Sep 4th, 2009 | 10:55 pm |
Saturday August 22, 2009
By Travis Duncan Digital Sports Daily editor
idway through the 1935 college football season, the Associated Press Sports Editor had an idea. He wanted to stir the pot, drum up some hoopla. He would publish a ranking of the nation’s 10 best college football teams.
“Sports then was living off controversy, opinion,” Alan J. Gould would say in an interview years later. Gould was solely responsible for crafting the AP’s top 10 until a voting system among sports editors, and then eventually writers was organized. “It was all a matter of personal opinion,” Gould said.
“It was a case of thinking up ideas to develop interest and controversy between football Saturdays. Papers wanted material to fill space between games. This was just another exercise in hoopla.”
By the 1936 season, Gould would leave the vote to any writer who desired to call in. After a particularly exciting day in College football, the number of ballots cast would spike to over 200.
The AP described it’s poll in 1936 as “the consensus national ranking list from sports experts representing the key points of observation, from coast to coast.”
Today, a group of 65 media members cast ballots for the AP Top 25 college football poll. Depending on who you ask, the poll quantifies what thousands of intelligent college football fans already think, while others think it’s just the opinion of some sports writers.
“That’s all I had in mind, something to keep the pot boiling,” Gould said a few years before his death in 1993. “I knew it would be interesting, but I had no conception of what it would turn out to be – a national institution.”
Standing, L-R: Dan Daniel (NY Telegram), Arthur Mann (NY Evening World), Will Wedge (NY Sun), Bill Slocum (NY American), Ford C. Frick (NY Journal), William Blythe Hanna (NY Herald Tribune), Bill Brandt (NY Times), (unidentified telegrapher), Fred Lieb (NY Post). Sitting, L-R: (unidentified local scribe), Marshall Hunt (NY Daily News), William Henigan (NY World), Charles Michael Segar (NY Mirror), James L. Kilgallen (International News Service), Alan Gould (Associated Press).
AP POLL FIRSTS
First tie for No. 1: Texas A&M and Southern California in the Nov. 27, 1939 poll.
First game between No. 1 and No. 2: Notre Dame (No. 1) vs. Michigan, Oct. 9, 1943. Notre Dame won 35-12.
First team to be ranked No. 1 for an entire season: Notre Dame in 1943 – the first of its record eight national championships, four under Frank Leahy. Only Alabama’s Bear Bryant (five) has won more.
The First Top-25 Poll: 1989
First repeat champion: Minnesota, 1940-41.
First preseason poll: In 1950, with Notre Dame at the top. Oklahoma finished first that year.
First post-season poll: The final 1965 poll, taken after the bowl games. Alabama moved from No. 4 to No. 1 by beating Nebraska 39-28 in the Orange Bowl.
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