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This data set contains the College Football Consensus National Champions selected since 1869.¹ ²

About the National Championship

No sport in the contemporary mind of the United States has a larger or more rabid following than football (American Football to the rest of the world) and each year since 1869 there has been a National Champion(s) selected. For much of the period since 1869 the choice of college football's National Champion has been more of a news-driven event, with championship title bestowed by polls and media news depiction of the front-runners driving those polls.³ Until the 1990s a vote of sports writers and other non-players traditionally determined the national champion.

Consensus National Champions

Since college football's inception there have been many teams separated by a continent whose season record might lay claim to that year's national title. Earliest titles were often shared between multiple teams, being labeled retroactively as "consensus" National Champion only after some form of analysis by "major selectors".⁴ Starting in 1950 a two-poll system was used to identify the consensus National Champion and this method continued into the 1990s.

Since in the earliest years the leading teams and even their opponents during any given season may never have met in actual competition there were often numerous teams of powerhouse schools whose season records could be argued to warrant a National Championship. The largest number of consensus champions occurred in 1919 when four teams shared the National Championship: Harvard, Illinois, Notre Dame and Texas A&M.

Starting in 1902, the Rose Bowl game became a post-season game that often pitted the top two teams against each other, just based on the strength of the two conferences participating in the Rose Bowl: the Big Ten and the Pac-10. In 1995, the Bowl Alliance, formed by the major bowls and conferences defined a new system to create a play-off between the two highest ranked teams. Prior to this, teams affiliated with different bowl (like the Big Ten and Pac 10 were affiliated with the Rose Bowl) would not play each other in post-season. Number 1 vs Number 2 bowl match-ups became far more likely, but were not guaranteed. The Big Ten and Pac-10 initially chose not to participate.

After the 1997 season, undefeated Michigan was ranked first in both major polls, but as the Big Ten champion, they played eighth-ranked Pac-10 champion Washington State in the Rose Bowl. The top Bowl Alliance team, #2 and unbeaten Nebraska, faced one-loss, third-ranked Tennessee in the Orange Bowl. Michigan won by five on New Year's Day in the Rose Bowl and the next night, Nebraska beat Tennessee (playing with an injury-hobbled Peyton Manning) by 25. The AP kept Michigan as the champion, but the Coaches' Poll made Nebraska champion, in part because of their more lopsided victory against a more highly ranked opponent.

The following season the Big Ten and Pac-10 joined the bowl-based methodology. The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) employed from 1998 to 2013 chose two teams that would play a post-season game for the College Football National Championship title. The two teams vying for the title were selected by mathematical formula.

The present CFP takes the BCS's play-off of the two top-ranked teams a step further by employing a play-off tournament for the top four nationally ranked teams.

College Football Playoff (CFP)

The College Football Playoff (CFP) is the current postseason championship tournament for the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The CFP was established in the 2014 football season. In the CFP, four teams play-off in a single elimination tournament, with the final game of the tournament bracket determining the College Football Playoff National Championship. The four teams selected for the CFP are the top four teams in National rankings at the end of the regular football season, so there is still possible controversy in the rankings manifesting at the end of the regular season. /attachments/7071953e-3cbc-11e5-a3bb-bc764e2038f2/College_Football_Playoff_Logo.png
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The two semi-final games are played on New Year's Day and the championship final game on the first Monday that is six or more days after the semi-finals.

Ohio State won the first CFP championship 42 to 20 over Oregon and was awarded the first College Football Playoff National Championship trophy. The first CFP Championship game was held in Arlington, Texas in 2015.

Title Controversy

The CFP was preceded by the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) from 1998 to 2013. The previous BCS system used computer rankings to select the two teams playing for the National Championship. Numerous factors were integrated into the BCS formula with the intent to make the choice of college football's National Champion more decisive with less potential controversy.

Prior to the BCS, polls were used primarily to rank the top teams in the country. Over the years since 1869 there have been numerous methods to determine the College Football National Champion. The preceding rankings systems were prone to controversy and each successive system for deciding the National Championship was devised with the intent to eliminate more of the controversy than its predecessor. Until the 1990s a vote of sports writers and other non-players traditionally determined the national champion.

Over the years since 1869 there have been 32 years when two or more teams were considered National Champions. The most recent controversy was in 2003 when Louisiana State got the BCS title but the AP poll declared USC the National Champion.

The College Football Playoff is not a NCAA officially sanctioned championship event, even though the NCAA is American college football's governing body.

Selecting Organizations

The organizations which executed polls or conducted analysis to determine national rankings and/or the National Championship title have changed over the years. The organization selecting and defining the college football national champion for each year since 1869 were/are:

AP - Associated Press poll
BCS - Bowl Championship Series
CFP - College Foot Playoff (current: starting with 2014 season)
CFRA - College Football Researchers Association
FWAA - Football Writers Association of America
HAF - Helms Athletic Foundation
NCF - National Championship Foundation
NFF - National Football Foundation
USA/ESPN - USA Today and Entertainment and Sports Programming Network
USA/CNN - USA Today and Cable News Network
UPI - United Press International