Category Archives: National Champs

SEC vs. SEC, No apologies, I loved it!

Posted on by
Reply

Travis Normand
January 8, 2018

Final (OT), Alabama 26 and Georgia 23. This post is not a national championship game re-cap, it’s not completely about Nick Saban, and it’s not a 2017 season in review. If anything, it might be a little bit of all of the above, as well as my immediate reaction to the Alabama vs. Georgia championship game. I consider this my farewell message to the 2017 college football season and my contemplations after tonight’s championship game. 

Tonight the Crimson Tide picked up their fifth national championship in nine seasons, their 17th overall (depending on who you ask), and Nick Saban’s sixth (five at Alabama and one at LSU; tie-ing Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant for the most national championships during the poll era, or post 1936).

Over the past week, ever since Alabama won the Sugar Bowl and Georgia won the Rose Bowl, there has been a lot of talk about whether it is “good” for the game of college football to have an all-SEC national championship game. If you know me, you know that I am not the biggest advocate of using a playoff to determine the national champion of college football. This puts me in the minority, as most people favor a playoff. Further, most people grew tired of the old system where “we” selected the national champion (especially under the BCS system where “we” tried to manipulate which teams would get selected to play for a national championship).

Continue reading →

Keith Arnold interview on SolidVerbal.com

Posted on by
2

by Travis Normand

If you love college football and you are not listening to the SolidVerbal.com podcast, you are missing out.

As readers of this blog know, I post random items and thoughts as I find them.  This means I post a lot of stuff that is anything but “timely.”  As it works out, I tend to find things later than most, which means I post about them later as well.  However, this isn’t always a bad thing.

For example, Ty and Dan (co-hosts of SolidVerbal.com) interviewed Keith Arnold of the NBCSports.com blog “Inside the Irish” on January 4, 2013.  Had I listened to the interview that very same day, I may not have found it as interesting as I did.  Instead, I listened to the interview today (Jan. 14), a week after the national title game.

Continue reading →

1962 Ole Miss Football Team gets National Title Rings

Posted on by
10

by Travis Normand

Earlier today University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) Athletics Director Ross Bjork [@RossBjorkAD] tweeted this message:

Great to honor our 1962 national champs with new rings!  Love seeing our former athletes on campus.

Most college football fans remember that it was USC that won the 1962 National Championship as USC was awarded the National Title by the AP, the NFF, the FWAA, and the UPI.  However, Ole Miss has claimed a share of the 1962 title by virtue of some other polls and lists the 1962 National Championship on their website.

While the 1962 National Title is up for debate, the 1962 SEC Conference Championship is not.  Ole Miss claimed the SEC title in 1962 with an overall record of 10-0.

So why did the 1962 team get new rings?  Well, I am not 100% sure but I think I have a pretty good guess.  My guess is that whatever ring they received in 1962 only said “SEC Champions,” and did not say “National Champions.”  Now that Ole Miss claims the 1962 national title, they figured it was only right to give the players from that squad a ring that reflected the same accomplishment.

*Note: I asked Ross Bjork, via twitter, for more information on the new rings.  I will update this site as soon as I hear back from him.