College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS

A college football national championship in the highest level of collegiate play in the United States, currently the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), is a designation awarded annually by various third-party organizations to their selection(s) of the best college football team(s). Division I FBS (formerly Division I-A) football is the only NCAA sport in which a yearly champion is not determined by an NCAA sanctioned championship event.

Because the championship team is not determined by an NCAA championship or tournament event, it has often been unofficially referred to as a "mythical national championship". Since the NCAA, the sport's governing body, does not determine or declare a national champion in this field, determination of such has often engendered controversy. A championship team is independently declared by various individuals and organizations, often referred to as "selectors". These choices are sometimes at odds with each other. While the NCAA has never officially endorsed an annual championship team, it has documented the choices of several selectors in the Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book. In addition, various third party analysts have independently published their own lists of what they have determined to be the most legitimate selections for each season. These are also often at odds with each other as well as individual school's claims on national championships, which, for any particular season, may or may not correlate to the selections published elsewhere.

Currently, two widely recognized national champions selectors are the Associated Press, which conducts a poll of football sportswriters, and the USA Today Coaches' Poll, a poll of American Football Coaches Association active coaches that is contractually obligated to name the winner of the Bowl Championship Series championship game as its national champion.

History
The earliest contemporaneous polls can be traced to  Caspar Whitney, Charles Patterson and The Sun in 1901. Thus the concept of polls and national champions predated the mathematical system, but Frank Dickinson's math system was the first to be widely popularized. His system named 10–0 Stanford the national champion of 1926, prior to their tie with Alabama in the Rose Bowl. A curious Knute Rockne, then coach of, had Dickinson backdate two seasons, which produced as the 1924 national champion and Dartmouth in 1925.

A number of other mathematical systems were born in the 1920s and 1930s and were the only organized methods selecting national champions until the Associated Press began polling sportswriters in 1936 to obtain rankings. Alan J. Gould, the creator of the AP Poll, named Minnesota,, and tri-champions in 1935, and polled writers the following year, which resulted in a national championship for Minnesota. The AP Poll was the most sensational and famous selector from its inception until 1950.

The AP's main competition, United Press, created the first poll of coaches in 1950. For that year and the next three, the AP and UP agreed on the national champion. The first "split" championship occurred in 1954, when the writers selected Ohio State and the coaches chose. The polls also disagreed in 1957, 1965, 1970, 1973, 1974, and 1978, the latter of which was followed by eleven years of agreement. The Coaches' Poll would stay with United Press (UP) when they merged with International News Service (INS) to form United Press International (UPI) but was acquired by USA Today and CNN in 1991. The poll was in the hands of ESPN from 1997 to 2005 before moving to its present sole ownership by USA Today.

Though some of the math systems selected champions after the bowl games, both of the major polls released their rankings after the end of the regular season until the AP polled writers after the bowls in 1965, resulting in what was perceived at the time as a better championship selection (Alabama) than UPI's (Michigan State). After 1965, the AP voted before the bowls for two years, permanently returning to a post-bowl vote in 1968. The coaches did not vote after the bowls until 1974, in the wake of awarding their 1973 championship to Alabama, who lost to the AP champion, undefeated Notre Dame, in the Sugar Bowl.

The AP and Coaches' polls remain the major rankings to this day, alongside the Bowl Championship Series, considered the modern math giant. The BCS was the successor of the Bowl Alliance (1995–1997), which was itself the successor of the Bowl Coalition (1992–1994). Besides the many adjustments it undergoes each season, including a large overhaul following the 2004 season that included the replacement of the AP Poll with the Harris poll, the BCS has remained a mixture of math and polls since its inception in 1998, with the goal of matching the best two teams in the nation in a national championship bowl game which rotated yearly between the Sugar, Fiesta, Rose, and Orange from 1998 to 2005, and later a standalone game titled the BCS National Championship Game (2006 to present). The winner of the BCS Championship Game is awarded the national championship of the Coaches' Poll thus winning the AFCA National Championship Trophy. The BCS winner also receives the MacArthur Trophy from the National Football Foundation. Neither the AP Poll, nor other current selectors, have contractual obligations to select the BCS champion as their national champion. The BCS has resulted in a number of controversies, most notably those that followed the 2003 season.

National championships in the Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book
The NCAA maintains an official records book of historical statistics and records for Division I football. In the records book, with consultation from various college football historians, it has created and maintains a list of "major selectors" of national championships throughout the history of college football along with their championship picks for each season.

Major selectors
A variety of selectors have named national champions throughout the years. They generally can be divided into three categories: those determined by mathematical formula, human polls, and historical research. The selectors below are listed in the Official NCAA Records Book as having been deemed to be "major selectors" for which the criteria is that the poll or selector be "national in scope either through distribution in newspaper, television, radio and/or computer online". The former selectors, deemed instrumental in the sport of college football, and selectors presently included for the calculation of the BCS standing, are listed together.

Math
The mathematical system is the oldest systematic selector of college football national champions. Many of the math selectors were created during the "championship rush" of the 1920s and 1930s, beginning with Frank Dickinson's system, or during the dawn of the computer age in the 1990s. Selectors are listed below with years selected retroactively in italics.

* The BCS uses a mathematical system that combines polls (Coaches' and Harris) and multiple computer rankings (including some individual selectors listed above) to determine a season ending matchup between its top two ranked teams in the BCS Championship Game. The champion of that game is contractually awarded the Coaches' Poll and National Football Foundation championships.

Poll
The poll has been the dominant national champion selector since the inception of the AP Poll in 1936. It is notable that the NFF merged with UPI from 1991 to 1992 and USA Today from 1993 to 1994. Selectors are listed below with years selected retroactively in italics.

For many years, the national champion of various polls were selected prior to the bowl games. The national champion was selected before bowl games as follows: AP (1936–1964 and 1966–1967), Coaches' Poll (1950–1973), FWAA (1954), and NFF (1959–1970). In all other latter-day polls, champions were selected after bowl games.

Presently the winner of BCS Championship Game is automatically awarded the national championship of the Coaches' Poll and the National Football Foundation.

aServed as the AFCA Coaches' Poll during the designated years. bThe UPI Poll conducted the Coaches' Poll through the 1990 season, which was subsequently taken over by the CNN/USAToday. UPI then conducted a poll of National Football Foundation members in 1991 and 1992, the winner of which received the NFF's designation as the national champion and its MacArthur Trophy. cCNN/USAToday conducted its own poll of college football sportswriters until it took over the Coaches' Poll starting with the 1991 season. dUSA Today took over the poll of the National Football Foundation's members in 1993 from the UPI, and its winner received the NFF's designation as the national champion and its MacArthur Trophy. The poll was conducted by USA Today through the 1996 season, although national championship selections in the NCAA Records Book do not distinguish the NFF from the USAToday/NFF poll in 1995 and 1996. USA Today conducted this poll separately from the CNN/USAToday Coaches' Poll, and the two should not be confused.

In addition to these, since 2005 the BCS has commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct a poll of former college football players, coaches, and administrators. This human poll is used to help calculate the BCS standings. No final poll is taken after the BCS championship game and no national championship is awarded or named by Harris Interactive.

Research
College football historian Parke H. Davis is the only selector considered by the NCAA to have primarily used research in his selections. Davis did all of his work in 1933, naming retroactive national champions for most of the years from 1869 to 1932 and naming Michigan and (his alma mater) co-champions at the end of the 1933 season.

Yearly national championship selections from major selectors
Below is a list of the national champions of college football from 1869–present (with the exception of 1871, in which no games were played) deemed to be chosen by "major selectors" as listed in the Official NCAA Division I Records Book. Many teams did not have coaches as late as 1899. "Consensus" selectors in the Official NCAA Records Book correspond to the period from 1950 to present which began with the introduction of the two poll system upon the appearance of the Coaches Poll in 1950. Selectors used to determine teams listed as "Consensus National Champions" in the NCAA record book include the AP Poll, Coaches' Poll, Football Writers Association of America, and the National Football Foundation/College Football Hall of Fame.

The first contemporaneous poll to include teams across the country and selection of a national champions can be traced to  Caspar Whitney in 1901. The last retroactive selection was made by Clyde Berryman in 1989 (Notre Dame). The tie was removed from college football in 1995 and the last champion with a tie in its record was in 1994. The 1947 Michigan Wolverines are often credited with a national championship on the basis of a "free poll" conducted by an AP sportswriter after the 1948 Rose Bowl, though that poll was unofficial and it is not recognized in the Official NCAA Records Book.

Note that the Harris Interactive Poll (2005–present) is contracted by the BCS to help formulate its standings, and although its final ranking which occurs prior to the bowl games is listed in the Official NCAA Record Book, it does not conduct a final poll or award or name a national champion on its own and so has been eliminated from the following table.

As designated by the official NCAA records book, the table below shows:
 * Teams listed in italics indicate retroactive-applied championships.
 * Teams listed in bold indicate "consensus" championships according NCAA Records Book designation, 1950 to present.

Total championship selections from major selectors by school
The national title count listed below is a culmination of all championship awarded since 1869, regardless of consensus or non-consensus status, as listed in the table above according to the selectors deemed to be major as listed in the Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book (minus the Harris Interactive poll, 2005–present, that is listed but does not conduct a final poll or award a championship).

The totals can be said to be disputed. Individual schools may claim national championships not accounted for by the NCAA Records Book or may not claim national championship selections that do appear in the NCAA Records Book (see National championship claims by school below). For an alternative independent view of national championship totals for each team, please see the College Football Data Warehouse recognized national champions or Poll era (1936-present) selections in the tables below.

National championship claims by school
The following is a table of known schools' claims on national championships at the highest level of play in college football. Several of these schools no longer compete at the highest level, which is currently NCAA Division I FBS, but nonetheless maintain claims to titles from when they did compete at the highest level.

Because there is no one governing or official body that regulates, recognizes, or awards national championships in college football, and because many independent selectors of championships exist, many of the claims by the schools listed below are shared, contradict each other, or are controversial. In addition, because there is no one body overseeing national championships, no standardized requirements exist in order for a school to make a claim on a national championship, as any particular institution is free to make any declaration it deems to be fit. However, all known national championship claims are for seasons in which a National Championship, or share of a championship, was believed to be awarded to that particular school by at least one independent third-party selector. The majority of these claims, but not all, are based on championships awarded from selectors listed as "major" in the Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book. Not all championships awarded by third party selectors, nor those listed in the Official NCAA Records Book, are necessarily claimed by each school. Therefore, these claims represent how each individual school sees their own history on the subject of national championships.

This table below includes only national championship claims originating from each particular school and therefore represents the point-of-view of each individual institution. Each total number of championships, and the years for which they are claimed, are documented by the particular school on its official website, in its football media guide, or in other official publications or literature (see Source). If a championship is not mentioned by a school for any particular season, regardless of whether it was awarded by a selector or listed in a third-party publication such as the Official NCAA Records Book, it is not considered to be claimed by that institution.

a In Yale's Media Guide Year-By-Year Results section, the 1887 is listed as National Champs, however this title is not referred to elsewhere and is not included in the list of 26 National Championships that are claimed in the media guide or on Yale's athletic website. bAs of yet, and pending USC's appeal of its penalties to the NCAA, there is no reliable information that USC has changed or abandoned its claim to a 2004 National Championship. USC's January 4, 2005 win over Oklahoma in the BCS Championship Game was vacated as mandated by the NCAA. NCAA sanctions mandate that "any reference to the vacated results, including championships, shall be removed." It is unclear whether these sanctions are able to be enforced for a non-NCAA championship claim, or whether it only refers to NCAA Championship events in basketball and tennis. This table reflects the fact that USC, as of yet, has not taken the official position of abandoning its claim on the 2004 National Championship. c In an on-line list of the university's national championships, Georgia lists only two for football (1942 and 1980). However, in Georgia's football media guide, although those years are highlighted as consensus championships, each of the five championships are described separately and those seasons are highlighted as national championships in the year-by-year results. d Washington's media guide depicts official recognition for only the 1960 and 1991 National Championships, as depicted on a stadium flag, although it lists championships for 1984 and 1990. e Iowa lists the awarding of the 1958 Grantland Rice National Championship in various publications, but does not appear to directly comment on a claim.

College Football Data Warehouse recognized national champions
College Football Data Warehouse (CFBDW) is an online resource and database that has collected and researched information on college football and national championship selections. It provides a comprehensive list of national championship selectors and has itself recognized selectors that it has deemed to be the most acceptable throughout history. These include the National Championship Foundation (1869–1882), the Helms Athletic Foundation (1883–1935), the College Football Researchers Association (1919–1935), the Associated Press Poll (1936–present), and the Coaches Poll (1950–present). From its research, it has compiled a list of Recognized National Championships for each season. Some years include recognition of multiple teams for a particular season. Please note that the CFBDW list of Recognized Champions does not confer any additional legitimacy to the titles. In this regard, some universities claim championships not recognized by CFBDW or do not claim championships that are recognized by CFBDW. Please consult the above table of National championship claims by school or individual team articles and websites for possible additional or alternative national championship claims.

Below is a list of all of the CFBDW recognized national championships from 1869 to present.

Poll era (1936–present)
The polling system first gained widespread consistency with the introduction of the AP poll in 1936, followed by the Coaches' Poll in 1950. National championships are often popularly considered to be "consensus" when both of these polls are in agreement with their national championship selections, although other selectors exist and do make alternative selections. A more modern incarnation, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), is a consortium of college football conferences that uses a combination of various computer rankings and human polls to mathematically determine a post-season matchup between the two top teams as determined by its formula. The USA Today Coaches' Poll is contractually obligated to name the BCS champion as its national champion.

AP Poll
The AP college football poll has a long history. The news media began running their own polls of sports writers to determine who was, by popular opinion, the best football team in the country at the end of the season. One of the earliest such polls was the AP College Football Poll, first run in 1934 (compiled and organized by Charles Woodroof, former SEC Assistant Director of Media Relations, but not recognized in the Official NCAA Records Book) and then continuously from 1936. Due to the long-standing historical ties between individual college football conferences and high-paying bowl games like the Rose Bowl and Orange Bowl, the NCAA has never held a tournament or championship game to determine the champion of what is now the highest division, NCAA Division I, Football Bowl Subdivision (the Division I, Football Championship Subdivision and lower divisions do hold championship tournaments). As a result, the public and the media began to take the leading vote-getter in the final AP Poll as the national champion for that season.

While the AP Poll currently lists the Top 25 teams in the nation, from 1936 to 1961 the wire service only ranked 20 teams. And from 1962 to 1967 only 10 teams were recognized. From 1968 to 1988, the AP again resumed its Top 20 before expanding to 25 teams in 1989.

Until the 1968 college football season, the final AP Poll of the season was released following the end of the regular season, with the exception of the 1965 season. In 1964, Alabama was named the national champion in the final AP Poll following the completion of the regular season, but lost in the Orange Bowl to Texas, leaving Arkansas as the only undefeated, untied team after the Razorbacks defeated Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl Classic. In 1965, the AP's decision to wait to crown its champion paid off, as top-ranked Michigan State lost to in the Rose Bowl, number two Arkansas lost to  in the Cotton Bowl Classic, and fourth-ranked Alabama defeated third-ranked Nebraska in the Orange Bowl, vaulting the Crimson Tide to the top of the AP's final poll. Michigan State was named national champion in the final United Press International poll of coaches, which did not conduct a post-bowl poll. At the end of the 1947 season, the AP released an unofficial post-bowl poll which differed from the regular season final poll. The AP national championship had been awarded before bowl games were played.

Beginning in the 1968 season, a post bowl game poll was released and the AP championship reflected the bowl game results. The UPI did not follow suit with the coaches' poll until the 1974 season.

Coaches' Poll
The Coaches' poll began selecting the top 20 teams on a weekly basis during the 1950-1951 college football and is conducted among selected members of the American Football Coaches Association. The Coaches' Poll took their final poll prior to the bowl games from 1950–1973, and since 1974, has taken their final poll after bowl games. The Coaches' Poll does not include teams on either NCAA or conference-sanction probation, which also differentiates it from the AP poll. The poll has been released through various media outlets and with differing sponsors over its history, and thus has taken a succession of different names, including United Press (UP) from 1950 thru 1957, the United Press International (UPI) from 1958 thru 1990, USA Today/CNN from 1991 thru 1996, and USA Today/ESPN from 1997 to present. The National Champion from this poll has frequently been the same champion from the AP Poll, although it has disagreed with the AP eleven times over its history. The Coaches' Poll is now under contractual obligation to award its national championship selection to the winner of the BCS Championship game. During the BCS era, this selection has varied once, in 2003, from the AP Poll.

National poll championships (1936–present)
The following table contains the National Championships that have been recognized by the AP or Coaches' Poll. The BCS champion is automatically awarded the Coaches' Poll championship. Of the current 120 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, formerly I-A Division) schools, only 30 have won at least a share of a national title. Of these 30 teams, only 18 teams have won multiple titles. Of the 18 teams, only seven have won five or more national titles: Alabama, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, USC, Nebraska, Miami, and Ohio State. The years listed in the table below indicate a national championship selection by the AP or Coaches' Poll. The selections are noted with (AP) or (Coaches) when a national champion selection differed between the two polls for that particular season, which has occurred in eleven different seasons since the polls first came to coexist in 1950.

National poll championships by conference membership at the time (1936–present)
1 The Big Eight ceased to exist in 1996 when all of its members and four teams from the SWC joined to form the Big 12 2 The SWC dissolved in 1996 when all of its teams accepted invitations to join other conferences

National poll championships by current conference membership (1936–present)
1 Six were won when Oklahoma was part of the Big Eight Conference

2 Four were won when Nebraska was part of the Big Eight Conference

3 Three were won while Texas was part of the Southwest Conference

4 Was won when Colorado was part of the Big Eight Conference

5 Was won when Texas A&M was part of the Southwest Conference

6 Both were won while Penn State was independent

7 Three were won while Miami was an independent and two while part of the Big East Conference

8 Both were won while Pitt was an independent

9 Was won while Syracuse was an independent

10 Was won while TCU was a member of the Southwest Conference

11 Was won while BYU was a member of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC)

BCS standings
The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is a selection system designed to give the top two teams in the NCAA Division I-Football Bowl Subdivision System (formerly Division I-A) an opportunity to compete in a "national championship game". This championship is intended as a surrogate for a playoff system since the NCAA does not formally determine a champion in this category. It has been in place since the 1998 season, but a number of controversial selections have spurred changes in the system that continue into the present. Prior to the 2006 season, eight teams competed in four BCS Bowls (the Orange, Sugar, Rose, and Fiesta). The BCS replaced the Bowl Alliance (in place from 1995–1997), which itself followed the Bowl Coalition (in place from 1992–1994). One of the main differences is that the Rose Bowl participates in the BCS; previously, the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions automatically played in the Rose Bowl regardless of their poll rankings. Now, those teams play in the BCS National Championship Game if they finish #1 or #2 in the BCS rankings.

The BCS currently relies on a combination of the Coaches' and Harris polls and an average of various computer rankings to determine relative team rankings, and to narrow the field to two teams to play in the BCS National Championship Game held after the other college bowl games. The winner of this game is crowned Coaches' Poll national champion winning the AFCA National Championship Trophy and is also awarded the MacArthur Trophy by the National Football Foundation.