When it comes to sports and the year 1919, no one thinks of college football. But our MNC Wednesday prequel miniseries continues today to assess “established” mythical national championship analysis in that very year. However, the 1919 college football seasons seems to have created a conundrum for our “experts” as we have a threesome crowned collectively. While the Helms Foundation seems to have been sure of one team, the NCF crew clearly had some issues in sorting out the information!

The 1919 MNC: Harvard (Helms, NCF-tie), Notre Dame (NCF-tie), and Texas A&M (NCF-tie); Illinois (DMP)

The three “champions” noted above don’t rate very highly in the sabermetric rankings: Harvard (11th), Notre Dame (28th), and Texas A&M (24th) all fall well short of our leaders here. It’s hard to envision any scenario in which one of these teams earn our MNC designation. In fact, we’re not even going to look at these three teams unless we have to, for we will start with the teams in the Top 10 before the Crimson even are considered. This is the way “qualified” Top 10 teams shake out in our analysis:

  • No. 1 Alabama: 8-1, No. 29 SOS (out of 99)
  • No. 3 Illinois: 6-1, No. 1 SOS
  • No. 4 Penn State: 7-1, No. 23 SOS
  • No. 5 Centre: 9-0, No. 77 SOS
  • No. 6 Ohio State: 6-1, No. 38 SOS

The Fighting Illini are clearly the “best” team here, based on record and SOS rating. In fact, they also beat the Buckeyes, so that’s a bonus. The Crimson Tide played two small schools and lost to No. 33 Vanderbilt on the road. The Nittany Lions also played two small schools while losing to No. 26 Dartmouth on the road. The Colonels, who have been a regular contender here in this prequel miniseries, didn’t play anything resembling a respectable schedule. Interestingly enough, Ohio State was 6-0 until losing to Illinois.

So, how do our faux champs measure up now?

  • No. 11 Harvard: 9-0-1, No. 51 SOS
  • No. 24 Texas A&M: 10-0, No. 87 SOS
  • No. 28 Notre Dame: 9-0, No. 73 SOS

The Crimson won the Rose Bowl over No. 38 Oregon, but clearly, the SOS is not there. The Aggies? Don’t make us laugh: four of their 10 opponents were small schools. As for the Fighting Irish? Five of their nine opponents were small schools. So, clearly, some people out there fell for the cupcake-scheduling routine, something that we should all know better about now at this point. In the end, no one’s profile compares to the Fighting Illini’s achievements: seven big-time opponents, all future members of the B1G.

Illinois’ one loss was at home to No. 21 Wisconsin, which is still a “better” loss than those of Alabama and Penn State noted above. Maybe the Illini’s margin-of-victory data (plus-6.1 points per game) wasn’t impressive enough for the selectors above, but the overall SOS rating really magnifies what Illinois did accomplish. And we’re sticking with that to clear up one of the more sticky situations for the MNC. Yet unlike 1922’s trio of title teams, we found a fourth team that truly deserved the “champs” moniker.

In our count, this is the Illini’s first MNC, although the selectors did previously gift them crowns in 1923 and 1927‚ which we did not agree with in our revisionist process. However, Illinois clearly deserved this one, so as we have found many times in this long process of evaluation? Most things usually even themselves out in the end, so we’re good with that.