This year, Texas A&M fans have been able to dream realistically of something their team has never won before—an undisputed national championship.
The Aggies have conquered every obstacle in their path so far in 2025. They won a September thriller at Notre Dame, a win that has aged like fine wine. They've smashed perennial SEC powers like Florida and LSU, albeit in down years, and have passed tests from Auburn and Arkansas. Only Texas and a potential SEC title game separate the Aggies from entering the College Football Playoff undefeated.
Longhorns fans have long razzed Texas A&M for its lack of a national title to call their own, but it has not been for a lack of trying. In fact, the Aggies claim three national championships in the early days of college football—the hazy days before the advent of the CFP and its forerunners.
Here's a look back at these titles as Texas A&M chases a fourth.
How were college football's national champions chosen in the game's early days?
For the most part, they weren't—the national championship was simply not a concern in a smaller-scale era of college football.
However, as the game grew in popularity, a few organizations took stabs at choosing national champions past and present. In 1924, for instance, Illinois professor Frank Dickinson created a mathematical system to rank teams—the first of its kind to gain popular acceptance, and the first of its kind to end in the designation of a national champion. As competitors to the Dickinson System emerged, both human and mathematical systems raced to backdate their choices—all the way back to 1869, where Princeton and Rutgers both claim titles.
For each Aggie selection listed here, we'll spell out which selectors chose Texas A&M as their champions—both contemporarily and after the fact.
1919: Undefeated, untied and unscored upon
This season actually wasn't the Aggies' first undefeated, untied and unscored upon season—they accomplished the same feat in 1917. The growth of the Southwest Conference and the end of World War I, however, lent the feat a new legitimacy two years later. Led by young coach Dana X. Bible, who turned 28 midseason, Texas A&M smashed four conference opponents, independents Southwestern and TCU, and a quartet of smaller Lone Star State schools. It is worth noting that the Aggies did not play the second- and third-place SWC finishers (Rice and Oklahoma).
Selectors to choose Texas A&M as national champion
Bible's squad was named a retroactive national champion by the Billingsley Report—a mathematical system formerly part of the Bowl Championship Series formula—and by the defunct National Championship Foundation.
Other teams with a claim to the 1919 national title
Centre (now a Division III school), Harvard and Illinois also claim the '19 crown. Notre Dame also posted a strong season at 9-0, while Penn State went 7-1 and ranks highly in retroactive advanced metrics.
1927: The thrill of the Hunt
In his last year with Texas A&M, quarterback (and running back, and kicker, and punter) Joel Hunt put it all together and led the Aggies to an 8-0-1 season—burnishing a resume that would win him induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. Facing a schedule heavy on regional opponents, Texas A&M destroyed conference runner-up SMU 39–13 and weathered a 0–0 tie with TCU to win national acclaim. Hunt went on to play 16 games of Major League Baseball for the Cardinals and coach Georgia and Wyoming football for a year apiece.
Selectors to choose Texas A&M as national champion
Just one in retrospect: the Sagarin Ratings, which like the Billingsley Report was used for the BCS formula from the 1990s to the 2010s.
Other teams with a claim to the 1927 national title
The Fighting Illini, apparently frequent Aggie foils, also went unbeaten with a tie and claim this title. Yale (7-1) claims it as well, although the only team to beat the Bulldogs that year—9-1 Georgia—does not. The Fighting Irish contended, but lost 18–0 to Army and tied Minnesota.
1939: The greatest Aggies
After the 1933 season, Texas A&M poached coach Homer Norton from Centenary, a small Louisiana school he'd turned into a regional power. Norton's Aggies put it all together in 1939 after an up-and-down five years, going undefeated behind stars like offensive tackle Joe Boyd and fullback John Kimbrough. An increasingly national game and the then-new AP Poll more specifically allowed Texas A&M to collect prestige from ranked wins over No. 13 SMU (6–2) and No. 5 Tulane (14–13 in the Sugar Bowl). To date, this is the Aggies' most recent unbeaten season.
Selectors to choose Texas A&M as national champion
Fourteen of the 18 major selectors to choose a champion in '39 chose Texas A&M—including the AP Poll and five different contemporary mathematical systems.
Other teams with a claim to the 1939 national title
Because of the AP's blessing, this the most widely accepted of the Aggies' historical titles. Two other schools also claim the crown: Cornell, which rolled to an 8-0 record against a tough schedule and beat Ohio State in a closely watched intersectional game, and USC, which went unbeaten and won the Rose Bowl but tied Oregon and UCLA.
More College Football on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Texas A&M: A Look Back at the Aggies' Controversial Trio of National Titles.
