Today's Tidbit... Win Two, Claim A Conference Championship

An article from two weeks ago discussed the 1932 NFL season and how tie games did not count when calculating the team win percentages that determined league or conference championships. In that example, the 10-3-4 Green Bay Packers sat behind the 6-1-6 Chicago Bears and the 6-1-4 Portsmouth Spartans in the standings.

Similar situations occurred in college conferences when travel and other difficulties resulted in highly unbalanced conference schedules. Top-level teams often filled the first half of their schedules with lesser teams from the same or neighboring states and then played a handful of conference games. Not to pick on Minnesota, but it's fun since they provide an excellent example by claiming twelve Big Ten or predecessor conference (Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the Northwest and Western Conference) championships before 1934. Minnesota won only two conference games in three of those twelve championship seasons. They won three conference games in the other nine seasons and tied a conference game in five of those three-win seasons. Since tie games did not count as a half-win and half-loss as they commonly do today, Minnesota could claim a perfect record.

The column showing teams tying with Minnesota in seven championship seasons illustrates the double whammy of not counting ties in the win percentage calculation and teams playing a limited number of conference games.