Our MNC Wednesday “prequel” miniseries returns this week as we journey back to the innocent times of 1928. We have done eight of these prequel evaluations, and seven times now we have agreed with the retroactive assessments. It’s like the smart people did the retroactive determinations based on math, while the dumb people did the voting all the other years—and let feelings get in the way of facts. What a shame!

The 1928 MNC: Georgia Tech (Helms, NCF); Georgia Tech (DMP)

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets—or the Wramblin’ Wreck, if you prefer—were the retroactive champs for this season, as they posted a 10-0 record and won the Rose Bowl (over the second-place Pacific Coast Conference school) by one point. They beat seven Southern Conference teams, Notre Dame, California, and one small school on their way to the No. 1 SRS ranking and the No. 10 SOS rating. It’s an impressive profile.

Who else can we consider? Well, we have to start with the USC Trojans (9-0-1), No. 2 in the SRS and No. 31 in the SOS. Right away, the Trojans are in the whole with the tie and the SOS deficiency. The tie came against California on the road, which is interesting, and overall, the Trojans faced only seven major-college teams during the season, which clearly hurt them in the strength-of-schedule category as noted above here.

Both teams hosted Notre Dame and won by 13 points. Also, Georgia Tech played only two road games before the Rose Bowl, and USC played just one road game (Cal). So, both the SRS rankings were built on schedules that were skewed toward the respective teams. That’s kind of ridiculous, in truth. USC finished above Cal in the PCC standings, since the Golden Bears had a second tie in conference: Stanford, in the season finale.

It would have been nice to see USC play Georgia Tech in the Rose Bowl instead, and again, one of the primary reasons the Yellow Jackets beat Cal there was because of Roy Riegels and his famous blunder. Heck, Golden Bears star Benny Lom was named the Rose Bowl MVP. So, Georgia Tech caught a lot of breaks to end up here, and that’s the way it goes, we guess. A few things go different? It’s the Trojans.

That’s about it this time out: we confirm Georgia Tech’s MNC for 1928. It’s the first mythical national title we’ve designated to the school in our analyses, as the half championship the school won in 1990 did not stand up to scrutiny. Either way, congratulations to the Wramblin’ Wreck!