1940 McMNC: Stanford Indians

AP Top 10: Final Record -- Key Bowl Results
1. Minnesota: 8-0-0 -- None
2. Stanford: 10-0-0 -- W, Rose, 21-13
3. Michigan: 7-1-0 -- None
4. Tennessee: 10-1-0 -- L, Sugar, 13-19
5. Boston College: 11-0-0 -- W, Sugar, 19-13
6. Texas A&M: 9-1-0 -- W, Cotton, 13-12
7. Nebraska: 8-2-0 -- L, Rose, 13-21
8. Northwestern: 6-2-0 -- None
9. Mississippi State: 10-0-1 -- W, Orange, 14-7
10. Washington: 7-2-0 -- None

This is a tricky season to dissect, for several reasons. You have a Big Ten champ which went undefeated, but didn't play in a bowl game. You have a PCC champ which went undefeated and won the Rose Bowl. You have an independent which went undefeated and won the Sugar Bowl. And you have an SEC champ who didn't lose a game while winning the Orange Bowl. That's four teams with a legitimate claim to the McMNC.

Oh, we need a playoff, don't we?

Minnesota, Stanford, Boston College and Mississippi State all have claim here, but we need to pick them apart. Where to start?

It sucks for Minnesota, but again, they didn't have to lay it on the line in a bowl game while the other three teams did so successfully. And a fifth team (Tennessee) laid their perfect record on the line, only to lose in their bowl game. So, Minnesota is out. I'm sorry to do this to the Golden Gophers again, but reality is that it's more impressive to play a bowl game with everything on the line than it is to stay at home and rest on your laurels.

It sucks for Mississippi State, too, because they didn't win their conference. Tennessee, with a 5-0 conference record, won the SEC. The two teams didn't play, of course, which highlights the problem with unbalanced schedules (again), but that's the way it is (and it sucks for the Bulldogs). MSU went 4-0-1 in league play, tying a 6-4-1 Auburn team on the road, and that tie cost them a shot at the McMNC. Bummer.

Interesting side note: clearly, the AP voters didn't think much of the SEC in 1940, since a one-loss Michigan team was ranked higher than the undefeated SEC champion. For the record, Minnesota beat both Michigan and Northwestern by a single point each in 1940, so the Western Conference (precursor to the Big Ten) looked good to AP voters.

But I digress again.

That leaves us with Stanford and Boston College as finalists here. Both went undefeated, so which team had the "better" bowl win? Stanford beat the one-loss Big Six champion Nebraska by eight points, while BC beat the undefeated SEC champion Tennessee by six points. Nebraska's only loss was by six points on the road to Minnesota, actually. So in the voters' eyes, that was a good team. Not as good as Michigan and its one-point road loss to the Gophers, of course, but five points isn't much difference here between #3 Michigan and #7 Nebraska. Yet AP voters put Tennessee somewhere in the middle of those five points. Interesting, eh? The bowl wins might be a draw, or at least inconclusive at best.

So schedules: Stanford won the PCC, while BC was an independent. There are some interesting notes on Boston College's schedule. To wit, the only ranked team BC beat in the regular season was #13 Georgetown (don't laugh). The score? 19-18, in Chestnut Hill. That one-point home win for BC gave them a eight-spot advantage in the final AP poll over the Hoyas, which doesn't jibe with the Minnesota-Michigan voter pattern at all. So something is amiss. BC did beat two SEC teams, Tulane (27-7 on the road) and Auburn (33-7 at home), convincingly. SEC champion Tennessee played neither team in 1940, but clearly, BC was the SEC champion in 1940, beating these three teams by a combined 52 points (ouch). As noted, Mississippi State tied Auburn, so clearly, the SEC wasn't perceived very well in this season. So BC's schedule, including their win over Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl? Eh. By the way, BC played eight home games in the regular season, and one of the road games was at Boston University. Talk about a cushy schedule! Tulane was their only real road trip.

Stanford beat two ranked teams in 1940: they beat #10 Washington at home, 20-10, and they beat #11 Santa Clara (6-1-1) at home, 7-6. Throw in the Rose Bowl win over one-loss Nebraska, and despite not really dominating anyone, Stanford still has a scheduling edge on Boston College. BC beat #4 and #13, while Stanford beat #7, #10 and #11. It's not a big edge, but it's what we have so far. The problem here, and we'll see this many times, is you have a conference champ against an independent school. Stanford went 7-0 against the PCC, and their two OOC opponents were locals: Santa Clara and San Francisco. The Dons were terrible, but the Broncos were ranked #11.

In the end, Boston College's schedule is weaker, simply because they stayed at home for most of it, and the schedule featured teams like Centre College (1-4), St. Anselm (2-2) and Manhattan (3-6) -- not to mention BU (1-2) and Holy Cross (4-5-1). Half of BC's wins were against these teams, some of which didn't even play full schedules. That's like playing high school teams! Throw in a 60-0 win over Idaho, the PCC doormat in 1940, and you have a really weak schedule. Just for comparative sake, Oregon State beat Idaho, 41-0, and Stanford beat Oregon State, 28-14. Since Idaho had to travel by train to Boston to play the Golden Eagles, well ... you can see what kind of schedule BC had in 1940: weak. With cream puffs filling 60% of the regular season schedule, also-ran SEC teams teams filling 20% of the schedule and 85% of the schedule at home, Boston College really should have won all its games in 1940! The only good team BC did play may have been Georgetown, and a one-point home win is not that convincing.

So Stanford wins the 1940 McMNC ... Who knew? Because after all, Stanford sucks.

McMNC Revisions
1. Stanford
2. Boston College
3. Minnesota
4. Mississippi State
5. Texas A&M
6. Tennessee
7. Michigan

RUNNING SCORECARD:
Stanford: +1940
Tennessee: +1938
California: +1937
Texas A&M: =1939
Pittsburgh: +1936, -1937
TCU: -1938
Minnesota: -1936, -1940