Description
Book Synopsis In the 150 years of college football history, the national championship has been decided by unanimous vote only 33 times. This book analyzes the various methods of selecting these champions and what made the teams special. Drawing on archives and early published works, a firsthand description of the 1869 inaugural game between Princeton and Rutgers is provided, along with details of how these earliest teams were managed. The contributions and innovations of Walter Camp, the Father of Football, are explored, as is the evolution of the game itself. Each unanimous season since the turn of the 20th century--from Yale in 1900 to LSU in 2019--is covered in detail, with a brief history of each school''s football program. The question is there a best ever team is explored.
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1. Polling and Mathematical Selection Systems
- 2. Why Were Certain Teams Not Unanimous?
- 3. The Early Years
- 4. Yale 1900
- 5. Yale 1909
- 6. Georgia Tech 1917
- 7. Notre Dame 1943
- 8. Michigan 1948
- 9. Texas 1963
- 10. Nebraska 1971
- 11. Southern California 1972
- 12. Nebraska 1995
- 13. Tennessee 1998
- 14. Florida State 1999
- 15. Miami 2001
- 16. Southern California 2004
- 17. Texas 2005
- 18. Alabama 2009
- 19. Florida State 2013
- 20. Ohio State 2014
- 21. Alabama 2015
- 22. Clemson 2018
- 23. LSU 2019
- 24. Summary and Conclusions
- 25. Is There a "Best Ever" Team?
- Appendix A: Walter Camp
- Appendix B: Awards and Coaches
- Appendix C: Francis Gordon Brown Letters
- Appendix D: Service Teams of 1943
- Chapter Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
