Auburn not increasing number of officially-recognized titles
Auburn won’t be claiming any more national titles in football.
A year ago, athletic director Jay Jacobs said the school was in the process of looking at its football history to officially recognize more national championships, saying “We want to do what’s best for Auburn, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks or says.”
Auburn even formed a committee to look into adding more official titles. It appears it decided doing nothing was best.
“We’ve earned what we’ve earned and people can count it different ways, but we’ve earned what we’ve earned,” Jacobs told Al.com. “Those players on those teams, like me in 1983, it doesn’t matter if you hang a banner or not. I know what we did.”
It means the school will keep its official national title list at two; 1957 and 2010. Last year it had added 1913, 1983 and 1993 as “champions” on its website, and said it was deliberating adding any of those seasons, in addition to 1910, 1914 and 2004, as official banner-receiving title seasons.
The 1993 team went undefeated but was on probation and ineligible for the postseason. The 2004 team was undefeated but No. 3 in the BCS and missed out on the BCS Championship.
Those seasons, along with the four others, are listed in various databases as being title-winning teams – remember, there are and have been a lot of different polls and metrics throughout college football history. Alabama recognizes 15 national titles, though the number was at six until the 1980s when the school changed the criterion for counting championships. For example, Alabama says it was a title-winner in 1941 because it was No. 1 in the Houlgate rankings.
Ultimately, Jacobs and the Auburn committee charged with exploring the idea of adding more titles made the right decision. There was no optimal solution for the school. Sure, adding more titles seems like a great idea, but it opens the school’s thought-process to criticism. And Auburn still has fewer national titles than Alabama does either way; adding more titles does nothing for Auburn fans’ claims of superiority over Alabama.
The best way to counter the Tide? Win a College Football Playoff title first.
For more Auburn news, visit AuburnSports.com.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
