What is the worst college football team to win/share a national title?

Washington would have wiped the field with Miami in 1991

 

Getting back to the original two shots at BYU. Why do feel that way. Because they played in the old WAC? And if Boise or TCU wins, will they get the same scorn?

 

No, Boise and TCU would be far more deserving than that BYU team was. BYU's big non-conference game that year was a 20-14 win over a crappy Pitt team that finished 3-7-1; and BYU's bowl game was a 24-17 Holiday Bowl win over a very poor Michigan team that finished 6-6 that year. I don't believe they had a Top 25 opponent that entire season.

 

The 1966 Notre Dame Kneelin' Pussies.

 

Yeah. This.

Nearly every team disparaged here is not a traditional power. Does that somehow lessen what they did? Is a national title somehow more valid if a traditional power wins it?

Is BYU one of the great teams? No.

On the other hand, would any team in a major conference in 1984 step up and play BYU in a bowl for a national title? No, they all shut them out, forcing BYU to play a 5-loss Michigan team in the Holiday Bowl. And this was during a period where the bowls could basically do whatever the hell they wanted, short of the Big Ten-Pac 10 matchup in the Rose Bowl. It isn't BYU's fault the powers that be wouldn't "lower" themselves to let them play in a major bowl.

The more things change ...

 

LSU was very deserving, two losses or not. That was a great team. I kind of feel the same way about Colorado in 1990, although I think Miami was the best team that year.

I've been covering college football for 26 years now and the only time I thought the final vote was a tough decision was in 1997 between Michigan and Nebraska.

 

I don't know how anybody who puts real thought into it could believe this, there've been so many years when a vote easily could go either way. For example, how were Nebraska over Penn State in 94, and FSU over ND in 93 not "tough decisions", at the very least? I see little basis for those votes other than perhaps regional bias and the sentimental desire to give it to the coach who'd not won it yet.

 

FSU's title in 1993 was the Bobby Bowden Lifetime Achievement Award.

 

The 1998 Tennessee team has to be up there. They needed a miracle to defeat a Clint Stoerner-led Arkansas and faced a depleted Florida State team in the National Championship that had Marcus Outzen at quarterback. Though the Vols had several NFL players including Jamal Lewis, Leonard Little and Deon Grant, their quarterback was Tee Martin. Very unimpressive national champion.

 

this

those major conference powers who you say wouldn't lower themselves had bowl obligations, didn't they? the big 8 champ had to play in the orange, the swc in the cotton, the sec in the sugar, etc.

 

Agreed on 98 Tennessee. That team wasn't as good as the Manning UT teams the previous three seasons, but they had remarkable luck catching the breaks all season, topped by getting Outzen in the national championship.

Also recall that being about the most mistake-ridden, penalty-filled and just plain poorly-played Championship games ever. Looked like neither team wanted to win.

 

I don't think any team from the BCS era can be labeled "undeserving." As messed up as the BCS process is, there has yet to be a team in the BCS title game that **didn't** have a case for being there (maybe Nebraska '01 but that's it). And if a team has an argument for being there and then wins the game, it's impossible to say they were "undeserving."