Georgia is going for 3 straight National Championships this fall, a chance to be the only team in modern history to pull off the feat. Officially (a definition that is very loosely defined in the history of college football) only 1 team has won 3 straight titles, Minnesota from 1934 through 1936. Many other programs have become repeat winners but tried and failed for another, including Notre Dame in 1948.
The Background
Frank Leahy returned from World War II locked the hell in with a super loaded program that was very good in his 2-year absence but licking its wounds from 4 defeats in 1944-45 by a combined 158 points, including a pair of thrashings at the hands of Army.
That return in 1946 would come with controversy, as Notre Dame and Army tied 0-0 at Yankee Stadium in a “Game of the Century” with West Point ranked No. 1 in the nation. To date, this is the only college football game that featured 4 current and/or future Heisman Trophy winners. Both teams would finish this season unbeaten, however, Army struggled with a 1-8 Navy team in their finale while Notre Dame calmly beat a 6-4 ranked USC in South Bend.
A colorized picture from ND vs. Army 1946, not great uniform contrast!
After having spent the preceding 7 weeks atop the AP Poll–and not having lost across 3 full seasons–Army was voted out and Notre Dame rose to the top spot and were crowned National Champions in 1946. Thus, Army was denied a 3-peat championship.
Historians have made the case that Army was pretty hard done by the decision, but the Irish would soon understand how it would feel to be spurned in a similar manner.
In 1947, Notre Dame spent 7 out of the 10 weeks ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll (they didn’t release pre-season polls until the 1950 season) on their way to an undefeated season. In 3 of those polls (weeks 2, 3, and 7) the Irish were dropped in favor of Michigan.
It’s pretty unseemly to do so, but you could make the case that Michigan was also hard done by the 1947 season. They played 3 common opponents with Notre Dame and out-scored Pitt, Northwestern, and USC 167-21 while the Irish out-scored those teams 104-32.
Sorry not sorry about 1947!
The Irish dropped back to no. 2 following a 7-point win at Northwestern, but even though Michigan shut out a poor Ohio State team 21-0 the next week, Notre Dame re-gained the top spot after a 59-6 win over a mediocre Tulane team. Michigan’s regular season was over, and Notre Dame went on to beat USC in their finale a couple weeks later (in the days of train travel!) 38-7. Michigan beat that USC team in the Rose Bowl a few weeks later 49-0.
The 1947 Michigan team finished 10-0 and +341 in point differential and have been named the best team in school history. Since they didn’t take a poll after the bowl games (and Notre Dame didn’t play in bowl games in this era) the AP awarded Notre Dame the National Championship for back-to-back titles.
The Three-Peat That Was Not
Heading into 1948, Michigan head coach Fritz Crisler stepped down and devoted his time to his athletic director responsibilities, a role he had been juggling with football since 1941. In his place, they hired Bennie Oosterbaan who is still regarded as the finest athlete in school history, and had been an assistant with the Michigan football team since 1928 upon graduation.
The first AP Poll of the 1948 season didn’t come out until October 4th with Notre Dame debuting at the top following an absolute squeaker 28-27 win at home to Purdue and a 40-0 demolition on the road at Pittsburgh. Michigan debuted at no. 7 following close wins over Michigan State (14-7) in East Lansing and at home to Oregon (14-0).
Notre Dame beat Michigan State 26-7 the following week but dropped down to no. 2 after North Carolina had beaten eventual Orange Bowl champion Texas, eventual SEC champion Georgia, with a thorough win at Wake Forest making the Tar Heels an impressive 3-0. Michigan trounced Purdue 40-0 in West Lafayette and were already up to no. 4 in the country.
Michigan jumped to no. 1 in the country with a 28-0 domination of eventual Rose Bowl champion Northwestern* and solidified their votes atop the AP with a 28-14 road win against a strong Minnesota team. In back-to-back weeks, Michigan beat the 2 other best teams in conference play.
*This being an era of extremely stupid college football rules, the Rose Bowl disallowed teams from making an appearance more than once every 3 years. As mentioned above, Michigan was in the previous year’s Rose Bowl and thus was ineligible to play in the exhibition to conclude 1948. Thus, Northwestern got their first Rose Bowl invite and to-date their only win in the showcase.Â
In the next action, Notre Dame shellacked Navy 41-7 in Baltimore while Michigan got past Illinois in Ann Arbor 28-20 to hand the no. 1 ranking back to the Irish on November 1st.
Now sitting at 6-0, still unbeaten since Frank Leahy returned from war for the 1946 season, riding a 18-game winning streak, and 24-game unbeaten streak, the Irish would not return to no. 1 in the AP Poll the rest of the 1948 season.**
Lots of “what-if’s” from the 1948 season surround Leahy’s legacy.
Michigan shutout visiting Navy 35-0 to move to 7-0 while Notre Dame handled Indiana 42-6 in Bloomington. This just barely moved the Wolverines back to no. 1 and when they beat Indiana 54-0 on November 13th and the Irish scraped past Northwestern 12-7 in South Bend it only consolidated Michigan’s voting advantage.
It’s often viewed as Notre Dame’s finale at USC is what cost a National Championship but thanks to the scheduling quirks and voting of this era that’s not exactly how it played out.
Michigan beat Ohio State 13-3 in Columbus but Notre Dame was idle. However, while on a bye the Irish closed the gap in voting from 231 votes to just 103 votes. Since Michigan’s season was over without a Rose Bowl bid, Notre Dame played Washington in South Bend and won 46-0 with ease. It would prove not to be enough, as Michigan’s lead in the voting increased slightly by 123 votes.
The Irish didn’t travel to USC until December 4th, or 2 weeks after Michigan’s last game. Notre Dame turned the ball over 7 times and needed a late touchdown to tie the Trojans 14-14 in Los Angeles. It wouldn’t matter, as the final AP Poll of the season came out on November 29th with Michigan crowned Mythical National Champions.
If we can take any solace from this bit of history it’s that Bennie Oosterbaan turned out to be a fraud as a football coach. He got this 1948 title (with Crisler’s players, I’m sure people later complained!) and slowly drove the program into the ground. Michigan would go 6-2-1 and 6-3-1 in the next 2 seasons and it never got better. Oosterbaan stayed 11 years though, and his final campaign in 1958 saw Michigan fall to 2-6-1.
Did Michigan “deserve” the championship?
The teams played 5 common opponents which is pretty wild for those days considering they weren’t in the same league. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a close enough comparison for Notre Dame. The Wolverines shutout 4 of the teams and only gave up 7 points. The Irish allowed 54 points and were +95 on point differential to Michigan’s +163 points.
If only there were a playoff where they played each other.
**Notre Dame returned to no. 1 in the AP Poll with the second ranking of the 1949 season, staying atop college football the rest of the season. In other words, Leahy narrowly missed out not just on a 3-peat but 4 straight National Championships.Â
Kind of insane it took the NCAA 100 years to add a football playoff. The entire history of NCAA leadership can pretty much be summed up as: STATUS QUO!
The college football postseason has actually changed a lot over time. Roughly, it went:
-No postseason
-Handful of bowl games that were just exhibition games
-Bowl games that were significant but didn’t impact national championship voting
-Bowl games that, collectively, decided the national championship
-Bowl games that guaranteed a final #1 vs #2 matchup (2-team playoff)
-Bowl games plus a separate #1 vs #2 matchup
-4-team playoff
-12-team playoff
Not saying it hasn’t changed. Saying the powers that be in the NCAA fight change tooth and nail. The writing on the wall has been so obvious for so long, about lots of things, and they just resist and resist and resist. And for no good reason.
The NCAA plays no role in college football’s postseason at the FBS level.
Yep, the resistance to a playoff actually wasn’t the NCAA at all but the conference power brokers. The NCAA likely would’ve loved a football playoff and the accompanying revenues.
And the NCAA does run playoffs at the FCS, DII, and DIII levels. Also a pretty well known basketball playoff in March.
The NCAA is many things but resistant to playoffs is not one of them.
Interesting. Didn’t realize that.
Interestingly, the 1940s were probably the only era of college football that compares to today in terms of top-heaviness and concentration of power in one region. The decade was dominated by ND, Army, Michigan, and Minnesota — just like today is dominated by Alabama, Georgia, and Clemson.
To find something similar, you’d have to go back to the 1800s when the Ivy League schools were pretty much the only ones playing serious college football.
The Miami-Florida State rivalry in the late ’80s through the ’90s was pretty comparable.
Eh, even then you had a nice diversity of national champions. Following Miami’s first title in 1983, you had BYU, Oklahoma, Penn State, ND, Colorado/GT, Washington, and Alabama winning national titles. That gets to FSU’s first title* in 1993. Eight different teams, from every region of the country, won national titles during that time.
Today’s national title race is, practically speaking, constrained to a small circle in the deep south.
Coach Leahy, when asked by reporters about a Michigan-Notre Dame game in 1947 to settle the question of football’s best team, the normally quiet, reserved Leahy shot back, “I just wish we had the opportunity to beat Michigan. We’d be happy to play them any time, on any Saturday, during any fall.”
By that time, Leahy was fed up with trying to hook that slimy eel Crisler into settling games on the field. Notre Dame and Michigan split two games in 1942 and 1943. In 1943, the Irish beat then #2 Michigan 35-12 in the Big House on the way to the National Championship. Michigan finished 8-1 and tied for the Western Conference championship and was ranked third in the AP final poll. Now if they only hadn’t played Notre Dame….
Coach Frank Leahy recalled, “In 1944 I asked Fritz Crisler directly if we could resume the series. He looked me straight in the eyes and said that Michigan was willing to meet Notre Dame any place, any time, and any Saturday. I believed him. I repeatedly asked him for a date that we could meet and he never could make room on his schedule for Notre Dame.”
Crisler had become the AD by 1948 and continued to refuse to play ND for another twenty years. If they lost to ND, they could not claim a national championship.
Yeah, I was going to say that any ND/Michigan voting dispute requires the context that the only reason the two teams didn’t play every year in those early seasons was because Michigan threw 30-plus year hissy fits of refusing to play ND after each of the first two times the Irish beat them.
Absolutely loved this one. My folks used to talk all the time about the way ’48 came out (I was only three so don’t recall). Four straight would have been… a true thing.
If only the young Fr Hesburgh hadn’t hamstrung Coach Leahy after ’49; even as it was we shoulda won the Natty in ’53. Those teams were incredible, and honestly don’t you all think that Frank Leahy is a seriously underappreciated football coach?