1951 National Champions

JollyGoodFellow90GT#1 said:
Tech needs to claim 1951 as National Champs. No one beat us! And virtually the same team went 12-0 in 1952! If we put it on our scoreboard with the other 4 it's official. Having 5 national titles in football sounds mighty good!


GO JACKETS!
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1951-1956 was an amazing run. The best program in the nation, by far, in that collective period.
 
donsue said:
Actually, Dodd had always maintained his 1956 team was his best. The close loss to Tennessee, with a depleted roster cost them. They destroyed LSU 39-7, and ended the year shutting out Florida, Alabama, and UGa
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I'll never forget that 6-0 loss at Grant Field. Absolutely broke my 12 yr old heart. To HELL with Johnny Majors!
 
donsue said:
1951-1956 was an amazing run. The best program in the nation, by far, in that collective period.
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Hey, I'm really proud of what Tech did in those years, and we were as good as anybody in the country... but not "by far". There were a number of really strong programs in the 1950's. Bud Wilkinson at Oklahoma comes to mind.

In six seasons, Dodd was 59-7-3 (0.877) with 1 shared national championship and 6 major bowl victories.

In eleven seasons (1948-1958), Bud Wilkinson was a mind-boggling 108-7-2 (0.923), with 4 undefeated & untied seasons. He finished in the AP Top 5 ten of those eleven seasons, including three unanimous national championships.
 
18in32 said:
Hey, I'm really proud of what Tech did in those years, and we were as good as anybody in the country... but not "by far". There were a number of really strong programs in the 1950's. Bud Wilkinson at Oklahoma comes to mind.

In six seasons, Dodd was 59-7-3 (0.877) with 1 shared national championship and 6 major bowl victories.

In eleven seasons (1948-1958), Bud Wilkinson was a mind-boggling 108-7-2 (0.923), with 4 undefeated & untied seasons. He finished in the AP Top 5 ten of those eleven seasons, including three unanimous national championships.
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Those certainly are good points, but I think Tech played the best competition.
 
18in32 said:
I agree. My quibble is with "by far"!
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I know, should have couched it a different way. Actually would have loved to have seen a game with Dodd vs Wilkinson....talk about some coaching!
 
BrentwoodJacket said:
How in the world did anyone consider Tennessee number one. They finished 10-1 and we finished 11-0-1. We were 7-0 in the SEC and they were only 5-0. Most SEC teams played seven games that season. Tennessee lost their bowl game to Maryland. They should be embarrassed to claim the title instead of respected.
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Tennessee claims the National Championship because they were named number 1 by the AP and UPI among others. No reason to be embarrassed about it. Back then the bowl was a vacation and the outcome wasn't considered important. It would be like retroactively taking the super bowl away from the Patriots because they lost a preseason game. Or worse, giving the Patriots the super bowl trophy and then telling them to play another game just for fun.

As far as GT's claim, undefeated seasons weren't enough because they were fairly common back in the day. Not as many games and big discrepancies in talent.
 
rocky top buzz said:
Tennessee claims the National Championship because they were named number 1 by the AP and UPI among others. No reason to be embarrassed about it. Back then the bowl was a vacation and the outcome wasn't considered important. It would be like retroactively taking the super bowl away from the Patriots because they lost a preseason game. Or worse, giving the Patriots the super bowl trophy and then telling them to play another game just for fun.

As far as GT's claim, undefeated seasons weren't enough because they were fairly common back in the day. Not as many games and big discrepancies in talent.
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Undefeated seasons with playing Bama, UT, UGA, LSU etc. are impressive now matter how you cut it
 
rocky top buzz said:
As far as GT's claim, undefeated seasons weren't enough because they were fairly common back in the day. Not as many games and big discrepancies in talent.
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There was only one year in the 1950's when there weren't multiple undefeated teams at the top of the polls (1959). Some years there are several. This is why we have the CFP, which I for one think has been a huge success. In the five seasons of the CFP, the winner had a regular-season-ending CFP ranking of 4, 2, 2, 4, 2. As long as we avoid rematches, I think it proves the point of having a playoff.

What's interesting, though, is that in the first 3 of those 5 years, there was a single team to finish the regular-season undefeated – and hence they would probably have had a strong claim to the crown in pre-playoff days, but none of them went on to win it (FSU in 2014, Clemson in 2015, Alabama in 2016). That seems kinda crappy for them. They won more than teams in earlier eras won, but it still wasn't quite enough. (This year obviously there were three undefeated's, which is what the CFP was built for.)
 
rocky top buzz said:
Back then the bowl was a vacation and the outcome wasn't considered important.
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This was exactly what my Uncle told me (he played on the '51 team). He said there was some talk about trying to have a Tech / Tennessee matchup but it didn't get much traction or interest which seemed odd to me but he said things were just different back then.
 
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