The 1953 college football season was marked by the surprising abandonment of the
NCAA rules committee in January in favor of the historic one-platoon system with its highly restrictive substitution rules. This radical rules shift made the 1953 season "The Year of the Great Adjustment," in the words of sportswriter Tommy Devine of the Detroit Free Press, in which teams scrambled to tighten their rosters and alter their strategies in accord with the more conservative "iron man" game.[2]
The season finished with the
Rose Bowl
, which it won 28–20 over UCLA.
During the 20th century, the NCAA had no playoff for the college football teams that would later be described as "Division I-A". The NCAA did recognize a national champion based upon the final results of "wire service" (AP and UPI) polls. The extent of that recognition came in the form of acknowledgment in the annual NCAA Football Guide of the "unofficial" national champions. The AP poll in 1953 consisted of the votes of as many as 378 sportswriters.[5]
Though not all writers voted in every poll, each would give their opinion of the twenty best teams. Under a point system of 20 points for first place, 19 for second, etc., the "overall" ranking was determined. Although the rankings were based on the collective opinion of the representative sportswriters, the teams that remained "unbeaten and untied" were generally ranked higher than those that had not. A defeat, even against a strong opponent, tended to cause a team to drop in the rankings, and a team with two or more defeats was unlikely to remain in the Top 20. Generally, the top teams played on New Year's Day in the four major postseason bowl games: the Rose Bowl (near Los Angeles at Pasadena), the Sugar Bowl (
In the preseason poll released on September 14, 1953,
Alabama
. As the regular season progressed, a new poll would be issued on the Monday following the weekend's games.
In a Friday night game at Los Angeles,
No. 3 Georgia Tech
beat Davidson, 53–0. Notre Dame and Michigan State began their seasons the following week.
On September 26
No. 5, Alabama
, trying to salvage some respect against a second unranked opponent, went to 0–1–1 after a 7–7 tie against LSU in Mobile; in the poll that followed, the Crimson Tide fell completely out of the Top 20. No. 9 Maryland, which had won 52–0 at Washington and Lee, rose to third, and previously unranked Michigan (a 50–0 victor over Washington), entered the poll at fourth. The top five were No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 2 Michigan State, No. 3 Maryland, No. 4 Michigan, and No. 5 UCLA.
October
October 3 With the exception of
Big Ten
had three of the spots in the top five: No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 2 Michigan State, No. 3 Ohio State, No. 4 Maryland, and No. 5 Michigan.
had lost 40–21 to Illinois, while No. 6 UCLA returned to the top bracket with a 13–0 win over visiting Wisconsin. The next poll: No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 2 Michigan State, No. 3 Maryland, No. 4 UCLA, and No. 5 Michigan.
October 17
No. 2 Michigan State defeated Indiana 47–18. No. 3 Maryland won 26–0 at North Carolina. No. 4 UCLA
lost at Stanford, 21–20.
No. 5 Michigan beat Northwestern 20–12. No. 6 Georgia Tech, which beat Auburn 36–6, took UCLA's place in the next poll: No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 2 Michigan State, No. 3 Maryland, No. 4 Georgia Tech, and No. 5 Michigan.
October 24
No. 4 Georgia Tech
.
No. 2 Michigan State lost 6–0 at Purdue and No. 5 Michigan
lost at Minnesota 22–0.
No. 3 Maryland won a Friday game at Miami, 30–0. Coming into the Top Five were No. 6 Baylor (14–13 over No. 15 Texas A&M), No. 7 Illinois (20–13 over Syracuse), and No. 8 West Virginia (52–20 over VMI). The next poll: No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 2 Maryland, No. 3 Baylor, No. 4 Illinois, and No. 5 West Virginia.
won at Penn State 20–19. No. 6 Michigan State, which beat Oregon State 34–6, rose to fifth. The next poll: No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 2 Maryland, No. 3.Baylor, No. 4 Illinois, and No. 5 Michigan State.
November
November 7
No. 5 Michigan State
won 28–13 at No. 16 Ohio State, and No. 6 Georgia Tech beat Clemson 20–7. The next poll featured No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 2 Maryland, No. 3 Illinois, No. 4 Michigan State, and No. 5 Georgia Tech.
November 14
No. 5 Georgia Tech
fell 13–6 to Alabama in a game at Birmingham. Returning to the Top Five to take their place were No. 6 Oklahoma and No. 7 UCLA, which had defeated Iowa State (47–0) and Washington (22–6), respectively. The next ranking was No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 2 Maryland, No. 3 Michigan State, No. 4 Oklahoma, and No. 5 UCLA.
November 21 Number one since the season began,
No. 3 Michigan State closed with a 21–15 win over Marquette. No. 4 Oklahoma beat Nebraska 30–7, and No. 5 UCLA
beat No. 9 USC, 13–0. The next poll featured No. 1 Maryland, No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 3 Michigan State, No. 4 Oklahoma, and No. 5 UCLA.
November 28 The new
No. 2 Notre Dame, with a 48–14 win at No. 20 USC, and No. 4 Oklahoma
(42–7 over Oklahoma A&M) were the only Top Five members who hadn't closed their seasons.
November 30 The final AP Poll ranked
No. 2 Notre Dame
received 141 votes.
December 5 Notre Dame beat visiting SMU 40–14. No additional AP Poll was taken because there were few other games played this Saturday.[7]
ACC member Maryland would accept a bid to the Orange Bowl to meet once-beaten (8–1–1), Big 7 champ, and
would meet in the Rose Bowl. Notre Dame declined to participate in a postseason game.
Postseason
After the AP National Champion Maryland lost in the Orange Bowl, there was a lot of controversy since the AP Poll had been finalized beforehand and could not be changed to take this result into account. This Maryland loss resulted in Notre Dame being ranked No. 1 by 10 polls, including Billingsley [1], Boand, DeVold, Dunkel, National Championship Foundation, Williamson, and several others. As a reward for beating the Terrapins, the Sooners received No. 1 from Berryman and Football Research.[2]Archived 2011-09-07 at the Wayback Machine
Conference standings
Major conference standings
For this article, major conferences defined as those including at least one state flagship public university.
^ Written at New York. "Notre Dame Can Claim National Championship". Waco Tribune–Herald. Waco, Texas. United Press. January 3, 1954 [Written January 2]. Retrieved November 1, 2022.