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Tennessee Vols Should Claim 17 National Titles Using the Alabama Crimson Tide’s Method

By Caleb Calhoun

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The Alabama Crimson Tide have a history of claiming national championships that they didn’t win. Using their method, the Tennessee Vols can claim 17 titles.

For the Alabama Crimson Tide, their way of determining a national champion is what matters, not the NCAA’s.

And for whatever reason they so choose, they get to decide if they won the title for themselves that year. Here is their method leading up to the mid 1970s: any regular season in which they went undefeated, even if they had a tie or lost their bowl game, they get to claim the title.

Heck, even if they had a loss, they will determine if they won a title and say to Hell with the NCAA.

Alabama claims the 1941 national title despite a 9-2 record and a No. 20 final ranking. How does that work?

They also claim a national title in a year that they lost to USC and both teams finished with one loss, but somehow, the Tide finished ranked higher.

This is why you get those fans from Tuscaloosa walking around claiming some unknown number of national titles that they can’t even remember. I think it’s something like 19 at this point.

Well, it’s only fair if other teams do the same. And for the Tennessee Vols, that ups their number of national title claims from six to 16.

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We know of the ones in 1938, 1940, 1950, 1951, 1967, and 1998. But we also need to name a few more that the Vols should actually claim.

The first is the 1939 team, the one that went undefeated, untied, and unscored upon until the bowl game. As we know, bowl games did not matter at the time, and by shutting out every opponent the Vols clearly showed they deserved to win the national title.

The next one is 1956, under head coach Bowden Wyatt and Heisman runner-up Johnny Majors. Again, the bowl game did not matter, but the Vols had outscored their opponents 275 to 88 and gone undefeated in the regular season, only to finish No. 2. They should at least split that year with Oklahoma.

But these two are clear. Using the Alabama playbook, we have a plethora of other seasons in which the Vols were undefeated with only one tie, usually to either Vanderbilt or Kentucky. Those years include 1927, 1928, 1928, 1931, and 1932.

It’s only fair that Tennessee claim titles all of those years, moving Gen. Robert Neyland’s national title total to 10, four more than Bear Bryant.

But I’m not done.

Let’s go back to some early history. Tennessee went 8-0-1 in 1916. Sounds national title worthy to me.

And then we can go back to 1914. The Vols went 9-0. Undefeated? National title.

To finish this off, let’s go to earlier history. Tennessee went 4-0 in 1896. Using Alabama’s method, well, that’s a national title.

And then we finish this off with 1894. The Vols went 2-0-2. Hey, there’s not a loss on the schedule. So they can claim a national title there as well.

Now Tennessee is at 17 national titles, and the only way to truly make this fair is for the Vols to randomly claim a national title they had no business ever being mentioned as a part of. As long as any media service claims it, they’ll claim it.

Let’s just go for this year. As an editor for All for Tennessee, I, Caleb Calhoun, officially claim the Tennessee Vols national champions for the 2015 season. Hey, I don’t need records or anything like that. I just need this claim, and Tennessee can use it.

Congratulations to Butch Jones’s team. You guys have added the Vols’ 18th national title.

Next: Five Reasons Vols Fans Should Hate Alabama

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