Talk:1901 Gallaudet Bison football team

RE: Southern championship

@Cbl62: Been a while since I looked into it but see in the yearbook "We notice that both Georgetown and Virginia lay claim to the Southern Championship. Gallaudet has as good a claim as either of them; Virginia beat us, but we lowered the colors of Georgetown, who in turn overcame Virginia. And so there the matter stands." But Georgetown had 2 losses in the South (to UVA and VPI), while UVA and Gallaudet had 1 each. Cake (talk) 04:54, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I saw that, but an assertion in a yearbook that the school could make a "claim" doesn't appear to be a credible basis for asserting a championship. The only sources I found identified UVA as the Southern champion, and UVA defeated Gallaudet by a 24-0 score. Cbl62 (talk) 05:04, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

"Could" seems the relevant reason for skepticism, not "claim". A school claiming a title is about as good as it gets. E. g. LSU's media guide claims a 1902 title, way stranger than Gallaudet claiming 1901, and so it gets mentioned. Also, yes, UVA beat Gallaudet, but UVA lost to Georgetown, who was in the South, and Gallaudet beat Georgetown. "We have just as good a claim to the title as them" is awfully close to "We also claim a Southern title", and if it said that, I would have simply reverted the edit removing their claim. In fact I am considering adding it for Georgetown given the above, though hard to get over losing to VPI. Cake (talk) 05:11, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Also note in the team picture, the football is clearly labeled "Champions". Though I suppose it might mean "champions of DC," I doubt that. Cake (talk) 05:17, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I have searched without success for someplace where Gallaudet "claims" to be Southern champion or co-champion for 1901. Similarly, I found no newspaper sources referring to Gallaudet as Southern champion. If you could find such a source, I'd reconsider, but a vague statement in a yearbook isn't a sound basis to proclaim Gallaudet as the 1901 Southern co-champion. As for the photo, it's totally unclear what the "champion" notation means on the football, and basing a Southern championship on this notation is WP:OR. Frankly, this whole notion of proclaiming any team other than Vanderbilt as the 1901 "Southern champion" or "Southern co-champion" strikes me as dubious. The 1901 designation for UVA should more accurately be "Southern independent champion" or "Independent southern champion". Compare List of independent southern football champions. Cbl62 (talk) 12:20, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the search. As for Vandy, Virginia would likely have been favored in a game. Note the difference in scores against Sewanee. Note that All-Southern teams don't feature much of the SIAA until 1902. It probably wasn't until McGugin showed up in 1904 that an SIAA team would be favored over the independent Southern champion. Also, removing Texas from the standings seems unwise, even if they played no SIAA games. They claim an 1899 SIAA baseball championship, and can be shown to be in the conference from 1903-1906. Media guides shouldn't be trusted here. I've seen several not mention the SIAA at all. Cake (talk) 11:43, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

As for Texas, it is not unusual for a school to be a conference member for one sport and not another. The fact that the Longhorns played no SIAA schools in 1901 makes it difficult to conceive that they considered themselves SIAA members for football. In searching for some newspaper coverage showing Texas to be an SIAA football member in 1901, I did find this article that you might find interesting; it asserts that every large college in the South was an SIAA member with the exception of UVA. Cbl62 (talk) 12:53, 21 March 2019 (UTC)