SEC wins another National Title in Football

[Hogwild]

In a pathetic attempt to revise history, obviously for the sake of 18- and 19-year-old recruits who don't care about anything that happened before they were born, Kentucky has awarded itself the 1950 national championship.

The school created a replica of the BCS crystal coaches trophy and placed it in its new football facility...

Oklahoma was named 1950 national champions by six various polls including the AP, UPI and the Football Writers Association of America, traditionally the most respected polls nationally. The Sooners suffered their only loss in the Sugar Bowl to one-loss Bear Bryant-coached Kentucky.

But despite the fact the SEC and most of the free world don't recognize the Wildcats as the 1950 national champs, someone in the Kentucky athletic department had no shame in taking that one retroactive title and running with it by creating a replica trophy to award itself.

Interesting Tidbits-
1) It gives Bear Bryant his 7th national title

2) It was the last time Kentucky won an outright SEC title

3) Kentucky's only lost that year was 7-0 to Tennessee.

4) Tennessee who won the Cotton Bowl vs. #2 Texas, also claims the 1950 national title because they were the highest ranked team(AP & Coaches) to win a bowl game. Tennessee finished #4 in the AP and #3 in the coaches. Polls were conducted at the end of the regular season.

5) The following season Tennessee also claims the national title based on the finishing first in the AP, despite losing to #3 Maryland in the Sugar bowl. Although Maryland finished as the only undefeated  team in the nation, they do not claim the 1951 title.



http://www.nola.com/lsu/index.ssf/2016/07/kentuckys_desperate_football_p.html

[ZERO]

It's so stupid how screwed up CFB national championships used to be. It's equally stupid that it took 100 years for any semblance of a #1 vs. #2 championship game to take place. And even then, it was inferior to a playoff system. It's fun for teams to be able to say they have a NC when they haven't had much success, so more power to Kentucky. They earned it that year as much as any team. But I wish people wouldn't place so much stock in these ancient titles that were decided before the final game was even played (by multiple different soures, no less).

[Pig in the Pokey]

I don't know about Kentucky, but Maryland is out of their minds for not claiming that undefeated Natty!!

[ZERO]

Didn't we go 7-0 in the early 1900s? We should claim that one. I bet we're sitting on five natties.

[moses_007]

In the 50s and 60s, all there was were the polls.  No BCS.  No playoffs.  And Kentucky didn't win any of the national polls and decided to award itself the national championship?  Bullcrap.

[Hawghiggs]

It's so stupid how screwed up CFB national championships used to be. It's equally stupid that it took 100 years for any semblance of a #1 vs. #2 championship game to take place. And even then, it was inferior to a playoff system. It's fun for teams to be able to say they have a NC when they haven't had much success, so more power to Kentucky. They earned it that year as much as any team. But I wish people wouldn't place so much stock in these ancient titles that were decided before the final game was even played (by multiple different soures, no less).

The BCS was not inferior. It pitted 1 vs 2 and that's it. That's all it should be. A playoff is nothing more than a money grab t try and bleed the fans of every last dime.

[bphi11ips]

It's so stupid how screwed up CFB national championships used to be. It's equally stupid that it took 100 years for any semblance of a #1 vs. #2 championship game to take place. And even then, it was inferior to a playoff system. It's fun for teams to be able to say they have a NC when they haven't had much success, so more power to Kentucky. They earned it that year as much as any team. But I wish people wouldn't place so much stock in these ancient titles that were decided before the final game was even played (by multiple different soures, no less).

As long as a committee decides which teams participate in a playoff, we won't have a true playoff.  That said, the current system is better than what we've had before. 

[ZERO]

In the 50s and 60s, all there was were the polls.  No BCS.  No playoffs.  And Kentucky didn't win any of the national polls and decided to award itself the national championship?  Bullcrap.

That may be all we had, but that doesn't make it right or accurate. You can't actually have more than one legitimate champion, especially those decided by publications that actually have very little to do with the sport. Kentucky awarding itself the 1950 NC almost 70 years later is, practically speaking, not any more bullcrap than the actual championship(s) handed out that year.

[East Clintwood]

I liked the old system of bowls and titles a lot better than the crap we have today.


And good for Kentucky and their title.

[LZH]

I liked the old system of bowls and titles a lot better than the crap we have today.

Me too. Although I wouldn't call the playoff system crap. It is fun, too. But I grew up in the old tradition of bowl games being a lot more important than they are these days.

[Hogwild]

I don't know about Kentucky, but Maryland is out of their minds for not claiming that undefeated Natty!!

Lots of schools are like Maryland and only claim consensus titles (AP/Coaches)

Notre Dame Football National Championships: 11 Consensus (1924, 1929, 1930, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1966, 1973, 1977, 1988). There are other years (1919, 1920, 1938, 1953, 1964, 1989, 1993) where various polls claim Notre Dame as a National Champion, but those years are not consensus titles, and thus are not claimed by the university.

[Cinco de Hogo]

Is it consensus that Arkansas had won a title?

[bennyl08]

Is it consensus that Arkansas had won a title?

I believe Alabama claims a title in 64 as well.

[Hogwild]

I believe Alabama claims a title in 64 as well.

Bama won the AP and the Coaches titles. Which is why Notre Dame, which was named as the National Football Foundation's national champion,  doesn't claim that year. The Razorbacks won the Grantland Rice Trophy.

[WizardofhOgZ]

Is it consensus that Arkansas had won a title?

For those of us who were around AT THE TIME (and, with all due respect to youth, what happened and what was acknowledged by the people there AT THE TIME is the only thing that matters), the answer is an unequivocal "yes".

I've probably explained this 20 times here - literally.  But in those days (early 1960's and up until the BCS started), ALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL WERE "MYTHICAL".  That word was ALWAYS joined at the hip with any description of a college football championship.  It's true that the AP and UPI polls were - as they are today (UPI is now the USA Today Coaches poll) - very respected and often referenced during the season.  But there were many other rating systems (my father was particularly fond of the old Dunkle Index, kind of a precursor to all of the computer rankings - like Sagarin - today; and, there was a periodical that people all over the nation subscribed to called "The Football News" and it had a lot of followers.  There were others).   The Bowls - which started out in the 20's and 30's as a "what would happen if teams from the East played teams from way out in the West?", which rarely happened in those days because of the logistics and cost - had transformed into very important end of the year battles among the top rated teams in the public's eyes by the time the 1950's rolled around.  They were no longer "exhibitions" but part of the process of determining just who the Best Team was!  For that reason, and the fact that the AP and UPI did NOT wait until after the Bowls to name a champion (thanks largely to Notre Dame, who decided to not participate in Bowls after the the 1925 Rose Bowl, and therefore lobbied the press to not include them in their rankings because they knew teams winning a Bowl game might leapfrog an idle Notre Dame team), a number of respected and supported "National Championship" awards that came out AFTER the Bowls gained a lot of public acceptance.  Those awards wouldn't have been created if the public wasn't demanding a champion be named AFTER the Bowls.

Moreover, folks didn't depend solely on the AP and UPI polls to name the champion during the last decade plus of the era in which those polls did not vote AFTER the Bowl games.  This was precisely because of the mythical nature of the Championship; it could be claimed by fans regardless of what those "pre Bowl" polls said if the results of the Bowl games justified a change.  And, often, they did!.  It was widely discussed in the media and by fans that, for example, if #3 beat #5 in Bowl X, while #1 lost to #7 in another Bowl, and #2 lost to #4 in their Bowl, then #3 could be the Champions (depending on records, losses, to whom and so forth).  In particular, if there were 2 or 3 undefeated, untied teams going into the Bowls (and we're talking about "Power 5" type teams - not BYI or Utah State), then if only one of them emerged from the Bowl season undefeated while the other two lost, then the undefeated team would be number 1.  By the way, this was the situation in 1965 when Arkansas, Michigan State and Nebraska were at the top of the polls; if any one of them had won, they would have been acclaimed as the Champions.  But all 3 lost (we lost to LSU, of all people, after our QB suffered a shoulder separation in the first half).

There were years when two teams finished undefeated, and ranked #1 and #2, then went on to win their respective Bowls, and they both claimed the Championship.  Sometimes one was #1 in one poll, and the other was #1 in the other.  This continued to happen, by the, way, even AFTER the vote was taken post-Bowl, because the match-ups at the time were locked in by conference, so quite often (in fact, usually), #1 COULD NOT play #2 to settle the matter decisively.  For example, if Texas were undefeated and #1, they were locked into the Cotton Bowl as SWC Champs.  The SEC Champion almost always went to the Sugar Bowl, and the Big 8 to the Orange, while the Rose matched the Champions of the Pac 8 and the Big 10.  However, the Big 10 had a stupid rule that the same team could not go to the Rose Bowl in back to back seasons.  So, for ALL of these reasons, there was only a Mythical National Champion.  Rarely, it worked out that one team finished undefeated, untied and no one else did, so it was pretty clear.  That happened in 1963, when Texas was the only undefeated team at the end of the year, was ranked #1, and went on to beat once-beaten Navy (with Roger Staubach) decisively in the Cotton Bowl.

The next season (1964), we beat defending National Champion and still #1 Texas in Austin (the ONLY game they lost) and went on to finish - with Alabama - as the only two 10-0 teams in the country.  Because they were Alabama (and already had the tradition we were beginning to form), they got the vote - even though WE knocked off Texas, not them.  In a perfect world, Arkansas and Alabama SHOULD have met in one of the Bowls.  But, as explained, that couldn't happen.  So we played Bob Devaney's once-beaten Nebraska in the Cotton, while Texas and Alabama played in the Orange Bowl (SEC champs almost always went to the Sugar - not sure why Alabama chose Orange that year.  But an SEC champion never played in the Cotton bowl in the pre-playoff era).  Anyway, we beat Nebraska to stay undefeated; Alabama lost to a great one-loss Texas team that we beat.  We were the clear champions of the year, and everyone at the time knew and acknowledged it.  I never heard ONE person say otherwise until we joined the SEC and Alabama fans began making fun of US for celebrating the Championship we rightly deserved.

I do understand why younger people who were NOT alive and following things at the time get a little confused over it, because things that seem like they've "been that way forever" in their life experience just were not the same in 1964.  But take it from someone who WAS there, and followed it all with laser focus and passion in real time - Arkansas was and forever will be THE National Champion of 1964, even as I again acknowledge that ALL Championships in that era were Mythical.  I'm just saying that our mythical championship claim is much better than anyone else's that year - in particular, a one loss Notre Dame team that didn't even go to a Bowl, or an Alabama team that ended the season by losing to a team we beat at THEIR place.

So, let them "claim" it.  It's ours and every Arkansan should know it and be proud, because we earned every bit of it.

[Cinco de Hogo]

For those of us who were around AT THE TIME (and, with all due respect to youth, what happened and what was acknowledged by the people there AT THE TIME is the only thing that matters), the answer is an unequivocal "yes".

I've probably explained this 20 times here - literally.  But in those days (early 1960's and up until the BCS started), ALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL WERE "MYTHICAL".  That word was ALWAYS joined at the hip with any description of a college football championship.  It's true that the AP and UPI polls were - as they are today (UPI is now the USA Today Coaches poll) - very respected and often referenced during the season.  But there were many other rating systems (my father was particularly fond of the old Dunkle Index, kind of a precursor to all of the computer rankings - like Sagarin - today; and, there was a periodical that people all over the nation subscribed to called "The Football News" and it had a lot of followers.  There were others).   The Bowls - which started out in the 30's as a "what would happen if teams from the East played teams from way out in the West?", which rarely happened in those days because of the logistics and cost - became very important in the public's eyes by the time the 1950's rolled around.  They were no longer "exhibitions" but part of the process of determining just who the Best Team was!  For that reason, and the fact that the AP and UPI did NOT wait until after the Bowls to name a champion (thanks largely to Notre Dame, who decided to not participate in Bowls after the first couple of years, and therefore lobbied the press to not include them in their rankings because they knew teams winning a Bowl game might leapfrog an idle Notre Dame team), a number of respected and supported "National Championship" awards that came out AFTER the Bowls gained a lot of public acceptance.

Moreover, folks didn't depend on the AP and UPI polls to name the champion during the last decade plus of the era in which those polls did not vote AFTER the Bowl games.  This was precisely because of the mythical nature of the Championship; it could be claimed by fans regardless of what those "pre Bowl" polls said if the results of the Bowl games justified a change.  And, often, they did!.  It was widely discussed in the media and by fans that, for example, if #3 beat #5 in Bowl X, while #1 lost to #7 in another Bowl, and #2 lost to #4 in their Bowl, then #3 could be the Champions (depending on records, losses, to whom and so forth).  In particular, if there were 2 or 3 undefeated, untied teams going into the Bowls (and we're talking about "Power 5" type teams - not BYI or Utah State), then if only one of them emerged from the Bowl season undefeated while the other two lost, then the undefeated team would be number 1.  By the way, this was the situation in 1965 when Arkansas, Michigan State and Nebraska were at the top of the polls; if any one of them had won, they would have been acclaimed as the Champions.  But all 3 lost (we lost to LSU, of all people, after our QB suffered a shoulder separation in the first half).

There were years when two teams finished undefeated, and ranked #1 and #2, then went on to win their respective Bowls, and they both claimed the Championship.  Sometimes one was #1 in one poll, and the other was #1 in the other.  This continued to happen, by the, way, even AFTER the vote was taken post-Bowl, because the match-ups at the time were locked in by conference, so quite often (in fact, usually), #1 COULD NOT play #2.  For example, if Texas were undefeated and #1, they were locked into the Cotton Bowl as SWC Champs.  The SEC Champion almost always went to the Sugar Bowl, and the Big 8 to the Orange, while the Rose matched the Champions of the Pac 8 and the Big 10.  However, the Big 10 had a stupid rule that the same team could not go to the Rose Bowl in back to back seasons.  So, for ALL of these reasons, there was only a Mythical National Champion.  Rarely, it worked out that one team finished undefeated, untied and no one else did, so it was pretty clear.  That happened in  1963, when Texas was the only undefeated team at the end of the year, was ranked #1, and went on to beat once-beaten Navy (with Roger Staubach) decisively in the Cotton Bowl.

The next season (1964), we beat Texas in Austin (the ONLY game they lost) and went on to finish - with Alabama - as the only two 10-0 teams in the country.  Because they were Alabama (and already had the tradition we were beginning to form), they got the vote - even though WE knocked of Texas, not them.  In a perfect world, Arkansas and Alabama SHOULD have met in one of the Bowls.  But, as explained, that couldn't happen.  So we played once-beaten Nebraska in the Cotton, while Texas and Alabama played in the Orange Bowl (SEC champs almost always went to the Sugar - not sure why Alabama chose Orange that year).  But an SEC champion never played in the Cotton bowl (in the pre-playoff era).  Anyway, we beat Nebraska to stay undefeated; Alabama lost to a great one-loss Texas team that we beat.  We were the clear champions of the year, and everyone at the time knew and acknowledged it.  I never heard ONE person say otherwise until we joined the SEC and Alabama fans began making fun of US for celebrating the Championship we rightly deserved.

I do understand why younger people who were NOT alive and following things at the time get a little confused over it, because things that seem like they've "been that way forever" in their life experience just were not the same in 1964.  But take if from someone who WAS there, and followed it all with laser focus and passion in real time - Arkansas was and forever will be THE National Champion of 1964, even as I again acknowledge that ALL Championships in that era were Mythical.  I'm just saying that our mythical championship claim is much better than anyone else's that year - in particular, a one loss Notre Dame team that didn't even go to a Bowl, or an Alabama team that ended the season by losing to a team we beat at THEIR place.

So, let them "claim" it.  It's ours and every Arkansan should know it and be proud, because we earned every bit of it.

Think you, although my question was tongue in cheek because people were throwing around the word consensus which had nothing to do with anything I those days.  I had actually forgetting the use of "Mythical".  That is the answer to most questions.

[Hogwild]

http://tiptop25.com/champ1964.html

The link above in my opinion is best article I've read on the '64 season.

[LZH]

For those of us who were around AT THE TIME (and, with all due respect to youth, what happened and what was acknowledged by the people there AT THE TIME is the only thing that matters), the answer is an unequivocal "yes".

I've probably explained this 20 times here - literally.  But in those days (early 1960's and up until the BCS started), ALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL WERE "MYTHICAL".  That word was ALWAYS joined at the hip with any description of a college football championship.  It's true that the AP and UPI polls were - as they are today (UPI is now the USA Today Coaches poll) - very respected and often referenced during the season.  But there were many other rating systems (my father was particularly fond of the old Dunkle Index, kind of a precursor to all of the computer rankings - like Sagarin - today; and, there was a periodical that people all over the nation subscribed to called "The Football News" and it had a lot of followers.  There were others).   The Bowls - which started out in the 30's as a "what would happen if teams from the East played teams from way out in the West?", which rarely happened in those days because of the logistics and cost - became very important in the public's eyes by the time the 1950's rolled around.  They were no longer "exhibitions" but part of the process of determining just who the Best Team was!  For that reason, and the fact that the AP and UPI did NOT wait until after the Bowls to name a champion (thanks largely to Notre Dame, who decided to not participate in Bowls after the first couple of years, and therefore lobbied the press to not include them in their rankings because they knew teams winning a Bowl game might leapfrog an idle Notre Dame team), a number of respected and supported "National Championship" awards that came out AFTER the Bowls gained a lot of public acceptance.

Moreover, folks didn't depend on the AP and UPI polls to name the champion during the last decade plus of the era in which those polls did not vote AFTER the Bowl games.  This was precisely because of the mythical nature of the Championship; it could be claimed by fans regardless of what those "pre Bowl" polls said if the results of the Bowl games justified a change.  And, often, they did!.  It was widely discussed in the media and by fans that, for example, if #3 beat #5 in Bowl X, while #1 lost to #7 in another Bowl, and #2 lost to #4 in their Bowl, then #3 could be the Champions (depending on records, losses, to whom and so forth).  In particular, if there were 2 or 3 undefeated, untied teams going into the Bowls (and we're talking about "Power 5" type teams - not BYI or Utah State), then if only one of them emerged from the Bowl season undefeated while the other two lost, then the undefeated team would be number 1.  By the way, this was the situation in 1965 when Arkansas, Michigan State and Nebraska were at the top of the polls; if any one of them had won, they would have been acclaimed as the Champions.  But all 3 lost (we lost to LSU, of all people, after our QB suffered a shoulder separation in the first half).

There were years when two teams finished undefeated, and ranked #1 and #2, then went on to win their respective Bowls, and they both claimed the Championship.  Sometimes one was #1 in one poll, and the other was #1 in the other.  This continued to happen, by the, way, even AFTER the vote was taken post-Bowl, because the match-ups at the time were locked in by conference, so quite often (in fact, usually), #1 COULD NOT play #2.  For example, if Texas were undefeated and #1, they were locked into the Cotton Bowl as SWC Champs.  The SEC Champion almost always went to the Sugar Bowl, and the Big 8 to the Orange, while the Rose matched the Champions of the Pac 8 and the Big 10.  However, the Big 10 had a stupid rule that the same team could not go to the Rose Bowl in back to back seasons.  So, for ALL of these reasons, there was only a Mythical National Champion.  Rarely, it worked out that one team finished undefeated, untied and no one else did, so it was pretty clear.  That happened in  1963, when Texas was the only undefeated team at the end of the year, was ranked #1, and went on to beat once-beaten Navy (with Roger Staubach) decisively in the Cotton Bowl.

The next season (1964), we beat Texas in Austin (the ONLY game they lost) and went on to finish - with Alabama - as the only two 10-0 teams in the country.  Because they were Alabama (and already had the tradition we were beginning to form), they got the vote - even though WE knocked of Texas, not them.  In a perfect world, Arkansas and Alabama SHOULD have met in one of the Bowls.  But, as explained, that couldn't happen.  So we played once-beaten Nebraska in the Cotton, while Texas and Alabama played in the Orange Bowl (SEC champs almost always went to the Sugar - not sure why Alabama chose Orange that year).  But an SEC champion never played in the Cotton bowl (in the pre-playoff era).  Anyway, we beat Nebraska to stay undefeated; Alabama lost to a great one-loss Texas team that we beat.  We were the clear champions of the year, and everyone at the time knew and acknowledged it.  I never heard ONE person say otherwise until we joined the SEC and Alabama fans began making fun of US for celebrating the Championship we rightly deserved.

I do understand why younger people who were NOT alive and following things at the time get a little confused over it, because things that seem like they've "been that way forever" in their life experience just were not the same in 1964.  But take if from someone who WAS there, and followed it all with laser focus and passion in real time - Arkansas was and forever will be THE National Champion of 1964, even as I again acknowledge that ALL Championships in that era were Mythical.  I'm just saying that our mythical championship claim is much better than anyone else's that year - in particular, a one loss Notre Dame team that didn't even go to a Bowl, or an Alabama team that ended the season by losing to a team we beat at THEIR place.

So, let them "claim" it.  It's ours and every Arkansan should know it and be proud, because we earned every bit of it.

Can't explain it any better than that. And I was one of the ones who you tried to explain it to previously. But I don't think I was ever aware of the Arkansas-Alabama-Texas triangle and how that played out during the bowl season.

[Hogwild]

The next season (1964), we beat Texas in Austin (the ONLY game they lost) and went on to finish - with Alabama - as the only two 10-0 teams in the country.  Because they were Alabama (and already had the tradition we were beginning to form), they got the vote - even though WE knocked of Texas, not them.  In a perfect world, Arkansas and Alabama SHOULD have met in one of the Bowls.  But, as explained, that couldn't happen.  So we played once-beaten Nebraska in the Cotton, while Texas and Alabama played in the Orange Bowl (SEC champs almost always went to the Sugar - not sure why Alabama chose Orange that year).  But an SEC champion never played in the Cotton bowl (in the pre-playoff era).  Anyway, we beat Nebraska to stay undefeated; Alabama lost to a great one-loss Texas team that we beat. 

In the early 60s, some bowls the Sugar Bowl being one, had a no repeat rule.  In 1963 Ole Miss won the SEC(that was the last time that happened) and went to the Sugar bowl to face Alabama. Alabama wasn't eligible for the '64 Sugar Bowl, which chose LSU as the SEC rep.  Alabama agreed to meet then #1 Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. Bowl games were agreed upon before the season ended in many cases.  Unbeaten Notre Dame would lose their final game of the season against USC, knocking them from atop the rankings. Notre Dame per university rules declined a bowl invitation since it was not a matchup of #1 vs #2.  Notre Dame would get rid of that rule five seasons later when the made their first bowl appearance in the '69 Cotton Bowl.

[WizardofhOgZ]

In the early 60s, some bowls the Sugar Bowl being one, had a no repeat rule.  In 1963 Ole Miss won the SEC(that was the last time that happened) and went to the Sugar bowl to face Alabama. Alabama wasn't eligible for the '64 Sugar Bowl, which chose LSU as the SEC rep.  Alabama agreed to meet then #1 Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. Bowl games were agreed upon before the season ended in many cases.  Unbeaten Notre Dame would lose their final game of the season against USC, knocking them from atop the rankings. Notre Dame per university rules declined a bowl invitation since it was not a matchup of #1 vs #2.  Notre Dame would get rid of that rule five seasons later when the made their first bowl appearance in the '69 Cotton Bowl.

Thanks for that; as I mentioned with the Rose Bowl, there were a lot of funky "one off" rules surrounding the Bowls in those days.  IIRC, the Big 10 allowed ONLY one team (their champion. unless they had been the year before) to go to a Bowl (Rose Bowl) until sometime in the late 70's or early 80's.  Seems laughable now.

One "correction", I think.  Notre Dame didn't go to any Bowl, under any circumstances, after they played in the 1925 Rose Bowl.  Even if it was or would have been #1 vs. #2.  It was only after the AP finally started conducting a post-season poll to determine their champion that Notre Dame was pressured to lift the ban, which they finally did in 1969 - ironically.

Here is a link that references the ban in 1969, leading up to the dramatic change in policy: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2512&dat=19691112&id=AgFIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=U_8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=2845,1703103&hl=en

[Hogwild]

Thanks for that; as I mentioned with the Rose Bowl, there were a lot of funky "one off" rules surrounding the Bowls in those days.  IIRC, the Big 10 allowed ONLY one team (their champion. unless they had been the year before) to go to a Bowl (Rose Bowl) until sometime in the late 70's or early 80's.  Seems laughable now.

One "correction", I think.  Notre Dame didn't go to any Bowl, under any circumstances, after they played in the 1925 Rose Bowl.  Even if it was or would have been #1 vs. #2.  It was only after the AP finally started conducting a post-season poll to determine their champion that Notre Dame was pressured to lift the ban, which they finally did in 1969 - ironically.

Here is a link that references the ban in 1969, leading up to the dramatic change in policy: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2512&dat=19691112&id=AgFIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=U_8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=2845,1703103&hl=en

That's what I always though, this summer I was reading an article about the 1964 season. I was trying to figure out why #1 Alabama would go to the Orange and play the 7th ranked SWC runner-up when the SWC champ was ranked #2. It said the the Notre Dame athletic review board was going to allow Notre Dame to play in the Orange Bowl if it was #1 vs #2.  That Orange Bowl (Bama/Texas) was one of the first games ever played in prime time, it was so successful over 40 million viewers it lead to Monday Night Football and the World Series being played in primetime.

What was interesting about the '69 season and Notre Dame bowl appearance.  LSU at 9-1 turned down the Sugar Bowl(Ole Miss-Arkansas) to play #1 Texas in the Cotton Bowl. When Notre Dame lifted their bowl the Cotton Bowl instead gave their invite to the Irish.  LSU turned down all other bowl invites and refused the play in the Cotton Bowl for over three decades. (My in laws are still pissed off at the Cotton Bowl)

[Bacons Rebellion]

http://tiptop25.com/champ1964.html

The link above in my opinion is best article I've read on the '64 season.

Hey, thanks. I had never read that version before.

[moses_007]

Bama won the AP and the Coaches titles. Which is why Notre Dame, which was named as the National Football Foundation's national champion,  doesn't claim that year. The Razorbacks won the Grantland Rice Trophy.

I think the Grantland Rice Trophy was awarded to the UPI champion, the other news service like AP.  UPI no longer exists today.

[WizardofhOgZ]

Hey, thanks. I had never read that version before.

http://tiptop25.com/champ1964.html

The link above in my opinion is best article I've read on the '64 season.

I had seen that website and read it before, but it had been a few years ago. 

A couple of comments - notice how it emphasizes the fact that Championships (for college football) in this era were MYTHICAL, as I stressed?  Second, it underscores the huge thumbprint that Notre Dame had on the media for decades, which I also mentioned.  It's ridiculous that any credible argument could be make for Notre Dame to be ranked #1 that year, yet a few "polls" that had national distribution did.  It took 40 years to overcome Notre Dame's grasp and finally get a post-Bowl vote in the major polls.  "Coincidentally", Notre Dame lifted it's ban on participating in Bowls just a few years later.

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/JonHale_CJ/status/762678355397341184

[WizardofhOgZ]

That's what I always though, this summer I was reading an article about the 1964 season. I was trying to figure out why #1 Alabama would go to the Orange and play the 7th ranked SWC runner-up when the SWC champ was ranked #2. It said the the Notre Dame athletic review board was going to allow Notre Dame to play in the Orange Bowl if it was #1 vs #2.  That Orange Bowl (Bama/Texas) was one of the first games ever played in prime time, it was so successful over 40 million viewers it lead to Monday Night Football and the World Series being played in primetime.

What was interesting about the '69 season and Notre Dame bowl appearance.  LSU at 9-1 turned down the Sugar Bowl(Ole Miss-Arkansas) to play #1 Texas in the Cotton Bowl. When Notre Dame lifted their bowl the Cotton Bowl instead gave their invite to the Irish.  LSU turned down all other bowl invites and refused the play in the Cotton Bowl for over three decades. (My in laws are still pissed off at the Cotton Bowl)

Wish LSU had boycotted the Cotton Bowl in 1966 (following the 1965 season) . . . what a miserable nightmare of a game . . . 

Next to the 1969 Texas game, that one ranks as my biggest heartbreak - far beyond the 1998 Tennessee disappointment, as a point of reference.  LSU was a LOT better than their 7-3 record; many of their studs had been injured during the toughest part of their SEC schedule, but were healthy for out game with them.  However, if Brittenum (our QB) hadn't suffered a separated shoulder early in the second quarter, it wouldn't have mattered and we'd have had back-to-back National Championships.  I cried about that for weeks (I was 12).