Iowa's claimed national title

^^ And maybe a better claim than Michigan has to about 80% of their "championships." Seven of Michigan's titles came before real selectors were available and their 1997 "title" is basically a Big Ten/Pac-10 linterleague championship with a MASSIVE asterisk because Washington State wasn't allowed their final play.
Knapp is never more passionate then when he's setting Michigan straight on a two-decade old split title. Always gets me fired up.

 
Well......he's not wrong about that '97 title.
Defense wins championships, They had the number one in the nation with an astounding average of giving up just 9.5 points a game. Hell Woodson was still a terror on defense till a couple years ago. So yes, he's wrong about that as well.....or is he?

Having said all this, that is what you will hear going to any Michigan forum and you will not change their minds and they will not change your minds, ever, because you are fanboys
default_smile.png
. My take on this, is that this was just another farce that occurs every year and calls itself a championship.The two teams never played so the point is totally moot and speculation is worth as much as the dirt on the bottom of a shoe.

Soap box time

My view is that there has never been a championship and that the NCAA failures continue to this day, though to a lesser degree. One day we might get a real championship but first the bowls have to go the way of the dodo, then we can talk about fields neutral to both teams and enlarging the playoff to 8-10 teams. At the pace NCAA football moves however, give it 30-50 years.
I appreciate your reasonable takes on this discussion. You are correct that neither Michigan Fan nor Nebraska Fan will change their minds on this, but the debate is fun.

The biggest travesty is that the Big Ten & Pac-10 didn't join the Bowl Alliance so we could have seen who would win it on the field. That would have been one hell of a game.

 
Michigan guy mentioned Woodson earlier. I think it's important to point out that his impact defensively would have been minimized significantly given our offense at the time. You don't get to defend a lot of passes against a run-oriented option offense. Defensively, Nebraska would have took him out of the game.

I'm a homer, but I don't think the game would of even been particularly close.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
As far as I know, Iowa doesn't actually "claim" that national title as a national title.  It is in the media guides buried in the list of all of the rankings through the years but I don't believe any special attention is given to it.  No Iowa fan that I know would ever claim that as an actual national title either.

 
Do you guys think Iowa has a right to claim their 1958 "National Championship"?

http://bigredturtle.com/iowa-hawkeyes-quest-real-national-championship/
In 1958 LSU went 11-0 and was the Associated Press pick for National Champion.  Meanwhile Iowa went 8-1-1 despite losing AT HOME by 10 points to Ohio State and ending their game with Air Force AT HOME tied at 13.  How Iowa claims a NC that year is mind blowing, and quite frankly befitting of Iowa, who still to this day views an 8 win season as being among the elite. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top