HERO Sports is counting down the 100 days until the kickoff of the 2018 college football season on Saturday, Aug. 25, with daily trivia. Each day, from May 17 through Aug. 24, we’ll publish one college football trivia question.
College football national champions were first crowned in 1869 but until the Associated Press began awarding national titles in 1936, the process was largely a goat rodeo. And while it remained a goat rodeo — and some will argue it’s still a goat rodeo — for several decades after, AP national champions are widely regarded as the true champs from 1936-97. The BCS took over in 1998 and the College Football Playoff began in 2014.
How many of those 82 national champions (AP, 1936-97; BCS, 1998-2013; CFP, 2014-17) had two losses? Which teams?
Some clues:
It happened once during the BCS era.
It hasn’t happened in more than a decade.
The most recent two-loss champion broke a decades-long streak of unbeaten or one-loss champions.
Answer
Minnesota: 1960
LSU: 2007
Minnesota won the 1960 AP National Championship despite losing two of their final three games, including a loss to Washington in the Rose Bowl. The Huskies were among several other teams who were named champs by other organizations.
LSU suffered two regular-season losses — both in triple overtime — during the 2007 regular season but beat Tennessee in the SEC Championship to earn a spot in the BCS National Championship, where they beat Ohio State.
