As we all well know, College Sports, Inc., is currently on its hands and knees in the halls of Capitol Hill, pleading and praying for absolution via the Protect College Sports Act. The NCAA has yet to come away with a law that will allow it to reinforce its own rules, but somehow Missouri has emerged with a national championship it did not previously own.
As the PCSA's authors unsuccessfully rushed to get the bill to the floor, Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri (duh) pushed forward a resolution to proclaim Mizzou as the 1960 national champion.
“Today, I’m proud to honor Coach Dan Devine, Norris Stevenson and every member of the undefeated 1960 Missouri Tigers,” Schmitt said, via the Columbia Missourian. “Their promise was kept, their championship was earned, their record remains perfect. And Kansas still lost.”
Senate resolutions are purely ceremonial, and Schmitt's passed unremarked, presumably because his fellow Senators were so confused why their colleague was re-litigating a college football season played 15 seasons before his own birth.
Coached by future a College Football Hall of Famer in Devine, the Tigers were indeed very good back in 1960. They finished 10-1 on the field, scoring a road win over Penn State in non-conference play and rising from outside the rankings to begin the season to No. 1 in the country by their regular-season finale against Kansas. Mizzou lost to KU, 23-7, in the Border War, but the Jayhawks' win was later vacated due to recruiting violations in Lawrence. Still, the damage was done; Mizzou dropped from No. 1 to No. 5, and even an Orange Bowl win over No. 4 Navy was not enough to hoist Devine's club back to the top of the polls.
An 8-1 Minnesota team, who'd lost to unranked Purdue just a week prior, leapt from No. 4 to No. 1 to claim the AP and coaches poll national championships, before ultimately losing to Washington in the Rose Bowl. Other outlets proclaimed Iowa, Ole Miss, and Washington as national championships, and each of the three claim them. Until Thursday, only the discontinued Poling System (that's not a misspelling, it was named after a man named Richard R. Poling) chose Mizzou as its national champion, but the university has never honored the claim, even though it does claim the retroactive win over Kansas, and recognizes the season as an 11-0 campaign.
If Devine and the Tigers were No. 1 in the polls heading into the Kansas game and officially won it, it stands to reason Mizzou has plenty of ground to claim the 1960 national championship, and perhaps Sen. Schmitt's resolution will be enough to change the school's mind.
And if that becomes the case, Missouri will be the one and only school to get something out of Congress.