In its quest for a three-peat, Georgia is chasing the ghost of Minnesota

The Golden Gophers of the mid-1930s are the last FBS team to win three consecutive titles. So how did they succeed where everyone else since has failed?

At the circus that is SEC football media days, there was a common thread unifying many of the questions thrown at Georgia coach Kirby Smart this year at the annual event.

Smart’s Bulldogs have won the national championship in each of the past two seasons, the most recent of which saw them throttle TCU by a record margin, 65-7, to claim the title. A program that was an easy punching bag for decades – the chronic underachiever that kept finding ways to fall short of the sport’s ultimate prize – is now college football’s overbearing power.

For all they’ve accomplished, though, a new and difficult challenge still awaits. As so many wondered that day in Nashville, could Smart and his team do it again? And how were they preparing to try to achieve it?

Winning three straight titles in any sport is an onerous, overwhelming task. Even for the most talented, deftly assembled and well-coached teams, a certain satisfaction or complacency naturally settles in. Even if it doesn’t, they become an even larger and more vulnerable target for the opponents trying so desperately to topple them. It’s why Smart seemingly invents slights, like the notion echoed by a few Georgia players in 2022 that large swaths of people picked a team that was No. 3 in the preseason poll to go 6-6 or 5-7.

A three-peat is an incredibly improbable task in any sport, but in college football, it has proven to be especially elusive. No team since Minnesota from 1934-36 has won three-consecutive championships. There have been 12 instances since of a program winning two in a row only to fall short of a third, a test that has claimed some notable scalps. Nebraska couldn’t do it in 1996. Nor could USC in 2005. Or Alabama in 2013.

Multiple generations later, the Golden Gophers still stand as a benchmark of historic excellence.

“We’ve certainly looked at some three-peat scenarios of teams like the [Chicago] Bulls and different sports teams that they might actually know about,” Smart said at SEC media days. “No offense to the Minnesota 1935 team, but I don’t know if it’s going to resonate with my audience.”

It may not, but as the Bulldogs try to match what Minnesota did 90 years ago, it’s worth taking a closer look at the ghost they’re chasing.

Minnesota’s path to its first two titles…

Though separated by nearly a century, Minnesota and Georgia followed remarkably similar championship paths.

Both had titles to their name – Minnesota in 1904, Georgia in 1942 and 1980 – and maintained a level of success in the decades that followed, only to find new and painful ways to fail to replicate the feat. 

Then, with an inspired coaching hire, the program took a much-needed step to morph into something more dominant and menacing.

After coach Fritz Crisler left for Princeton in 1932, the Gophers turned to Bernie Bierman to lead their program. Bierman was a Minnesota native and University of Minnesota alum who was a member of the school’s undefeated 1915 football team (while also competing on the basketball and track teams). In 1917, he enlisted in the Marine Corps to fight in World War I and remained in the Marine reserves well into his coaching career, including at Minnesota. In fact, his tenure at his alma mater was paused in January 1942 when, one month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was ordered to report to active duty.

Playing to stereotype of those from his home state, and despite his military background, Bierman wasn’t the caricature of the brutish drillmaster that many college football coaches, including Smart, are. As the New York Times described him in his obituary in 1977, Bierman

made no pretense at being a mastermind who worked a magic spell over his pupils. He did not believe in whipping his players into an emotional state before they took the field…at halftime, it was his custom to read to the team from a paper on which he had noted their mistakes, rather than give them a fiery pep talk.”

His demeanor served a winning purpose. He went 36-10-2 in five seasons at Tulane before receiving the call pitching him on a return home. Rather quickly, the Gophers took on the identity he wanted from them, overpowering opponents offensively in a single-wing formation that operated behind an unbalanced line.

In Bierman’s second season in Minneapolis, his team went undefeated. The following year, it did what it hadn’t been able to for so long – win a national championship.

The 1934 Gophers were prodigious, winning all but one of their games by at least 20 points – the lone exception being a 13-7 road victory against Pitt – and taking its final four games by a combined margin of 133-7. That squad had three consensus all-Americans – Bill Bevan, Frank Larson and Francis “Pug” Lund, along with a future all-American in guard/quarterback Bud Wilkinson, who later went on to a legendary coaching career at Oklahoma. Three of the four players were from Minnesota, with the lone exception, Lund, hailing from bordering Wisconsin.

In 1935, they again went 8-0 and again were named the national champion by the CFRA, HAF and NCF. Their path to the title was decidedly narrower and more perilous than it was the previous season, as three of their wins came by one score – 12-7 at Nebraska, 21-13 vs Northwestern and 13-6 at Iowa.

The victory against Iowa was particularly tense, and not just because of what unfolded on the field. In a 48-12 win the previous season, Minnesota knocked Iowa star running back Ozzie Simmons out of the game, leaving Hawkeyes fans enraged and stewing in those emotions for a year until they got to host the Gophers in 1935. Discussion of post-game mobs among fans mounted, with Iowa governor Clyde Herring lending credence to the chatter by saying “If the officials stand for any rough tactics like Minnesota used last year, I’m sure the crowd won’t.” 

In trying to remedy a potentially explosive situation, Minnesota governor Floyd Olson put down a bet instead of inciting violence – the loser of the game would have to give the other side a prize hog from their home state. To this day, Floyd of Rosedale, a bronze trophy in the shape of a pig, is awarded to the winner of the Minnesota-Iowa matchup.

With two championships in hand, the Gophers would have to worry about more than the possibility of losing a pig the following year.

…and its hard-earned road to a still-elusive third championship

For the 1936 season, Bierman intentionally put together a tougher schedule, replacing North Dakota State and Tulane in non-conference play with Washington and Texas.