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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/NorthwestPurple on 2023-12-29 23:04:07.

Now we all know the story of Alabama’s 1941 national championship. This was the year they finished 9–2, 3rd place in the SEC, and No. 20 (of 20) in the final AP Poll. This season was unremarked upon for many years until Alabama SID Wayne Atcheson did some accounting in the 1980s and added 5 pre-Bear Bryant national championships to the university’s “claim”. The other 4 are legit, but the 1941 national championship is widely viewed as one of CFB’s worst claims.

Defenders of the 1941 title will say that despite the season looking bad on its face, the Tide were awarded the national championship by a respected national championship selector. Thus they can and should claim it. I’m sympathetic to this line of reasoning, as many schools have legit “alternate” national championship selections and claims, especially in the days before Bowl Games were taken into account by the AP Poll and Coaches Poll.

The only problem is… the contemporary Houlgate System awarded its national championship to Minnesota, not Alabama.

Houlgate Ranks Gophers First, Navy Second

December 2, 1941

The Deke Houlgate system of rating football teams today placed the Golden Gophers of Minnesota in the top spot in national standings. Houlgate, making his final selections, nominated the Navy for second place and Alabama for third.

Minnesota was the Houlgate System national champion in 1941.

Wayne Atcheson’s new Alabama claims in the 1980s occurred prior to the listing of “major selectors” in the NCAA records book. The source of the information was likely a 1967 article in Sports Illustrated by celebrated sportswriter Dan Jenkins in which he looked back upon and tabulated the various historic national championship selectors. Here’s what Jenkins said about Houlgate:

Still, the Dickinson system was accepted by football fans as the law until well into the 1930s. By then a lot of other systems had been originated. The first followed Dickinson by one year. It was perfected by a man in Los Angeles named Deke Houlgate who would later write a ponderous 9"x13" work titled The Football Thesaurus.

Later, in the table of national champions, the Deke Houlgate selections are listed as The Football Thesaurus (1927–1958) and the selector is abbreviated as “Thes”. Jenkins obviously used The Football Thesaurus as the sole source for the Houlgate System national champions.

I happen to own both editions of The Football Thesaurus. One was released in 1946, the last in 1954. For the latter book, Houlgate produced and mailed out annual supplements for the 1954–1958 seasons until his death in 1959. Here are the scans of the relevant pages:

The 1946 book contains nothing about national championships. The 1954 book lists the regular season Houlgate System champions and then updates the champion after bowl results. Here’s what he writes for 1941, in 1954:

For the sixth time a bowl game changed the national championship. At the end of the regular play it was all Minnesota, with Navy and Alabama in second and third. After the Crimson Tide beat the Texas Aggies, 29–13, in the Cotton Bowl it was 'Bama, Minnesota and Navy… in that order.

That’s it. That’s the full accounting of the 1941 Houlgate System national championship for Alabama.

I have yet to see ANY EVIDENCE that the choice of Alabama as 1941 Houlgate System national champions occurred prior to the publication of this book in 1954. It’s possible that some time in those 13 years it was publicized to Alabama that they won the post-bowl national championship, but such a claim requires evidence to be shown.

Trophy

The Houlgate System presented the Foreman & Clark Trophy to its national champions, sponsored by a Los Angeles department store.

We have evidence of this trophy for 1934–1936: Stanford, SMU, LSU.

Neither 1934 Stanford nor 1936 LSU are listed in the NCAA records book as Houlgate System national champions, despite receiving the contemporary Houlgate System National Championship Trophy. The champions from the NCAA book were clearly also just taken from the 1954 Thesaurus.

The 1934 award to Stanford has a funny story, and this time it makes Alabama look good. Stanford won the Houlgate System on regular season results, which was the style at the time, but the brilliant minds of the day decided to award them the trophy on the field after the 1935 Rose Bowl. Stanford lost that game to now 10–0 Alabama. They evidently weren’t feeling like a national champion, so they left the trophy, Civil conFLiCT-style, in their locker room.

“No thanks, I’ve no desire to play the chump” said the clothing firm man who was to make the trophy presentation, leaving his trophy on the field of battle. So, a brave Stanford alumnus who didn’t want to see a large piece of pewter go to waste lugged the cup into the dressing room and sought out Al Masters, Stanford general manager.

“Here is the Houlgate trophy awarded to Stanford as national champions of the past season,” the alumnus explained as he unpacked the prize. “Horse collars,” shouted Masters, chasing the alumnus out of the building.

This trophy potentially still existed in 1941 and would settle the matter once and for all. Minnesota or Alabama, do you have it?