Oklahoma State Football just won the national championship. Michigan next?

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on

From 1945.

The AFCA (Coaches Poll trophy organization) recently started awarding retroactive titles from 1922-1949 (they began in 1950).

Oklahoma State--a team literally no one selected in 1945--was awarded a claim to the title by the AFCA. 

Army was loaded that season as expected given the war had just ended. Nearly every single selector picked Army as national champions save one who picked Alabama (a title they do not claim).

Now, it's normal for schools to have national titles that they do not officially claim. Michigan could claim 17 National Championships if we claimed our 6 that currently sit unclaimed.

But Oklahoma State claimed it immediately to give themselves their first national title. Not only did they claim it, the AFCA sent them a crystal football trophy...........

The crystal football trophy did not exist until 1986.........

..........

 

Champions.

Learn more about @CowboyFB’s 1945 national championship team: https://t.co/AuKYhli66O#okstate pic.twitter.com/Ad0UpL1mo7

— Oklahoma State (@OSUAthletics) October 13, 2016

From the LA Times-

 

“After gathering all the pertinent information and doing our due diligence, it is the pleasure of our Blue Ribbon Commission of coaches to officially recognize Oklahoma State’s 1945 championship season with the AFCA Coaches’ Trophy,” said Todd Berry, the association’s executive director.
Though coaches in 1945 weren't yet voting for the best teams, there were other polls and ranking systems. The Associated Press Poll that year had Army at No. 1 and Oklahoma State — which was then called Oklahoma A&M — at No. 5.
Though the school has dozens of national championships in other sports — it won the 1945 NCAA basketball tournament — this is the first title in football.
The AFCA panel, which is taking a look back at the 1922 to 1949 seasons, expects to name additional retroactive champions.

Michigan could possibly receive a National Championship. That is why I did not make this an OT thread.

Michigan has unclaimed national championships in 1910, 1925, 1926, 1964, 1973 & 1985.

1925 was considered Fielding Yost's best team in history, despite having a loss.

It featured the Benny to Bennie comination and they outscored opponents 227-3 with the lone loss coming to Northwestern.

It was a 3-2 loss where Northwestern intentionally took a safety as the team that took a safety back then was allowed to retain possession of the ball. 

Given that and the fact that the West (today known as the Midwest) had the better football than the schools in the South did, I would be more surprised if we were not selected for 1925 by the AFCA.

Alabama claims 1925 where they went undefeated and won the Rose Bowl, but Michigan's schedule featured real programs. Illinois, Northwestern, Minnesota, Chicago. Southern football back then was pretty much scuffling hillbillies. 

M-Dog

October 13th, 2016 at 11:02 PM ^

There was a national organization - I forget which one, but it was a reputable organization that voted every year - that voted us #1 in 1985.

It was not a retroactive vote, it was a real-time vote at the end of the 1985 season.

It's the same basis that all these schools are using to claim these one-off NCs . . . a vote by a peripheral but legitimate organization outside of the mainstream AP or UPI coaches poll.

That's why voting on NCs is (was) a stupid system.

ShadowStorm33

October 13th, 2016 at 7:22 PM ^

Speaking of crystal footballs, what was up with the one they showed during the Rutgers game? I thought those were discontinued when they started the CFP, and why the hell was it at Rutgers, anyway?

Unless AFCA just awarded them the national championship for 1869...

LSAClassOf2000

October 13th, 2016 at 8:02 PM ^

I wonder if you can win one of these through some kind of drawing or contest for a meager participation fee. Actually, I wonder if - in such a scenario - the runner-up would get a $500 Meijer (or whatever regional chain) gift card or something. It seems like it would be just as valid a process. 

Keel

October 13th, 2016 at 8:23 PM ^

I just don't see the significance of this. I doubt anyone is losing sleep over UM's "6 unclaimed" NC. Even if they award one I hope it remains unclaimed because this just feels desperate




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Bando Calrissian

October 13th, 2016 at 10:26 PM ^

You do realize that all but two of the National Championships Michigan claims are also in this general camp of dubiousness, right? Take a good long look at some of the polls, though mostly "Oh, let's look back thirty years and figure this out" systems that were used to figure them out...

But, hey, whatever.

drzoidburg

October 14th, 2016 at 12:21 PM ^

I was reading about the 1960 fiasco with both Minny and the team that beat them in the bowl (Washington) "claiming" the NC, along with Ole Miss which i believe forbade black players. I consider all NC before the playoff, and especially before bowls counted, to be mythical. Yeah, in 1940s the supposedly best teams not only rarely met in bowls, but if they did, the polls proclaimed the champ before they took place! And then decades later teams that would've benefited from the current model self-proclaimed themselves champion, on what authority? Doesn't stop them though.

Sorry but the whole thing is too much a joke for me. You're counting "national championships" from 1904 dude. Those might've been great teams, but there's no evidence for that, only opinion. Using a beatdown of a team that quickly gathered frat members as a football team as evidence of being superior to Princeton or whoever would be even more dubious than declaring ourselves 2016 conference champs and cancel the Ohio game because we beat Rutgers by more...