1950 college football season

The 1950 college football season finished with the unbeaten and untied Oklahoma Sooners being the overwhelming choice for national champion. On New Year’s Day, the 9-0-0 Sooners were upset by the 10-1-0 Kentucky Wildcats in the Sugar Bowl. The #2 team, the United States Military Academy (Army) had been defeated in its final regular season game by 2-6-0 Navy, 14-2. However, the final poll had been issued on November 27, and the bowl games had no effect on Oklahoma’s status as the #1 team.

During the 20th century, the NCAA had no playoff for the college football teams that would later be described as "Division I-A". The NCAA did recognize a national champion based upon the final results of "wire service" (AP and UPI) polls. The extent of that recognition came in the form of acknowledgment in the annual "NCAA Football Guide" of the "unofficial" national champions. The AP poll in 1950 consisted of the votes of as many as 317 sportswriters [ appollarchive.com/football/ap ] . Though not all writers voted in every poll, each would give their opinion of the ten best teams. Under a point system of 10 points for first place, 9 for second, etc., the "overall" ranking was determined, and the top twenty colleges were ranked based on their overall points.

Starting in 1950, the United Press (later UPI) began the "coaches' poll". "Thirty-five of the nation's foremost football coaches will rate the country's top collegiate football teams each week for the United Press this coming season," an announcement stated, with "five coaches from each section of the country-- the east, midlands, midwest, Pacific coast, the Rockies, south and southwest". The UP added, referring to the AP writers' poll, "The nature of the board giving each section of the country equal representation avoids the sectional bias and ballot box stuffing for which other football polls have been criticized." [ "United Press Will Poll Coaches For Ratings On Leading College Events," "Coshocton (O.) Tribune", Sept. 13, 1950, p5 ] . The coaches named Notre Dame as the #1 team in the first UP poll, with 25 of the 35 first place votes. [ "Notre Dame Is Rated No. 1 by 25 of 35 Coaches in United Press Poll," "The Berkshire Evening Eagle" (Pittsfield, Mass.), Sept. 19, 1950, p9 ] .

Generally, the top teams played on New Year's Day in the four major postseason bowl games: the Rose Bowl (near Los Angeles at Pasadena), the Sugar Bowl (New Orleans), the Orange Bowl (Miami), and the Cotton Bowl (Dallas).

eptember

For the first time, the Associated Press issued a "preseason poll", before most teams played their first games [ "Oh, Hum-- AP Writers' Vote Picks Notre Dame Once More," "Jefferson City (Mo.) Post-Tribune", Sep. 20, 1950, p7 ] . In the poll released on September 25, 1950, the defending champion Fighting Irish of Notre Dame were the overwhelming choice for first, with 101 of 123 first place votes. Far behind were #2 Army, #3 Michigan, #4 Tennessee and #5 Texas (which had won at Texas Tech 28-14). As the regular season progressed, a new poll would be issued on the Monday following the weekend's games.

On September 30
#1 Notre Dame beat #20 North Carolina 14-7. #2 Army beat Colgate 28-0, #3 Michigan lost to #10 Michigan State 14-7. #4 Tennessee lost at Mississippi State, 7-0. #5 Texas beat Purdue, 34-26, but fell to 7th. #6 Oklahoma beat Boston College 28-0. #10 SMU, which had beaten Georgia Tech 33-13, and Ohio State 32-27, rose to 3rd.

October

October 7
#1 Notre Dame lost to Purdue, 28-14, and eventually finished with a 4-4-1 record. #2 Michigan State lost to Maryland, 34-7. #3 SMU won at Missouri 21-0. #4 Army beat Penn State 41-7. #5 Oklahoma beat Texas A&M 34-28. #6 Kentucky registered a fourth shutout and a 4-0 record, with a 40-0 win against Dayton. #7 Texas, which was idle, rose to 4th place.

October 14
#1 Army beat #18 Michigan 27-6 at Yankee Stadium. #2 SMU beat Oklahoma State 56-0. #3 Oklahoma and #4 Texas met in Dallas, with Oklahoma winning narrowly, 14-13. #5 Kentucky beat Cincinnati 41-7. #7 California, which had beaten USC 13-7, rose to 5th in the next poll.

October 21
#1 Army won at Harvard 49-0. #2 Oklahoma beat Kansas State 58-0.In Houston, #3 SMU beat #15 Rice 42-21. In Philadelphia, #4 Kentucky beat Villanova 34-7. #5 California beat Oregon State in Portland 27-0 October 28
#1 SMU was idle. #2 Army won at Columbia 34-0. #3 Oklahoma won at Iowa State 20-7. In Atlanta, #4 Kentucky beat Georgia Tech 28-14.
#5 California beat St. Mary’s 40-25 and dropped in the polls. #6 Ohio State beat Iowa 83-21

November

November 4 #1 SMU lost at #7 Texas, 23-20. #2 Army won at #15 Pennsylvania 28-13. #3 Oklahoma won at Colorado 27-18. #4 Ohio State won at Northwestern 32-0. #5 Kentucky beat #17 Florida 40-6. #7 Texas beat SMU 23-20, and returned to the top five.

November 11 #1 Army beat New Mexico 51-0. #2 Ohio State beat #15 Wisconsin 19-14. #3 Oklahoma won at #19 Kansas, 33-13. #4 Kentucky won at Mississippi State, 48-21. #5 Texas beat Baylor 27-20. #6 California, which was 7-0-0 after a 35-0 win against #19 UCLA, rose to 4th.

November 18 #1 Ohio State lost at #8 Illinois, 14-7. #2 Oklahoma beat Missouri 41-7. #3 Army won at Stanford 7-0. #4 California defeated San Francisco 13-7. #5 Kentucky handed visiting North Dakota an 83-0 defeat to extend its record to 9-0-0, but still faced a final game was against 8-1-0 Tennessee. #6 Texas won at TCU 21-7.

November 25 #1 Oklahoma beat #16 Nebraska 49-35. #2 Army was idle as it prepared for the Army-Navy Game. #3 Kentucky lost at #9 Tennessee, 7-0. #4 California and unranked Stanford played to a 7-7 tie in Berkeley. #5 Texas beat Texas A&M 21-6.

The final poll was released on November 27, although some colleges had not completed their schedules. On December 2, with its champion status assured, #1 Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State 41-14. #2 Army (9-0-0) was heavily favored to beat unranked, and 2-6-0, Navy. Instead, the Philadelphia game turned into a 14-2 win for the Midshipmen. #3 Texas played a game on December 9, beating LSU 21-6.

Final AP Top 20

The final rankings were released November 27 even before the regular season had concluded, and without consideration of the postseason bowl games:

Oklahoma was also named #1 in the final UP coaches poll, with 32 of the 35 first place votes for 346 points. The rest of the "first 10" was 2.Texas 3.Tennessee 4.California 5.Army 6.Michigan 7.Kentucky 8.Princeton 9.Michigan State and 10.Ohio State [ "Oklahoma Is Crowned National Gridiron King," "The Anniston (Ala.) Star", Dec. 5, 1950, p9 ]

Bowl games

References