In the 88 years since the Associated Press first named a college football national champion and attempted to bring some order to a haphazard sport, many title winners have overcome a bad loss along the way. The 1975 Kansas Jayhawks (7–5) beat the eventual champion Oklahoma Sooners by 20 points in Norman, Okla.; the ’77 Mississippi Rebels (6–5) beat the future champion Notre Dame Fighting Irish in September of that year; and the 2014 Virginia Tech Hokies (7–6) beat the Ohio State Buckeyes by 14 points in Columbus, Ohio, early in Ohio State’s most recent national title season.
But if the current Notre Dame team wins the College Football Playoff championship game, nothing in the history of bad losses comes anywhere close to the Irish being upset 16–14 by the Northern Illinois Huskies on Sept. 7 in South Bend. It would be without precedent for a national champion to drop such a game—one which the Irish paid the Huskies $1.4 million to play without benefit of a return game in DeKalb, Ill.]
