I know UT claims 6, but how many national titles would everyone here say Tennessee has? I'm not necessarily asking when Tennessee had the best team as much as I'm wondering in which years did people around the country consider Tennessee to be the national champion? For example, Auburn may claim 2004, but no one really considers them national champs, even if they felt like Auburn deserved a shot. I know this has been discussed on VN, but I was hoping to get some insight without hearing things like "Well if Bama claims 13, we can claim 17!" I also realize people aren't going to remember what everyone around the country was thinking in 1938, but I was wondering if people knew more about the importance of certain polls at the time.
We've been claiming those six for long enough that I think any discussion about them not counting shouldn't be taken seriously. You don't take away some old man's national championship. Neyland had some other seasons that sure looked championship caliber, although I don't know enough about our strength of schedule, how good the teams were that were ranked ahead of us, etc. to really argue for giving us more.
1967 is the one I thought was the biggest reach. I'm not sure if anyone here remembers that year, though. Did people pay attention to Litkenhous?
That was before my time. I know crowning a 9-2 team national champs is kind of weak but I'll take it.
If UT had just tied UCLA in the first game that year, they probably would have been AP and Coaches champs.
the "we should have been ranked #1" argument is a bit weak. either you were or you weren't. anyway that SC team from that year was SICK.
