Undisputed national championship

An undisputed national championship is a national championship that is recognized unanimously by all relevant entities. This phrase has recently been asserted in reference to American college football, especially referring to the winners of the CFP National Championship Game, which has since the 2014 season been intended to determine a national champion. Its validity in regards to the CFP Playoff's champion is hotly contested.

The term "undisputed national championship" is meant to be the opposite of the "mythical national championship" which was awarded separately, and often controversially, by several different polling agencies, resulting in many controversial split titles.

College Football

History of National Championships in College Football

Since the establishment of college football in 1869, national titles were split for much of its history. The 1869 season saw only two games, a home-and-home series between Rutgers and Princeton, and with each team winning one game, both schools claim the 1869 national championship. Princeton won the following year's national title by winning its only game of the season, while Rutgers went 1-1 and Columbia lost their only game. If awarding of national titles had been contemporaneous, this would have been the first undisputed title in college football history. Many, if not most, so-called national titles for the early years of college football were the result of selections made decades later. For the 1893 to 1906 seasons, selectors split the title 13 out of 14 seasons. Perhaps the widest split title in college football history occurred in 1921, for which six separate schools were all selected for a national title or co-title as selectors submitted their selections over the following decades. When all retrospective major selections had finally been made by the 1980s, it turned out that from 1910 to 1942, not one single title was undisputed. Prior to the College Football Playoff era, the 1943, 1948, 1963, 1971, 1972, 1995, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2009, and 2013 seasons ended with a single undisputed champion among NCAA-designated major selectors, both contemporary and later selectors. In all, in the century from 1910 to 2009, multiple schools were awarded the championship 95 times. Many college football historians combat the severe splitting of titles by only recognizing titles issued by the AP Poll or the Coaches' Poll, and at times the National Football Foundation and the Football Writers Association of America as well, and calling titles issued by both "consensus national championships".

Bowl Coalition, Bowl Alliance, and BCS Eras

Beginning in the 1990s, agreements were struck between college football's major conferences to try to arrange #1 vs #2 match ups in postseason bowl games. The hope was that it would give either team a chance to prove they were number one and earn consensus national championships. The system worked effectively to produce a single consensus national champion in every season from 1992-1996, 1998-2002, and 2004-2013, but considerable controversy erupted each year over who the participants in the championship game should be. The 2003 national championship was split between the major polls for the only time during the BCS era because computer rankings contributing to the BCS formula denied USC a top-two spot and a bid to the BCS National Championship game.

CFP era

Since the 2014 season, the College Football Playoff, culminating in the CFP National Championship Game, has provided a means for all of the top-4 teams in the nation to compete against each other, allowing one of the teams to come away with two wins over top-4 opponents in consecutive, season ending weeks. This system is designed to entirely eliminate split tiles and crown a single championship. The system worked immediately, giving the Ohio State Buckeyes a title in its very first year. In its fourth year, it failed to produce an undisputed champion, as both its champion (Alabama) and undefeated UCF claimed the title.