Our MNC Wednesday prequel miniseries continues today to assess “established” mythical national championship analysis. This was clearly a hit-or-miss process to retroactively decide an MNC winner: nine times in the last 15 columns have we agreed with one of the “winners” of the annual honor, and one of those nine times was 1922 when three teams had been named “champions”—and we only chose one of them to wear our actual crown. Sometimes, it’s just been crazy how wrong these “experts” have been!

The 1920 MNC: California (Helms, NCF); Georgia (DMP)

The California Golden Bears have been anointed by the powers that be for this season’s MNC, but we’re not so sure, despite our inherent desire to see it be just so, having grown up a stone’s throw from the Berkeley campus. Cal posted a 9-0 record, which included a Rose Bowl victory over Ohio State, yet there are a lot of issues here to examine. Primarily, the problem is the schedule: the Golden Bears played four small schools, and the SOS rating (81st out of 96 teams) is pretty pathetic. Thus, we have to explore.

These are schools/teams that finished ahead of No. 10 Cal in the SRS rankings and could make a case for their respective causes:

  • Georgia Tech (8-1): No. 1 SRS, No. 9 SOS
  • Georgia (8-0-1): No. 2 SRS, No. 10 SOS
  • Alabama (10-1): No. 3 SRS, No. 33 SOS
  • Princeton (6-0-1): No. 4 SRS, No. 13 SOS
  • Harvard (8-0-1): No. 6 SRS, No. 30 SOS
  • Virginia Military Institute (9-0): No. 7 SRS, No. 70 SOS
  • Pittsburgh (6-0-2): No. 9 SRS, No. 5 SOS

Let’s break this down: the Yellowjackets’ one loss was to Pitt, so based on our head-to-head protocols, that eliminates Georgia Tech, even if the sabermetrics have them as top dogs. Meanwhile, Alabama lost to Georgia, so the Tide is out. Moving down the list, Harvard and Princeton played to a tie, so the Crimson goes down based on SOS clarity there. The VMI Keydets (great nickname, by the way) also played too weak of a slate to warrant serious consideration here. Pitt can stay for now, due to SOS.

So, we have three finalists, really: Georgia, Princeton, and Pitt as Cal gets dropped for that weak schedule. We have to split hairs to figure out which team takes our title: the Panthers have the SOS edge, but they also have two ties. The Bulldogs didn’t play any small schools, while the Tigers and Pitt both played one. We’re going to eliminate Princeton first, since it played the fewest games—ending the season on November 13, almost two weeks before the other two schools. Also? Only one road game, the Harvard tie.

Meanwhile, the Bulldogs played only four home games, which is impressive. But their tie came against No. 34 Virginia, even if it was the last of five straight matchups away from their own campus. Both Panthers’ ties came against better teams: No. 11 Penn State and No. 28 Syracuse. Pittsburgh also has the SOS edge, while Georgia has that margin-of-victory edge due to playing a slightly lesser slate. The Bulldogs would have been three-point favorites on a neutral field against the Panthers as well. Hmmm.

It’s interesting to note Pittsburgh’s slim plus-6 scoring margin in its two road games against real competition (including that tie at Syracuse): that is telling. The Panthers were plus-49 at home against five big-time opponents. As for Georgia, other than the 14 points it surrendered to Alabama, the Bulldogs only gave up three points total to every other opponent: they tossed seven shutouts, all against major-college teams. Overall, the SOS is Top 10, so it’s hard to pick that apart, and we think Georgia wins this battle.

We see this as the Bulldogs’ second MNC, since we didn’t agree with the voters in 1980 or 2021. We confirmed Georgia’s 2022 title, however. And that’s the way the cookies crumble for the 1920 college football season as seen through our eyes today.