Salute To The Century

One of the more popular pastimes of our era seems to be combining a college football score book or record book with one's own math formula computer rating system to produce a list of retroactively rated teams from previous seasons, or "retroratings." The fact that these systems produce ratings that sometimes have nothing to do with historical reality (the contemporary consensus) is irrelevant. Therefore, with this idea in mind, the thought occurred that perhaps a logical extension would be to simply retrorate college football's "national champions" in the fairest way possible, so as many schools as possible can be honored. Democracy in action applied to college football history, as it were, combined with massive revisionist history. The result is as follows:

100 Years of Non-Repeating National Champions

* No school can be included more than once in the century.

* No team can be listed as "national champion" with more than one loss.

* All post-season games count in the won-lost records.

* More than one team may be listed as a co-champion in any year.

* Use of tiny schools not permitted to fill in the years. Example: Even though Wittenberg was 12-0-0 in 1973, it's considered cheating to use them for that season.

The List

1900 Yale, 12-0-0

1901 Harvard, 12-0-0

1902 Michigan, 11-0-0

1903 Princeton, 11-0-0

1904 Pennsylvania, 12-0-0

1905 Chicago, 9-0-0

1906 St. Louis, 11-0-0

1907 Iowa State, 7-1-0, and Oregon State, 6-0-0

1908 Kansas, 9-0-0, and Virginia, 7-0-1

1909 Lafayette, 7-0-1

1910 Vanderbilt, 7-0-1

1911 Carlisle, 11-1-0

1912 Washington & Lee, 8-1-0

1913 Washington & Jefferson, 9-0-1

1914 Army, 9-0-0, and Rolla School of Mines, 8-0-0

1915 Cornell, 9-0-0

1916 Brown, 8-1-0, and Oregon, 7-0-1

1917 Denver, 9-0-0, and Washington State, 6-0-0

1918 Virginia Tech, 7-0-0

1919 Texas A&M, 10-0-0

1920 Boston College, 8-0-0, and VMI, 9-0-0

1921 Centre, 10-1-0

1922 West Virginia, 10-0-1

1923 Marquette, 8-0-0

1924 California, 8-0-2

1925 Dartmouth, 8-0-0

1926 Haskell, 12-0-1, and NYU, 8-1-0

1927 Centenary, 10-0-0, and North Carolina State, 9-1-0

1928 Carnegie Tech, 7-1-0, and Detroit, 9-0-0

1929 St. Mary's, 8-0-1, and TCU, 9-0-1

1930 Utah, 8-0-0

1931 Northwestern, 7-1-1

1932 Colgate, 9-0-0

1933 Columbia, 8-1-0

1934 Rice, 9-1-1

1935 Minnesota, 8-0-0

1936 Santa Clara, 8-1-0

1937 Fordham, 7-0-1, and Villanova, 8-0-1

1938 Duke, 9-1-0, and Georgetown, 8-0-0

1939 San Jose State, 13-0-0

1940 Mississippi State, 10-0-1, and Stanford, 10-0-0

1941 Duquesne, 8-0-0

1942 Wisconsin, 8-1-1

1943 Purdue, 9-0-0

1944 Oklahoma A&M, 8-1-0

1945 Indiana, 9-0-1

1946 Hardin-Simmons, 11-0-0, and Tulsa, 9-1-0

1947 SMU, 9-0-2

1948 Quantico, 13-0-0

1949 Pacific, 11-0-0

1950 Wyoming, 10-0-0

1951 USF, 9-0-0

1952 Georgia Tech, 12-0-0

1953 Texas Tech, 11-1-0

1954 UCLA, 9-0-0

1955 Maryland, 10-1-0

1956 Iowa, 9-1-0

1957 Navy, 9-1-1

1958 LSU, 11-0-0, and Southern Mississippi, 9-0-0

1959 Syracuse, 11-0-0

1960 Missouri, 10-1-0, and New Mexico State, 11-0-0

1961 Fresno State, 10-0-0

1962 Mississippi, 10-0-0

1963 Illinois, 8-1-1

1964 Los Angeles State, 9-0-0

1965 Arkansas, 10-1-0

1966 Michigan State, 9-0-1

1967 Oklahoma, 10-1-0

1968 Texas, 9-1-1

1969 San Diego State, 11-0-0

1970 Arizona State, 11-0-0

1971 Toledo, 12-0-0

1972 North Carolina, 11-1-0

1973 Ohio State, 10-0-1

1974 Miami Ohio, 10-0-1

1975 Arkansas State, 11-0-0

1976 Pittsburgh, 12-0-0

1977 Kentucky, 10-1-0

1978 USC, 12-1-0

1979 Houston, 11-1-0

1980 Georgia, 12-0-0

1981 Clemson, 12-0-0

1982 New Mexico, 10-1-0

1983 Auburn, 11-1-0

1984 Brigham Young, 13-0-0

1985 Air Force, 12-1-0

1986 Penn State, 12-0-0

1987 Miami FL, 12-0-0

1988 Notre Dame, 12-0-0

1989 Tennessee, 11-1-0

1990 Louisville, 10-1-1

1991 Washington, 12-0-0

1992 Alabama, 13-0-0

1993 Florida State, 12-1-0

1994 Colorado, 11-1-0

1995 Nebraska, 12-0-0

1996 Florida, 12-1-0

1997 Kansas State, 11-1-0

1998 Tulane, 12-0-0

1999 Marshall, 13-0-0

Of course you could say that the above is a meaningless exercise because it has nothing to do with historical reality, but couldn't you say the same thing about all retroratings not based on historical research?

Air Force 1985

Alabama 1992

Arizona State 1970

Arkansas 1965

Arkansas State 1975

Army 1914

Auburn 1983

Boston College 1920

Brigham Young 1984

Brown 1916

California 1924

Carlisle 1911

Carnegie Tech 1928

Centenary 1927

Centre 1921

Chicago 1905

Clemson 1981

Colgate 1932

Colorado 1994

Columbia 1933

Cornell 1915

Dartmouth 1925

Denver 1917

Detroit 1928

Duke 1938

Duquesne 1941

Florida 1996

Florida State 1993

Fordham 1937

Fresno State 1961

Georgetown 1938

Georgia 1980

Georgia Tech 1952

Hardin-Simmons 1946

Harvard 1901

Haskell 1926

Houston 1979

Illinois 1963

Indiana 1945

Iowa 1956

Iowa State 1907

Kansas 1908

Kansas State 1997

Kentucky 1977

Lafayette 1909

Los Angeles State 1964

Louisville 1990

LSU 1958

Marquette 1923

Marshall 1999

Maryland 1955

Miami FL 1987

Miami Ohio 1974

Michigan 1902

Michigan State 1966

Minnesota 1935

Mississippi 1962

Mississippi State 1940

Missouri 1960

Navy 1957

Nebraska 1995

New Mexico 1982

New Mexico State 1960

North Carolina 1972

North Carolina State 1927

Northwestern 1931

Notre Dame 1988

NYU 1926

Ohio State 1973

Oklahoma 1967

Oklahoma A&M 1944

Oregon 1916

Oregon State 1907

Pacific 1949

Pennsylvania 1904

Penn State 1986

Pittsburgh 1976

Princeton 1903

Purdue 1943

Quantico 1948

Rice 1934

Rolla School of Mines, 1914

St. Louis 1906

St. Mary's 1929

San Diego State 1969

San Jose State 1939

Santa Clara 1936

SMU 1947

Southern Mississippi 1958

Stanford 1940

Syracuse 1959

TCU 1929

Tennessee 1989

Texas 1968

Texas A&M 1919

Texas Tech 1953

Toledo 1971

Tulane 1998

Tulsa 1946

UCLA 1954

USC 1978

USF 1951

Utah 1930

Vanderbilt 1910

Villanova 1937

Virginia 1908

Virginia Tech 1918

VMI 1920

Washington 1991

Washington & Jefferson 1913

Washington & Lee 1912

Washington State 1917

West Virginia 1922

Wisconsin 1942

Wyoming 1950

Yale 1900

This is the place where I'm supposed to say if you think this is easy, or if you think you can do better, go ahead and try, but the reality is that no sane person would bother with such a project as this! However, some people will spend hours to produce retrorated rankings throughout the seasons which match this list in terms of historical reality. If you're going to play around with college football history, why not have some fun with it?