A Tribute to College Football's Unique Champions

This is a special tribute to the 1944 and 1945 Army teams and the 1984 BYU team.

These three teams represent the ONLY three ‘non-BCS’ (Teams whose schools that are currently NOT in the BCS) teams to have been voted national champions in the AP poll over the past 60-plus years.

All other national champions over this period are part of the current BCS structure.

In 1944, Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard led Earl Blaik’s Army team to an undefeated season and the national championship.  Only sophomores that season, Davis and Blanchard finished 2-3 in the Heisman voting.

That year, Les Horvath of Ohio State won the Heisman Trophy.  In 1945, Army repeated and won the national championship again. Those Army teams went 18-0 over two seasons and Blanchard won the Heisman Trophy in 1945.

Blaik’s protégés included Vince Lombardi, Sid Gillman, and Bill Yeoman to name a few. He was a rock solid coach, a rock solid staff, and a rock solid team.

Fast forwarding to 1984, the BYU Cougars went 13-0 and defeated a down Michigan team (6-6) in the Holiday Bowl and won the national championship.

Robbie Rosco led the Cougars to a 24-17 over the Bo Schembechler-led Wolverines, whose quarterback was current Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh.

Since World War II, this country has been through five wars (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq I, Afghanistan, and Iraq II), the Civil Rights Movement, a new millennium, and will have its 12th president sworn in this month.

The American Basketball Association merged into the National Basketball Association and the American Football League merged in to the National Football League. Yet only one team not included in the current BCS structure has won a national championship in that time period.

Again congratulations to these teams who defied the odds that statistically could be called biblical.