How many auburn national championship football

Newell had blazing speed and, though small in stature, a powerful lower body. His speed and leg strength were developed by a hobby of chasing rabbits as a young boy. Led by Newell, who gained more than yards in just 8 games, Auburn went undefeated against a very difficult schedule, outscored its opponents by the amazing margin of , while playing only two games in Auburn. At stake in the game for the winner was the SIAA championship.

Georgia was led by halfback Bob McWhorter, who combined speed and power with the size of a present-day running back, and was a threat to score on every run. McWhorter, a four-time All-Southern selection, was the very first Southern player named to an All-American team as a senior in However, this Auburn team has subsequently been named a national champion for by six national championship selectors.

Auburn is where Southern football tradition began. And it should be celebrated. Yet this great, dominant team, its players and Hall of Fame coach, are overlooked by most Auburn fans, as if the bruises, injuries, and blood spilt on the gridiron by these players for the glory of Auburn is not worthy of all the honor and respect it is due simply because it occurred just over a century ago.

In my view, the opposite should be true. This great team, composed of rural farm boys, many of whom were greenhorns to the sport and who had never seen a football game before beginning practice, bested college teams composed of players hand-picked from local high schools that were already playing the game.

It did so immediately following the season some 10 years ago. The Auburn University Athletic Department recently modified the content on its website for the football program to include a reference to the fact that the , , and teams have each been named a national champion by NCAA-recognized national championship selectors. When the change was identified by someone, it apparently caused a stir with persons who were indignant that Auburn should have the gall to claim national championships based on the same standards used by other football programs nationally, including in the SEC.

However, none of that prevented fans and sports media personalities from offering fast-paced put-downs in response via twitter commentary. I offer the following tweets from USA Today writer Dan Wolken, a Vanderbilt graduate, who sought to especially debunk any Auburn claim to a national championship for the season. His tweets were not anything remarkable, but because they are representative of the types of comments made by hand-wringing media persons, they are worth discussing.

The Official Record Book of the NCAA lists a large number of selectors that it has found credible and provides the teams those selectors have named as national champions. Thus, while the NCAA has not itself awarded any team the title of national champion, it has recognized Auburn as a national champion for , , and , in addition to the national championships claimed by Auburn for and If other universities used the same overly strict standard of counting just A.

So when Auburn Athletic Director Jay Jacobs has talked about Auburn possibly beginning to count national championships in the same manner as peer institutions, he is correct that to this time Auburn has used a different standard. A stricter standard. And that is the point of my book.

Wolken apparently took great umbrage in particular at the possibility of Auburn claiming a national championship for the season. If you do a little bit of research the National Championship Foundation is only slightly more of a real thing than The Human Fund.

George would then spend the money on himself. Wolken sought by comparison to ridicule any claim to a national championship based on an award of the National Championship Foundation.

However, perhaps it is Dan Wolken and others who would attack the NCF that actually lack credibility. Moreover, if Mr. Wolken had actually contacted the NCAA or undertaken a bit of the research he described in his tweet he would have discovered that the NCF was actually a substantial organization that contemporaneously named Auburn a national champion for the football season and that Auburn has been recognized as such by the NCAA since that time.

During its existence the NCF established a 13 member panel that investigated past seasons and retroactively named national champions for the years through It then contemporaneously named college football national champions from through the year Wolken or other sportswriters and media personalities, but to me that sounds like the NCF was a substantial organization worthy of some respect.

It certainly has been shown respect by the NCAA by its inclusion on the list of national championship selectors. Perhaps he is simply upset at the idea of the sports media not being able to control who is named a national champion or what selectors a university football program may deem credible.

Perhaps he feels particularly qualified to judge which teams are and which teams are not able to wear the title of national champion for seasons in the past. Perhaps he simply wants Auburn to continue undervaluing its championship heritage. You can decide Mr.

Wolken additionally advances the specious argument that Auburn was ineligible to be awarded a national championship in Of course, it is true that Auburn was on NCAA probation in and received a bowl ban based on violations deemed to have been committed by the prior coaching staff. Davis concluded that both Rutgers and Yale were co-champions. Since that year, national champions have been named, with some years seeing two or even three teams crowned.

Football was slightly different when Minnesota won its first national title in The Golden Gophers averaged yards per game that year — of which came on the ground. Oklahoma leads all FBS programs with four different win coaches in school history. Harvard is approaching the th anniversary of its most recent championship, giving it the longest title drought of any team on this list.

No USC coach was more successful than John McKay, who in 16 years at the helm, led the Trojans to four national championships between and C hampionships: , , , , , , , , Lockwood and Henry Robinson -- were named members of the All-Southern team. Right now, and for a while, not much. If you're reading this, you've probably been watching Auburn football for at least a few years -- likely much longer -- and you'll continue watching Auburn football for many more years to come. No living person remembers the season.

You know how they went down, and this news isn't going to cause retroactive jubilation. No matter what, you've been operating under the assumption that Auburn had won two national championships, and it will feel a little funny to now say the Tigers have won five. Plenty of fans from other schools will point and laugh, and there will skirmishes on Twitter and in comment sections.

But claiming , '83 and '13 isn't for the Auburn fans of today; it's for the Auburn fans of the future, the next generation. Anyone born tomorrow who grows up bleeding orange and blue will always know their favorite college football team as a program that won five national championships before their birth. And for that fan, the three additional titles will be added ammunition for future debates on whatever social media platform or higher form of communication is prevalent in For any opposing fans snickering, and for any Auburn fans putting too much stock into three more claimed titles recognized by the NCAA, remember this: Gus Malzahn and co.

In the not-too-distant future, we'll be talking about more national championships claimed on the field. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.