Worst College Football National Championship Hangovers of All Time
After putting together an extraordinary run to a national title in 2019, LSU endured a rough 2020. Finishing at 5-5, the Tigers posted the worst record for a defending champion in 53 years.
LSU is the first reigning champion to not win eight-plus games since 1971 Ohio State. Even accounting for a lower number of games, LSU is the first reigning champion to not finish with a winning record since 1967 Michigan State.
But that got us thinking: What other teams in the 151-year history of college football struggled after winning a title? Seven followed a national championship with a losing record.
Their order here is based strictly on winning percentage in the season immediately after a national title. The list of champions—for the sake of clarity—is from NCAA.com.
Also, we used a six-game minimum as a cutoff. Teams routinely played only a handful of games in the 1860s and 1870s when college football, you know, actually became a thing. Breathe a sigh of relief, fans of 1870 Rutgers (1-1) and 1875 Yale (2-2).
The .500 Club
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2020 LSU Tigers: Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Joe Burrow led a record-setting offense in 2019. But his departure, along with 13 other NFL draft picks and two leading members of the coaching staff, led to LSU mustering a 5-5 record in 2020.
1950 Notre Dame Fighting Irish: En route to the 1949 championship, Notre Dame scored at least 27 points in every game and allowed just 8.6 per game. The next season, the offense took a drastic step back and averaged 15.4 points as the Irish went 4-4-1.
1928 Yale Bulldogs: After enjoying a 3-0 start, the Bulldogs' season went south. They lost to Army, beat Dartmouth and scored just two points combined against Maryland, Princeton and Harvard to finish 4-4.
1923 Princeton Tigers: The championship-winning 1922 team posted five shutouts in eight games. But in 1923, the Tigers lost to Notre Dame, tied Navy and fell to Harvard and Yale for a 3-3-1 season.
1919 Michigan Wolverines (3-4)
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Fielding Yost assumed control of the Michigan program in 1901 and proceeded to lead the Wolverines to four straight national titles. From 1901 to 1904, the Wolverines notched a 43-0-1 record.
They remained successful from the late 1900s through the 1910s. However, U-M didn't claim another championship until 1918 when it finished 5-0 and allowed six points. But as quickly as the Wolverines rose, they dropped in 1919.
After shutout wins over Case and Michigan State, Michigan lost to Ohio State for the first time in the series' 16-game history.
The Wolverines beat Northwestern but lost to Chicago, Illinois and Minnesota, wrapping up the season 3-4.
1943 Ohio State Buckeyes (3-6)
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As you can imagine, World War II helps explain why 1943 Ohio State sandwiched a 3-6 season between 9-1 and 9-0 records.
"Due to the war, Ohio State football had teamed up with the Army ROTC program at the school," per Matt Gutridge of Eleven Warriors. "Unfortunately, ROTC rules mandated players involved with the ROTC program were not eligible to play varsity sports."
So, understandably, the Buckeyes had a challenging year against a hard schedule. Five of their six losses were to programs—Iowa Pre-Flight, Great Lakes Navy, Purdue, Northwestern and Michigan—that ended up in the Top 10 of the AP poll.
1929 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (3-6)
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No, this isn't the Cumberland season. Georgia Tech's 222-0 win happened 13 years earlier in 1916.
In 1928, the Golden Tornado won a national title behind Peter Pund—an All-American and future College Football Hall of Famer. But his departure alongside key offensive players Warner Mizell, Stumpy Thomason and Father Lumpkin led to a decline.
After scoring 22.1 points per game with a 10-0 record in 1928, the Yellow Jackets averaged just 11.7 and closed at 3-6 the following season.
1967 Michigan State Spartans (3-7)
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Although 1967 marked the beginning of a decline under head coach Duffy Daugherty, he's credited with being at the forefront of integrating college football in the 1960s.
Led by four future College Football Hall of Fame inductees, Michigan State shared national titles in 1965 and 1966. Clinton Jones, Gene Washington, Bubba Smith and George Webster were all top-eight selections in the 1967 NFL draft.
Similar to 2020 LSU, however, the 1967 Spartans simply could not overcome their NFL departures.
Michigan State fell to Houston and USC and then beat Wisconsin and Michigan before losing five straight games. The Spartans ranked 78th nationally in scoring defense and tumbled to 3-7.
1939 TCU Horned Frogs (3-7)
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In 1938, quarterback Davey O'Brien led TCU to an 11-0 record and national championship. O'Brien won the Heisman Trophy, and teammates Ki Aldrich (No. 1 overall) and I.B. Hale (No. 8) joined O'Brien (No. 4) as early picks in the 1939 NFL draft.
We can imagine the level of talent TCU had to replace.
The departures crushed the Horned Frogs, who lost four straight games to begin 1939. They alternated wins and losses the rest of the way, ending the season at 3-7.
Head coach Dutch Meyer—who's in the College Football Hall of Fame—also coached basketball and baseball at TCU.
1913 Penn State Nittany Lions (2-6)
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Ah, yes, 107 years ago. I remember like it was yesterday.
Under the leadership of Bill Hollenback, the Nittany Lions enjoyed a 16-0-1 stretch in 1911 and 1912. They allowed only 21 points in those 17 games and claimed a share of two national titles.
But in 1913, the defense—gasp!—actually gave up some touchdowns while the offense struggled. Penn State opened with shutout wins over Carnegie Mellon and Gettysburg but dropped the final six games of the season by a combined score of 94-13 to finish the year at 2-6.
1934 Michigan Wolverines (1-7)
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At least the 1934 Michigan roster produced a world superstar: Gerald R. Ford, the 38th president of the United States.
That's about all the Wolverines had going for them.
In the four preceding seasons, Michigan posted a 31-1-3 record. Since head coach Harry Kipke predicted the team would decline in 1934 and lose three games, a tough season was apparently expected. But the Maize and Blue plummeted to 1-7 while scoring only 21 total points.
Ford's teammates voted him as the season's MVP, and Michigan retired his No. 48 jersey in 1994.
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