Two college football programs with very different histories will meet for the College Football Playoff National Championship Monday in Arlington. The No. 2 Oregon Ducks will be looking for their first national title in program history, while the No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes will try to add another trophy to their extensive collection.
Where do Ohio State and Oregon rank on the national championships list?
The Buckeyes have a chance to break into sole possession of eighth place on the list below, while Oregon is looking to join the crowd.
Ohio State is one of the most storied programs in college football history, and ranks highly on the all-time championship leaderboard. The Buckeyes won their first national title in 1942 under head coach Paul Brown. They went 9-1 that season, with their only loss coming after half the team was hit with dysentery due to an unsanitary water fountain prior to the Wisconsin game.
Ohio State's next five titles came under Woody Hayes, winning it all in 1954, 1957, 1961, 1968, and 1970. Three of those championships (1954, 1961, and 1968) came in undefeated seasons. The Buckeyes wouldn't win it all again until the 2002 season's BCS Championship, when Jim Tressel led the team to a 14-0 record and a Fiesta Bowl victory.
This isn’t Oregon’s first chance at winning a national title. Despite existing in the doldrums of the sport for quite some time, the Ducks’ recent rise has gifted three separate runs at winning it all. In 2001, Joey Harrington led Oregon to a program-high 11 wins. The Ducks ranked No. 2 in both the AP and Coaches Polls, but ranked No. 4 in the BCS, keeping them out of the national title game.
In 2007, Oregon nearly made a run at the title again with new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly. Quarterback Dennis Dixon emerged as a Heisman favorite in the Ducks' 8-1 start, but a horrible injury ended Dixon's season and Oregon's chances. In 2010, with Kelly the head coach, Oregon went undefeated in the regular season, earned the first No. 1 poll rankings in school history, and lost to Auburn 22-19 in the BCS National Championship Game.
Here’s a full leaderboard of claimed national championships, via Wikipedia.
| School | Championships |
| Princeton | 28 |
| Yale | 27 |
| Alabama | 15 |
| Michigan | 11 |
| Notre Dame | 11 |
| USC | 11 |
| Pittsburgh | 9 |
| Harvard | 7 |
| Minnesota | 7 |
| Ohio State | 7 |
| Oklahoma | 7 |
| Penn | 7 |
| Michigan State | 6 |
| Tennessee | 6 |
| Auburn | 5 |
| California | 5 |
| Cornell | 5 |
| Georgia | 5 |
| Illinois | 5 |
| Miami | 5 |
| Nebraska | 5 |
| Georgia Tech | 4 |
| Texas | 4 |
| Army | 3 |
| Florida | 3 |
| Florida State | 3 |
| Lafayette | 3 |
| LSU | 3 |
| Mississippi | 3 |
| SMU | 3 |
| Texas A&M | 3 |
| Chicago | 2 |
| Penn State | 2 |
| TCU | 2 |
| Washington | 2 |
| Stanford | 2 |
| Arkansas | 1 |
| Boston College | 1 |
| BYU | 1 |
| Clemson | 1 |
| Colorado | 1 |
| Dartmouth | 1 |
| Iowa | 1 |
| Kentucky | 1 |
| Maryland | 1 |
| Navy | 1 |
| Syracuse | 1 |
| UCLA | 1 |
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