1959 National Champion: And Who Else Claims It

MULTIPLEDISPUTED

Syracuse went 11-0 and swept every major selector for an undisputed 1959 national championship.

The case for each side

Syracuse

11-0

Recognized byAPConsensusFWAARecognizedNFFRecognizedUPIConsensus· claimed by the program

11-0, AP, UPI, FWAA, and NFF national champion; beat Texas in the Cotton Bowl.

Syracuse’s 1959 schedule

Ole Miss

10-1

Claimed by the program: no recognized selector picked them

Finished No. 2 in AP and UPI at 10-1; claim rests on other rating systems (Berryman QPRS, Billingsley, Dunkel, Sagarin), not AP, UPI, FWAA, or NFF.

Ole Miss’s 1959 schedule

No national title game was played after the 1959 season: before 1998 there was no mechanism to play one, which is why so many of these seasons were settled by vote instead.