1951 McMNC: Illinois Fightin' Illini

AP Top 10: Final Record -- Key Bowl Results

1. Tennessee: 10-1-0 -- L, Sugar, 13-28
2. Michigan State: 9-0-0 -- None
3. Maryland: 10-0-0 -- W, Sugar, 28-13
4. Illinois: 9-0-1 -- W, Rose, 40-7
5. Georgia Tech: 11-0-1 -- W, Orange, 17-14
6. Princeton: 9-0-0 -- None
7. Stanford: 9-2-0 -- L, Rose, 7-40
8. Wisconsin: 7-1-1 -- None
9. Baylor: 8-2-1 -- L, Orange, 14-17
10. Oklahoma: 8-2-0 -- None

Only six Top 10 teams played in bowl games this season, but it's still a good place to start. And what a mess we have here!

Tennessee is out, since they didn't win their bowl game. Princeton is out for the same reasons as they were out in 1950. That leaves us with bowl-less Michigan State and three bowl-winning teams without losses: Maryland, Illinois and Georgia Tech.

Wow!

Let's start with Sparty: the SOS is mediocre, with a .480 winning percentage for the opponents. Michigan State wasn't in the Big Ten yet, so they were playing an independent schedule. They beat Michigan 25-0 in the Big House, but the Wolverines were only 4-5 in 1951, so that is worthless. They beat 4-3-2 Ohio State and Woody Hayes in Columbus, 24-20. Other wins over winning teams include 5-4 Penn State on the road, a 35-0 whitewash of Notre Dame at home (7-2-1, but unranked in the AP poll for some reason?), and a 38-point win over Colorado (7-3) at home. They didn't beat an AP-ranked team all season, although any year that includes wins over Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Notre Dame and Colorado can't be all that bad. Right?

Maryland: Their SOS is worse than Michigan State's SOS (45%). The Terps went 5-0 in that wacky 17-team Southern Conference, tying with Virginia Military Institute for league championship honors. That might be all we need to know about Maryland in 1951, eh? Their best win, prior to the Sugar Bowl win over previously unblemished Tennessee, was a 27-0 road win over 7-3-1 LSU. All in all, they beat one more ranked team than Sparty did, though, even with the bad schedule. Plus, they did win the bowl game while Michigan State stayed home and played with their toys.

Illinois: The Fightin' Illini trump both MSU and Maryland with their SOS rating (53%), and they won a bowl game BIG, thumping Stanford by 33 points (okay, the password can stay the same). They beat #8 Wisconsin by four points at home, and they beat #17 UCLA by 14 points at home as well. So they won three games over ranked teams, and they had a pretty good SOS. Throw in the bowl game, and they're on top of the crop right now. But the tie? A 0-0 struggle on November 17 at aforementioned Ohio State (4-3-2), which Sparty beat in Columbus. Mmmm, this could get interesting.

Ohio State plays a role here. The Buckeyes were 4-3-2, scored 109 points on the season while giving up only 104 points, and their SOS rating was very good (56%). Sparty proved its mettle by beating Ohio State, but for some reason, Illinois couldn't do that. We have a funny triangle here: MSU >>> Illinois >>> Maryland >>> MSU.

Can another team break this problem into little, irrelevant pieces?

Georgia Tech: The Ramblin' Wreck edges Illinois slightly on SOS rating (54%), they won the SEC with a 7-0 conference mark (yes, they were the conference champs over AP #1 Tennessee, which only went 5-0 in league play in another uneven scheduling blunder for the SEC), and they beat #9 Baylor by a field goal in the Orange Bowl. The SOS is slightly the best, the bowl win is the worst, and they only played four road games out of 12, which is the only schedule that isn't even close to being H/A-balanced. And, of course, they were behind the other three teams in the polls heading into bowl season. How good was Baylor, Georgia Tech's Orange Bowl opponent? Baylor lost to #11 TCU, which finished the season 6-5. How good could they have been to lose to TCU at home by 13 points? And Tech could only beat them by a field goal in a bowl game? Tech's SOS isn't enough to outweigh its weak bowl win, but they do have a bowl win -- which is more than Sparty can say. But Tech tied a 5-4-1 Duke team, 14-14, at home. Bad!

So Georgia Tech fails to win this argument convincingly, or even at all. Ladies and gentlemen, we truly have a clusterfuck here in 1951.

In the end, despite finishing #2 in the AP and UPI polls, Michigan State has to be eliminated from contention, for two reasons: 1) They didn't win a bowl game; 2) They didn't play an AP-ranked team all season. So Sparty falls to #4.

Georgia Tech's weaker bowl win over the weakest bowl opponent (Baylor, since Stanford's only loss was to #12 Cal at 8-2) more than erases its slight SOS edge over Illinois, so they finish at #3 in my revisions here.

So it's down to Illinois and Maryland. The bottom line is that Illinois played a harder schedule from top to bottom, and while Maryland knocked off #1 by 13 points, Illinois knocked off #7 by 33 points. These are equally impressive bowl wins, and Illinois played the significantly better schedule.

McMNC Revisions
1. Illinois
2. Maryland
3. Georgia Tech
4. Michigan State
5. Tennessee

RUNNING SCORECARD:
Tennessee: +1938, +1942, +1950, -1951
Illinois: +1951
Michigan: +1947, =1948
Georgia: +1946
Alabama: +1945
Purdue: +1943
Stanford: +1940
California: +1937
Oklahoma: +1949, -1950
Pittsburgh: +1936, -1937
Texas A&M: =1939
Ohio State: -1942, +1944
TCU: -1938
Army: -1944, -1945
Minnesota: -1936, -1940, =1941
Notre Dame: -1943, -1946, -1947, -1949