During the euphoria of what is looking more and more like a miraculous championship season that we won't see again for another three-and-a-half decades, I went about trying to objectively see how great that Texas team had been and how many different ways we could consider ourselves champions. It's the kind of thing that people (hopefully at least one other person wondered these things) do when the one team they cheer for more than any other delivers a championship for the first time in their lifetime.
At some point during the festivities someone described the Rose Bowl as having been the greatest heavyweight battle in the history of college football. So of course it occurred to me to start with the very first college football game and move from there as if the college football championship was a title belt that moved from champion to challenger when the challenger won.
Auburn's victory over Florida on Saturday presented the latest movement of the title. So here is the title history for college football starting with that Rutgers win over Princeton. Sadly for Scarlet Knight fans they were the first champions of college football. Almost 140 years and over 1,200 games later it's still the only time they've held the belt.