Auburn University doesn't claim 1913 national football championship

Auburn's 1913 football team.

I got an interesting sports-related e-mail from a reader the other day, and here’s what it said – “Lee, I saw in the paper the other day where you wrote that Auburn, Harvard and Chicago shared the national title in football in 1913. I thought Auburn only won national titles in 2010 and 1957. What’s the story?”

According to various sources, Auburn, Harvard and the University of Chicago did win national football titles in one form or another in 1913, but Auburn doesn’t claim the national championship for that year. As you’ll see, when you get into a discussion of college football championships, you get into slippery territory.

In 1913, under head coach Mike Donahue, Auburn, which was then called the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, went 8-0 in 1913 and was named the national champs by the College Football Research Center in its Billingsley Report. Auburn also won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association title that year, outscoring their opponents 224-13.

Chicago, under head coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, went 7-0. They were retroactively named national champions in 1933 by football historian Parke H. Davis. Chicago’s pretty much a non-factor in today’s college football world. One of the founding members of the Big Ten conference, Chicago now plays in Division III.

Harvard, under head coach Percy Haughton, went 9-0 in 1913. In addition to being retroactively named national champs by Davis, they were also named national champs by the Helms Athletic Foundation, the National Championship Foundation and under the Holgate System.

In 1913, Auburn shutout its first six opponents, including Mercer (53-0), Florida (55-0), Mississippi A&M (34-0), Clemson (20-0), LSU (7-0) and Georgia Tech (20-0). In the last two games of the season, Auburn beat Vanderbilt, 13-6, and Georgia, 21-7.

Interestingly, Auburn played Mississippi A&M and Vandy at Rickwood Field in Birmingham and played LSU in Mobile. Auburn played its home games at that time at Drake Field, which is on the site now occupied by Auburn’s student union building. Auburn quit using it for their football field in 1939.

(Also, if you get the urge, you can still visit Rickwood Field today. Built in 1910, it has the distinction of being the oldest surviving pro baseball stadium in the U.S. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it’s currently in use as a working museum and will one day house the Museum of Southern Baseball.)

Auburn does claim its 1957 Associated Press national title and its 2010 BCS, AP and Coaches Poll national titles. In 1957, Auburn went 10-0, but oddly, they didn’t play in a bowl game because they were on probation. Most of us will remember that in 2010, Auburn went 14-0 and beat Oregon, 22-19, in the BCS National Championship Game.

In addition to their 1913 national title, Auburn also doesn’t claim national titles they received in 1983, 1993 and 2004. Auburn’s 1983 team went 11-1 and was named national champs by the Billingsley Report, the College Football Researchers Association, the New York Times, Rothman (FACT) and by the Sagarin Ratings.

Auburn’s 1993 team went 11-0, but was ineligible for postseason play due to the Eric Ramsey situation. Despite that, they were named national champs by the National Championship Foundation.

Auburn’s 2004 team went 13-0 and finished second behind Southern Cal, which won that year’s BCS title game over Oklahoma. The BCS later stripped USC of its title, leaving Auburn with the 2004 Fanspoll.com People’s National Champion trophy.