton ’s 1935 drive , and back in those solar day “ national deed of conveyance ” did n’t think quite the same affair that it does now .
Over the years , upwards of thirty groups have used polling , statistical formulas , diachronic research , and other methods to pluck “ national ace . ” Some of these systems have been more strict than others , and it ’s at a school ’s free will to decide whether or not it wants to exact a interior title from a special group .
As one might suppose , the lack of a unified national championship has led to some odd situations . For many seasons , the various organization could n’t descend to anything close to a consensus , and some years their conclusions were almost comically different . Take 1921 , for illustration . Depending on which pate or system you look up , the national champ was either Cal , Cornell , Iowa , Lafayette , or Washington & Jefferson . Sort of arrange our current “ want of a reliable champion ” in perspective .
The polls that we rely on to crown our champions today have only been around since the AP crown debuted in its current incarnation in 1936 . The Coaches ’ poll followed in 1950 . Since the advent of the crown , the list of teams that have get ahead the most championships looks moderately much like you ’d expect . Alabama and Notre Dame are link for the top spot with eight straight-out or shared poll parrot titles apiece , and Oklahoma and USC are veracious on their heels with seven each .
They Played to Win the Games (Not National Titles)
Modern playoff proponents consistently reprobate the use of the public opinion poll system for choosing the national star , but things could be so much worse . For many years , there was n’t a interior champion at all . Rutgers and Princeton get together in the first intercollegiate “ football ” game in 1869 , but it did n’t search much like the gridiron activity we ’re used to seeing . In that plot , 25 - world sides tried to complain a orb into their opponent ’ goal , all while refraining from carry or throwing the nut . ( Rutgers advance 6 - 4 . )
Although that clash would look uneven to modern fans , it ’s moot the first real college football plot . The secret plan gradually evolved into what we know as football , but schools were n’t really concerned in claiming a home deed of conveyance . squad just played each other as an end unto itself . In fact , it does n’t seem like anyone put much thought into crowning a star until the 20th century began .
In 1901 journalist Caspar Whitney begin conducting a home poll parrot to equate team from different parts of the body politic . Whitney was something of an expert in college football ; he had collaborate with Yale coach Walter Camp to select the first All American squad in 1889 . By 1905 , Whitney ’s public opinion poll was selecting a national champion at the last of the time of year . Sure , the poll only lasted through the end of the 1907 season , but it was a offset .
The Numbers Game
The much - reviled computers of the BCS had herald of their own . In 1926 University of Illinois economics prof Frank G. Dickinson debut the first numerical convention for grade the nation ’s college football game team and declare a champ . The Dickinson System was moderately mere . It separate teams into two groups : decrepit and substantial , and it awarded schoolhouse 30 point in time for flap a warm squad and 20 for beating a weak team . defeat were worth half as much as a victory , so falling to a strong team still earned you 15 points . Ties were worth the norm of a win and loss . Once Dickinson count all the sexual conquest , he then found each team ’s average mark per game . Bingo ! Stanford bring home the bacon the 1926 title under the Dickinson System .
Dickinson ’s organization kept award national championships through the 1940 season . Notre Dame double-decker Knute Rockne grew singular about Dickinson ’s formula and expect the prof to forecast scores for the 1924 and 1925 seasons that came before the formula ’s debut . Further evidence that Rockne was a coaching brilliance : the fabled “ Four Horsemen ” Irish squad come out on top in Dickinson ’s 1924 rankings .
Oddly , even thought Dickinson ’s system of rules and the accompanying Rissman National Trophy were weigh heavy pile in their Clarence Day , USC managed to forget that it won one over the years . In 2004 the school declared that it had been a bit remiss in its book - keeping and for decades had omit to claim the 1939 national statute title the Dickinson System had awarded the Trojans . USC had a ceremony at halftime of a game during its 2004 season and rectify its records to show an extra interior title .
You Were the Champions
Davis did n’t really have a methodology . According to a 1967Sports Illustratedstory on Davis ’ task , “ He used no special normal . He plainly front at the schedule and the solvent and chose his teams . ” Davis did n’t mess around about going all the fashion back through football history , either . The 1869 “ time of year ” where Princeton and Rutgers played the aforementioned association football - like secret plan ? They share Davis ’ interior title that twelvemonth . ( Princeton had won a replay represent under a different exercise set of rules . The schools ’ faculties canceled a proposed caoutchouc match because it was interfere with both squad ’ study . Both teams finished the class with 1 - 1 records . )
Davis ’ project , which debuted in the 1933 edition ofSpalding ’s Football Guide , had another playfulness crotchet : it put “ national patronage bring home the bacon autobus ” on the resume of … Parke H. Davis . After doing his research , Davis declare Princeton and the Lafayette squad he had coach to be co - champions of 1896 . He was n’t being self - aggrandizing , though . His squad had gone 11 - 0 - 1 while score 240 point and only giving up 10 . Their lone standoff was a 0 - 0 social occasion with conscientious objector - supporter Princeton .
