OT: Who's the next to win their first FBS national title
On today's Shutdown Fullcast, Spencer, Jason and Ryan debated the following take "No team that is currently without a national championship will ever win one."
They noted that the last school to win their first national championship was Florida in 1996, preceded by Colorado (1990) and BYU (1984). For a list of schools claiming national titles, click here.
Now, a number of teams have come close recently- Closest would obviously be Oregon against Auburn, WVU losing to Pitt in 2007 to keep them out of the NC game and then Virginia Tech in 1999.
Stanford isn't a bad pick. I don't see it happening in the short term but it's entirely conceivable that Oregon, Oklahoma St, or VT get one at some point.
Oregon would've been my pick a year or two ago, but I think they've missed their chance. Stanford seems like decent pick. Even though Wisconsin and Utah are on the list, theirs seem suspect so I'll add them. For example, they put Utah on the list for 2008. Florida won the BCS, AP, and just about every legitimate title that season. Virginia Tech and Louisville could also make a run. All you really need is one good year like Auburn when they beat Oregon a few years ago. Petrino can do that at Louisville, especially given his record on the field and a relatively weak ACC.
cletus, you mentioned that VA Tech is "second banana" to more traditional powers in their conference and region - I'm not sure I agree.
Virginia (especially the Tidewater area and DC 'burbs) is pretty fertile recruiting ground, and I'd say Va Tech is the most established football power in the area. MD and uVA haven't been very good at football, and the Carolina schools seem more focused on hoops than football.
Sure, they have major competition in their conference, and have to compete with Michigan, PSU and OSU (among others) for DC area recruits, but to me, Va Tech is the biggest football power in their region.
But I'd say Va Tech has better regional talent than Michigan, and the population is growing fast.
If Fuentes is as good as he appears to be, he could attract some talent from elsewhere to add to regional guys, and keep the Da'shawn Hands from leaving the area.
Blacksburg is a good college town, and Va Tech is probably the most football-centric school on the NE corridor. They have a good stadium atmosphere and excellent support.
but it doesn't help them in-state. If UVA or VT could get a wrangle in in-state recruits like Michigan or Ohio have in their own states, they would be a top 10 program but go look at where the top VA recruits have gone every year over the last 5-10. The state's top recruits (especially in the Tidewater region) are consistently signed by outside programs.
Of course you're both right - DC/VA is highly recruited by all the powers, and VA Tech hasn't had the grip on local talent that Michigan has here.
However, this whole exercise is about what's possible, not what has occurred in the past.
IMO Va Tech has as good a shot as anyone to win a first national championship, for all the reasons I mentioned.
When Beamer ball was at its peak, lots of top local guys went to Va Tech (Mike Vick, anyone?). There's no doubt in my mind that could happen again.
Your mention of Durkin proves my point - before him, MD struggled to pull any decent recruits, but he managed to do it without on-field success. Fuentes had a good first year at Va Tech, and my bet is their recruiting will improve (remains to be seen if it reaches national-championship caliber, of course).
Finally, Dabo (Dabo!) brings top talent to Clemson. I think Va Tech is every bit as well-situated for success as Clemson - with the lone caveat the apparent quality of Clemson's bagmen.
You probably buried the lede in terms of Clemson's bagmen, and the NCAA's apparent willingness to look the other way. Clemson also spends a good bit more than a school like VA Tech legally on football as well.
My point has been that no matter how well a school like Tech does locally with recruiting, there just won't be enough top-level players in the area alone to get to championship contention, and it's always going to be hard for them to go out and get top players from other areas. Beamer did great in the Tidewater area, but outside of the Vick years, VA Tech was generally a good to pretty good but not great program. If you can't recruit at a high level nationally, it probably isn't happening. You might could pull it off locally if you're somewhere like Texas or Florida, but even there the competition is so intense it becomes difficult, if not impossible. I think Fuentes will do really well with local recruiting as Durkin has, but much like Maryland, I'm dubious of the school's ability to go get impact players from elsewhere without blatant NCAA-sanctioned cheating.
Year-in, year-out, I absolutely agree with you, but Ok St. consistently sits in the Top 25, develop good talent, and play in a relatively weak conference. Don't see how they couldn't put together a season in which they contend for a NC, even next year they have one of the better returning offenses in the country.
VT, IMO, is one that is about to elevate even from the Beamer years. I think Fuente is the real deal and they're already recruiting much better in that area than they typically did in years past.
Obviously there isn't any of these teams you point at and go "They definitely will be the next", hence them never winning before. There's a little projection involved.
in that wikipedia link in the OP, both Stanford and Wisconsin have claims for an NC
| 1942 | Georgia | 11–1 | Wally Butts | B(QPRS), BR, DeS, HS, L, PS, SR, WS |
| Ohio State | 9–1 | Paul Brown | AP, BS, DuS, CFRA, NCF | |
| Wisconsin | 8–1–1 | Harry Stuhldreher | HAF |
According to the Helms Athletic Foundation.
Wisconsin has 0 claimed national championships (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Badgers_football)
i dunno, i was just going off the link provided in the OP. I didn't read all the way down to that footnote. apparently they don't claim it, but it seems like they could.
It's kind of like if a tree falls in the forest, if you are given a national championship but don't claim it, did you still win it or not
The question is then are we talking about an AP championship, a championship the school claims, or a championship awarded by anything whose championships are at least somewhat recognized.
Apparently it's pretty easy to win a national title
"You don't have to be in a conference to declare that you're a national champion," Newman says. "But if we go all around the country beating everybody in the country, then what are we? We're playing in the nation. We're beating everybody around. Everybody, everywhere we go.
"I can self-claim that we're 'national champions.'"
Stanford - 2 national championships
Wisconsin - 0
look at the entry for 1942 in the table, Wisconsin is there
- The following schools either make no apparent statement or claim regarding national championships, or clearly state no claims on a national championship, despite the listing of a national championship for that school in the official NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision Records: Arizona State, Centre, Colgate, Columbia, Detroit, Missouri, Purdue, Rutgers, Washington & Jefferson, and Wisconsin.
the never-ending Nike Money has me thinking that Oregon will stay relevant and will eventually break through and win one.
Stanford would be up there, but according to your link, they won one i 1926.
Want to clarify that you're talking about football. I wasn't sure if you were talking about basketball or NCAA sports in general until you mentioned WVU and Oregon.
I don't see why it can't happen, there have been certainly some close calls and if it weren't for the big conference bias, I believe that the 2006 Boise State could have played with any team and might have been able to win it all.
As does FBS.
and I can't say I disagree with Ryan that we will not have another team win their first NC, at least not anytime soon. I think the blue bloods especailly Alabama are just too far ahead of most teams to see anyone new rise up and win it all.
I think, just about every year, you will have the dark horse/underdog program put together a special season, but if they do make it into the playoffs they will never win those 2 games to win it all. I always want to see Michigan win it all, but sometimes I do get tired of seeing the usual suspects always there winning it. Would really love for college football to find a way to level the playing field a little bit and have more parity. IMO that makes any sport a little more interesting and fun to watch.
I'm partial to agreeing with the hot take here. I don't see a school without one winning one. I know that shear numbers suggest otherwise, but it's hard to envision a team in a P5 conference that doesn't claim a NC, winning their conference with fewer than 3 losses, making the playoffs, then beating 2 teams that also won their conference in back to back games. Can you envision Oregon State winning the PAC 12 at 11-1 then beating Florida State and Alabama...ever?
Plus there are a lot of teams that claim at least one title. The list of "new" teams is pretty limited. I'd be much more inclined to take the field if this were teams with 2+ or 3+ titles versus all.
Same here. Two of the schools cited by the OP (Okie State, V Tech) have limited ceilings.
Oregon's near-term chances don't look very good, either. They had their chances and didn't cash in, and the environment out on that coast is now more competitive than it was a few years ago.
There's a difference between the environment now and the environment "ever."
Oregon is a really useful example for us, because 25 years ago the idea of them winning a national title was ludicrous, and then some good coaching and some solid players (don't forget that Joey Harrington team that had an argument to make the BCS title game) and the Nike push got them within a hair's breadth of the national title.
Right now there are no title-less teams that appear ready to break through, so we can feel confident that the next 5-10 years will be reasonably predictable. But 20-25 years is a long time. 25 years ago the Big Ten had 10 teams and the champion went to the Rose Bowl every year regardless of national ranking. 25 years ago Florida State was the only significant power in the ACC, Miami was the only relevant team in the Big East, Oregon was an also-ran in the Pac 10, the Southwestern conference was a thing, and the Big 8 was the personal playground of Nebraska. 25 years ago only one conference, the SEC, had a conference championship game. And, yes, Florida had never won a national title.
So 5-10 years won't show any real change, but over 25 years, who knows? We could have a 16-team playoff or a division schism that puts only the top revenue teams in a pro-style playoff division. We could have permitted NIL payments that would allow a rich alum of some nobody school like Boston College to turn it into a moneybags NFL factory. We could see a team like USF leverage its size and location to become a national power.
"Ever" is a long time, there's just no telling.
Though I would narrow the horizon a bit. Things can change relatively quickly. I would not be surprised if some random team rises up in the next 5-10 years and challenges for a title. I'd be more surprised if it didn't happen.
Heck, before Dabo came along, Clemson hadn't been in a BCS-level bowl since their fluky title in 1981.
It's hard to imagine now, but even Kansas and K State had top 10 finishes and fairly legitimate shots at national titles in the last 20 years. Kansas!
Harbaugh, James
I've never heard of Harbaugh James University
HJU!
The only school I can think of that isn't a winner and is reasonably close is probably Wisconsin (and I don't think that 1942 one counts).
The blue bloods are so far out in front on this one that it's near impossible to catch up. Several of the schools who look like they've been gaining ground have been caught doing bad things (UNC, Ole Miss, Baylor) and several teams who took advantage of the early years of the spread have faded (WVU, Oregon, maybe even VT with Vick)
VT with Vick used a running QB well but they were pretty far from a spread team.
I agree the blue bloods are way out in front. However, you cited two ways "have-nots" have come close (or even succeeded), and I think there's a third:
1. Cheating - Auburn won with Cam, and their title hasn't been rescinded as far as I know. Some other SEC or (or Big 12 or ACC) school could buy their way to a championship.
2. Innovation - what's the next spread? Some coach could develop a scheme that baffles everyone, at least for awhile.
3. Demographics - FSU and Clemson didn't win a national title until the 1980's. It's very possible schools like Louisville, USF/UCF, Houston, South Carolina, the Arizonas, etc. could become major players in the future.
Finally, the question wasn't whether a new school will have sustained success, but if it can win A title. I say yes.
What if WVU beat Pitt to make it to the NCG...
then maybe RR never comes to AA;
then maybe Denard never comes to AA;
then maybe we wouldn't have Harbaugh as coach right now.
Who knows.
That was destined to be a botched, poorly thought-out hire. Apparently Ron English and Mike DeBord had been ruled out by then. (If not, I can't see either one succeeding at Michigan.) Michigan would've wound up with a Schiano-esque coach at best. Maybe even Cam Cameron (shudder).
Not sure if the 2008 season dq's them, but if I were throwing some money down, that'd be my pick.
Once they build their wall.
And gets Michigan to pay for it.
These types of things are very difficult to project, but if the pool is limited to "first national title ever", then there are some candidates that jump out.
The other thing is that it's much more difficult to win a national title now than it was even 20 years ago. There are conference title games and playoff semifinals now. Essentially, you have to win two extra games to be crowned national champion than you did 20 years ago.
I'll also limit the pool to post-WWII, going by more dependable records.
I think the first team you have to look at is Louisville. As long as the reptile Bobby Petrino is there, they'll have talent and be able to score points. The institution has also essentially thrown academics to the wind and has invested a hoard of resources into all of its athletic programs. They can get basically any and every athlete they want into school because of the lax schooling, as well. They do have Clemson and Florida State in their own division, but they blew FSU out of the water last year and took Clemson down to essentially one play, in Clemson.
I think Oklahoma State should also be in this conversation. The program has shown under Gundy that they can remain nationally relevant. It's not hard to envision one magical year out of Stillwater.
Washington State also popped into my mind. While Mike Leach is overall a quirky individual, his system does work if given time to implement it. Lately that has translated into actual wins on the football field in Pullman, and that air raid style could present some matchup problems for some hypothetical playoff teams. Wazzou also has shown overall as a program that they can have that pop-up season and win a bunch of games, so there's at least a history of a few magical seasons here and there in the Palouse.
Arizona State currently does not claim a national title, interestingly. Back in the 70s they were essentially the Boise State of their day, and it was primarily because of their success as a mid-major program at the time that the Fiesta Bowl was created, to make sure Arizona State would have an appropriate postseason bowl destination. Despite this, they do not have their name signed to any national titles. I'm not sure Todd Graham is the right guy, but there is potential there in Tempe.
Stanford certainly remains relevant nationally, but I'm not sure they could ever get the athletes necesary to make a playoff run.
I think Wisconsin certainly is a possibility; the Big Ten West is manageable, but their last three wins would have to be against the East champion and then two playoff teams after that. Tough sledding.
While I do think it's certainly possible for a G5 team to have a "rise up", it's going to be very difficult with the semi-final format, so I stayed away from that.
Arizona State is interesting. With a top-tier coach they could recruit Texas and California while selling their party atmosphere. Could work ...
There are nearly 50 schools listed with claimed titles and while some of those have gone away, a majority are still in FBS. That's nearly half of FBS. I think somebody else will win one at some point (Oregon and Virginia Tech were close) and probably sooner than some would expect.
I tend to agree, and it only becomes more likely if the playoff ever expands beyond 4 teams.
Edit: Damn you double posts!