By the end of this month, we will be done with this MNC Wednesday miniseries, and that makes us sad. We think of how much we used to love this sport before it was ruined by corruption and greed, although some might argue it was always corrupt and fraudulent. Chasing the mythical national championship dominated the twentieth century of American college sports, of course, and not only are we relics from that era, we have minimal interest in what is happening these days on the same turf we once loved.

The 1902 MNC: Michigan (Helms, NCF); Yale (DMP)

The “experts” foolishly gave the Michigan Wolverines a share of the MNC in 1903 and 1904, only to have the math prove them horribly wrong. And here we go again? The winged-helmeted guys went 11-0 with the No. 2 SRS ranking and the No. 29 SOS rating out of 72 eligible teams. But they played eight home games—including five against schools that were not playing “major college” football in 1902. Even in outscoring their so-so schedule by a 644-12 margin, the best Michigan could do was SRS No. 2.

Thus begging the question, which school was No. 1? Well, here is our short list of teams we need to consider here:

  • Yale (11-0-1): No. 1 SRS, No. 4 SOS
  • Nebraska (10-0): No. 3 SRS, No. 10 SOS

That is really about it, as the sport was very uneven across the nation at the time, obviously. Both the Bulldogs and the Cornhuskers have superior sabermetric profiles to the Wolverines, so in diving deeper, Yale only played a single cupcake on the schedule, although it, too, only left its home field three times over the course of the season. One more time, we acknowledge travel was harder in this era, obviously, with only trains, really, to rely on for any sort of significant journey. Still, the Bulldogs are tops.

Their tie came on the road against No. 8 Army, and in terms of math, Yale would have been a 1.67-point favorite over Michigan on a neutral field. In the end, the Wolverines of this era were building their “reputation” by beating up on small-school teams, but we see through that ruse—and really always have in this space. For the record, Nebraska played eight real teams, left home thrice, and would have been 5.81-point underdogs to the Bulldogs on a neutral field. This seems like an easy decision to make, so we make it.

Congratulations to Yale on their fifth mythical crown, by our count, including this third one in a five-season span (1905, 1906). It’s been rare for us in this prequel miniseries to confirm the “experts” … perhaps it’s time for those organizations to revisit their “awards” since advanced analytics are so much more prevalent these days than when they made these ill-informed decisions, eh? After all, we always have to consider new data and revise our conclusions periodically if we want to faithful to scientific methods.