Our MNC Wednesday column checks in today on the 1914 college football season and the not-so-burning question of which team really won the thical national championship. This was a different era for the sport than it was in the post-1936 “modern” era, where the military academies were somewhat unfairly stacked with talent during “wartime” situations. This pre-World War I season presented a different reality for college football, so we will proceed in terms of analysis as usual today to look at this campaign.

The 1914 MNC: Army (Helms, NCF); Illinois (DMP)

The experts chose the Army Black Knights here for some reason, but modern sabermetrics have the team at just No. 17 in the SRS rankings. Its 9-0 record featured just four games against major-college competition, and the No. 56 SOS rating (out of 83 schools) is somewhat embarrassing as a result. There are a lot of other teams here to consider, and we suspect one of them—at least—will surpass Army’s statistical profile, as even the SRS is built upon fraudulent margin-of-victory numbers gathered against weaklings.

So, what other schools are we going to assess? Here is a prescreened list to start with in this process:

  • Illinois (7-0): No. 1 SRS, No. 12 SOS
  • Texas (8-0): No. 2, No. 63
  • Auburn (8-0-1): No. 8, No. 24
  • Virginia (8-1): No. 9, No. 37
  • Washington & Jefferson (10-1): No. 10, No. 26

We see some very disparate numbers here, which can be hard to reconcile. The Fighting Illini profile looks hard to beat, while the Longhorns’ SOS is distressingly bad, even worse than Army’s mark. Texas played six major opponents, going on the road just once while also playing a neutral-site game against Oklahoma. Either way, the Longhorns can’t overcome that SOS. As for the Tigers, they played two small schools and did not allow a single point all season, including a scoreless tie against No. 47 Georgia. Ouch.

Auburn started the season like gangbusters, winning its first six games by a 180-0 margin. But the team sputtered down the stretch, finishing just 2-0-1 with a mere 13-0 composite scoring margin. The tie against the Bulldogs was on the road, and the final win was a 7-0 victory over Carlisle on a neutral field. But this was not the Carlisle team of legend; this team went 5-10-1 during this specific season. Either way, the Tigers can’t match Illinois, so it all becomes somewhat moot. Neither can Virginia, of course.

The Presidents put together a fine season, with eight major opponents and six road games. We respect that a lot, and the one-point loss to No. 12 Harvard on the road is the only blemish on the slate. Yet even if Washington & Jefferson had won that game they still would not have the sabermetrics to match or surpass the Fighting Illini—which went undefeated in Western Conference play with one small-school opponent on the schedule. Plus, Illinois played three road games among its seven total matchups. Well done.

So, in the end, it’s easy for us to pick the Illini for this MNC. This is the third championship, by our measurements, for the school in the last six seasons (along with the back-to-back crowns from 1918 and 1919). We really cannot say what the experts saw in the Army team, overall; the Black Knights played nine straight weekends, while beating Notre Dame and Navy, but overall, the schedule was very mediocre, and in the end, there were better teams to consider for the MNC, as we have explored and illustrated.