A college football team just won the national championship ... from 1945
Oklahoma State won its first national football championship, the school announced Thursday. Among the star players for the Cowboys? Seven veterans of World War II.
That’s because the national title isn’t from this season, or even this millenium. Back in 1945, Oklahoma State was called Oklahoma A&M and known as the Aggies, and the Aggies were dominant on the gridiron, posting a perfect 9-0 record.
But at season’s end, the Associated Press ranked the team No. 5 in the nation, behind Army, Alabama, Navy and Indiana. Back then, there was no playoff to determine the best team in the nation; the poll was considered final.
From there, Oklahoma A&M descended into the lower tier of college football, not making the AP poll again until 1958 and not topping that No. 5 ranking until 2011. The best record in program history wasn’t enough to capture a national title — until now.
The American Football Coaches Association, formed in 1922, has sponsored a coaches poll since 1949, awarding its own national championship trophy to the team that ends each season ranked No. 1. Recently, the association has formed a committee to go back and evaluate the seasons before the start of its poll and declare national champions from each year, according to a press release. Oklahoma State is the first team to get some retroactive bragging rights.
Of course, Army, who was declared the AP national champion for that season at the moment, can’t be pleased about that announcement, though the team hasn’t officially responded.
But West Point is used to disputes over national titles, as is all of college football. A lack of an official postseason or even an AP poll before the 1940s meant all sorts of teams have tried to claim a national championship thanks to the poll from this group or that one. Alabama claims 16 titles. Yale says it has 27. Princeton thinks it has 28. Texas has 15 of some sort or another, Army has five and Notre Dame, Michigan and Southern California all claim 11. Even the introduction of the coaches poll did more to muddy the waters, as it has crowned a different national champion than the AP poll on 11 occasions.
And that’s before one even considers the wins and championships that schools have been forced to vacate by the NCAA for rules violations. Southern California was stripped of its 2004 title after the NCAA found that school boosters provided improper benefits. Ohio State gave up 12 wins and a No. 5 ranking from 2010 for similar violations. Southern Methodist saw its program disbanded, reformed and then almost an entire season voided because it paid players thousands of dollars.
So while Thursday’s announcement might seem a little odd to those unfamiliar with college football, messing with the history book is just par for the course for the NCAA.
This story was originally published October 13, 2016 at 5:08 PM with the headline "A college football team just won the national championship ... from 1945."