The 8 Ways to Smoke Out a Fake National Title Claim

Posing in 2017 with a national championship trophy that was retroactively (and wrongly) applied to a team from 72 years earlier. © Rob Ferguson-Imagn Images

College football history is loaded with BS national championship claims, as well as some non-consensus claims that AREN’T ridiculous. How do we tell the difference? What patterns emerge when we look at decades of disputed titles? What is the most ridiculous national title claim of all time? (Spoiler: It’s one of Alabama’s claims. But why don’t the Tide claim other titles that would be a lot less outrageous?) No other sport has a feature quite like this one, and we’ve got an expert to talk through it with us: Keith Gaddie, TCU professor and author of a new book, “Bragging Rites,” on the history of arguing over national championships. (The book comes out May 24.)

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