The 8 Ways to Smoke Out a Fake National Title Claim
Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast
Richard Johnson and Alex Kirshner
4.9 • 916 Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
College football history is loaded with BS national championship claims, as well as some non-consensus claims that AREN’T ridiculous. How do we tell the difference? What patterns emerge when we look at decades of disputed titles? What is the most ridiculous national title claim of all time? (Spoiler: It’s one of Alabama’s claims. But why don’t the Tide claim other titles that would be a lot less outrageous?) No other sport has a feature quite like this one, and we’ve got an expert to talk through it with us: Keith Gaddie, TCU professor and author of a new book, “Bragging Rites,” on the history of arguing over national championships. (The book comes out May 24.)
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Producer: Anthony Vito
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, Richard, what are you doing on August 23rd? |
| 0:02.1 | Well, I think I'm doing the same thing you're doing. |
| 0:04.2 | Split Zone Duo is going back on the road. |
| 0:06.5 | It's you, it's me, and it's Stephen Godfrey. |
| 0:08.4 | That's right, host Emeritus. |
| 0:09.5 | He's with us. |
| 0:10.2 | Never heard of him. |
| 0:10.9 | We're going to the Sports Podcast Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina. |
| 0:14.4 | Tickets are available now at SplitZonduol Live.com. We very much hope to see you there. All three of us do. We've got some surprises in |
| 0:21.1 | store. A couple other great shows there as well. Splitsond Duo Live.com. See you in Rally on |
| 0:26.2 | August 23rd. We're coming and we ain't backing down. We don't need a bunch of cats in here. |
| 0:30.6 | Looking in the mirror. Everybody's do your job. You got to stay in that. |
| 0:34.8 | Hey, will you shut up? I'm bitterly disappointed with the officiating today. |
| 0:38.2 | Guys being dudes. |
| 0:39.4 | And they run through our like a . |
| 0:41.0 | Through a 10 horn, man. |
| 0:41.8 | Ah, fuck it. |
| 0:42.8 | Thank you, Lee. |
| 0:44.8 | In 1941, the Alabama Crimson Tide had an 8-2 regular season. |
| 0:50.0 | That featured losses to the likes of some very good Mississippi State and Vanderbilt teams. |
| 0:57.4 | Regular season ends tied our third in the SEC. |
| 1:03.4 | AP poll voters vote on this, and they decide that Alabama is the 20th best team in college football. |
... |
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