The 1941 All-SEC football team consists of American football players selected to the All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) chosen by various selectors for the 1941 college football season. Mississippi State won the conference.
American football, referred to as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, which is the team controlling the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with or passing the ball, while the defense, which is the team without control of the ball, aims to stop the offense's advance and aims to take control of the ball for themselves. The offense must advance at least ten yards in four downs, or plays, and otherwise they turn over the football to the defense; if the offense succeeds in advancing ten yards or more, they are given a new set of four downs. Points are primarily scored by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal. The team with the most points at the end of a game wins.
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the Southern part of the United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of eleven states, two additional public land grant universities, and one private research university. The conference is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. The SEC participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I in sports competitions; for football, it is part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A.
The 1941 college football regular season ended with the Golden Gophers of the University of Minnesota repeating as the AP Poll national champion. This was Minnesota's fifth national championship in eight years. The Big Ten Conference did not allow their teams to participate in the post-season bowl games, therefore the undefeated, untied Duke Blue Devils, faced the #12-ranked Oregon State Beavers in the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl game had been temporarily moved from Pasadena, California to Durham, North Carolina following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Oregon State beat Duke, 20-16, but postseason games were played after the AP Poll rankings. Each writer listed his choice for the top ten teams, and points were tallied based on 10 for first place, 9 for second, etc. The AP then ranked the twenty teams with the highest number of points. Mississippi State, who won the SEC championship, was unable to participate in the post-season due to the wartime airport and train station closings. Therefore, the Georgia Bulldogs and the Alabama Crimson Tide were selected to play in the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl, respectively. Georgia defeated TCU 40-26 and Alabama defeated the Texas A&M Aggies 29-21.
