Talk:List of SIAA football champions

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Conference championships[edit]

I have several ignorant questions about SIAA championships: (1) were any of these championships official? (2) Why did the SIAA teams play so few conference games relative to the size of the conference? (3) How can there be multiple champions in a single season, when the co-champions have different records, including losses and ties? (4) Is there an official record of these championships somewhere? Color me curious. I've always wanted to know how the SIAA functioned with over 20 members and more. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:02, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • 1) No. At best, doubtful. One source I have which I used in the article says there wasn't. Fuzzy Woodruff's History of Southern football amongst others is hard to get your hands on but that page claims to use it as a reference.
  • 2) I can only speculate. Nobody played 20 games, say, in the south then that I know of. I imagine it also has to do with scheduling being in advance and ingrained. It seems there were attempts to conform the conference to scheduling rather than vice versa. You see that with adding Texas A & M or Davidson; at least seems to be so UT and UNC get a regular SIAA opponent.
  • 3) Again I have to offer a bit of conjecture but it's grounded in more sources such as the one referenced above. The short answer is that multiple teams claim them, e.g. 1919 Auburn. Other reasons have to do with the amount of games played (say, 6-1 contra 2-0). Most of all is that the achievement wished for then and bickered over was the Southern champion. Not SIAA, not Southern Conference, but all of the South. Same with All Southern teams. If Wake Forest had beaten Harvard the same rallying cries of Southern pride would result as if it had been Tulane. These conferences were somewhat gestalts to represent the South, as I suppose all conferences are for their regions. So, maybe North Carolina, say, was in and out of the SIAA, and Clemson would go undefeated in the SIAA but lose to UNC, and Bama would have one loss to Vandy say. Clemson would have the SIAA record to make it a clear champion, but not the Southern record. Even worse for them if Vandy was seen as stronger than UNC. There's also just the circumstances of the year making it so, such as in 1903 with Cumberland throwing a wrench into things. I tried to give the proper, concise notes about such things when I can. Just showing the undefeated records wouldn't seem to suffice for this list; yet listing every claimant would be absurd. For 2 and 3 one has to consider that the timeline of SIAA members given on its page could be flawed. It quite possibly is, for example Clemson and Mississippi A & M at least in football don't claim to be in the SIAA until a later date than the one posted here; but I've taken them as given.
  • 4) Pardon me if this was different from the first in a way I didn't recognize. Nothing "official" but as I understand Woodruff and others do have those mythical champions catalogued. See those sources cited by the footnote in the article. One's not mentioned there would be Clyde Berryman's MNC selections, as he gave more credence to the south. He has 1921 Vandy and 1920 UGA as national champs, for instance. The newspapers are really the best source, I would submit. Not to mention, Spalding's Football Guides. Details about its internal function are probably buried in the papers of William Lofland Dudley. I found one very interesting article I cite there about its inception (the part about Sewanee stopping it from occurring) which came from someone digging through Vanderbilt papers that were old back then. Hope that helps since my answer should mostly be "yeah, I'm working on it;" figuring that putting it all in one place will lead to some answers.
Cake (talk) 05:50, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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