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What?
Yes, that's right, Purdue, who finished 1-11 and barely beat a 1-11 FCS team, has won the college football national championship. No, the dearth of good news when it comes to Purdue sports has not caused me to go entirely off the deep end and descend into a world dominated by EA Sports' NCAA Football. It has actually happened:
By combining some numbers from Wikipedia's well-researched database on the matter, here are the championships available for claiming for each school, if any of them find themselves so inclined. Most of the unclaimed titles are somewhat spurious for one reason or another, but that's only if you're scared of winnin'.
So let's look at the database:
|
8-1 |
PD |
|||
|
9-1 |
PD |
|||
|
10-1 |
BR, BS, CFRA, DiS, DuS, HAF, HS, NCF, PS, SR, WS |
Yes, the year before our Parke-Davis basketball national championship the football Boilers went 9-1. That was good enough for Parke Davis:
College football historian Parke H. Davis is the only selector considered by the NCAA to have primarily used research in his selections.[6] Davis did all of his work in 1933, naming retroactive national champions for most of the years from 1869 to 1932 and naming Michigan and Princeton (his alma mater) co-champions at the end of the 1933 season.
|
Selector |
Name |
Seasons |
|
PD |
Parke H. Davis |
1869-1870, 1872-1909, 1911-1916, 1919-1932, 1933 |
Here is the 1931 schedule:
|
10/3 |
vs. |
Western Reserve (non-IA) |
W |
28 |
0 |
||
|
10/3 |
vs. |
Coe (non-IA) |
W |
19 |
0 |
||
|
10/10 |
vs. |
*Illinois (2-6) |
W |
7 |
0 |
||
|
10/17 |
@ |
*Wisconsin (5-4-1) |
L |
14 |
21 |
||
|
10/24 |
@ |
Carnegie Tech (3-5-1) |
W |
13 |
6 |
||
|
10/31 |
@ |
*Chicago (2-6-1) |
W |
14 |
6 |
||
|
11/7 |
vs. |
Centenary (5-5) |
W |
49 |
6 |
||
|
11/14 |
vs. |
*Iowa (1-6-1) |
W |
22 |
0 |
||
|
11/21 |
@ |
*Indiana (2-5-1) |
W |
19 |
0 |
||
|
11/28 |
vs. |
*Northwestern (7-1-1) |
W |
7 |
0 |
@ Chicago, IL |
|
|
9-1-0 |
192 |
39 |
|||||
This is not the only year Purdue has a claim, as we can also take a strong look at the 1943 season, which was the Boilers' last undefeated campaign:
|
9/18 |
@ |
Great Lakes Navy (10-2) |
W |
23 |
13 |
||
|
9/25 |
@ |
Marquette (3-4-1) |
W |
21 |
0 |
||
|
10/2 |
vs. |
*Illinois (3-7) |
W |
40 |
21 |
||
|
10/9 |
vs. |
Camp Grant (2-6-2) |
W |
19 |
0 |
||
|
10/16 |
vs. |
*Ohio State (3-6) |
W |
30 |
7 |
@ Cleveland, OH |
|
|
10/23 |
vs. |
*Iowa (1-6-1) |
W |
28 |
7 |
||
|
10/30 |
@ |
*Wisconsin (1-9) |
W |
32 |
0 |
||
|
11/6 |
@ |
*Minnesota (5-4) |
W |
14 |
7 |
||
|
11/20 |
@ |
*Indiana (4-4-2) |
W |
7 |
0 |
||
|
9-0-0 |
214 |
5 |
|||||
The kicker here is the win over the only good team we played: Great Lakes Navy. They defeated Notre Dame 19-14 in the final game of the season, but the Irish were still awarded the title by every service.
So, screw it, not only am I claiming the 1931 title, I am taking one from Notre Dame since we beat the team that beat them and we went undefeated. It's not our fault they were ducking us until 1946, when the current series started.
Purdue Boilermakers: 1931 and 1943 National Champions y'all!