9-0 in the regular season, AP and UPI national champion, lost the Sugar Bowl to Kentucky.
Oklahoma’s 1950 schedule1950 National Champion: And Who Else Claims It
MULTIPLEDISPUTEDOklahoma swept the final AP and UPI polls despite losing the Sugar Bowl to Kentucky, since both polls were taken before bowl games that season.
The case for each side
Claimed by the program: no recognized selector picked them
Beat number-one Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl (11-1 overall); the claim rests on retroactive computer rating systems, not AP or UPI.
Kentucky’s 1950 schedule
Claimed by the program: no recognized selector picked them
Finished No. 4 in the final AP poll; recognized as national champion decades later by minor retroactive selectors (e.g. Billingsley, Dunkel), not by AP or UPI.
Tennessee’s 1950 scheduleNo national title game was played after the 1950 season: before 1998 there was no mechanism to play one, which is why so many of these seasons were settled by vote instead.