I wonder how many other schools claim Litkenhous titles.
And it sort of proves the "retro-active claiming" of that NC. It wasn't acknowledged at the time and somehow 50 years later it was celebrated in Neyland.
It's a slippery slope, and there's no right answer.
If a nationally recognized poll or system (and Litkenhous apparently was one...still is, I guess) proclaims a team national champs, then they get to claim part of a split championship.
The more polls and systems that name a team, the stronger their argument.
If a team has more polls and systems naming them than anyone else has, I would say they have the strongest claim. But not the only valid claim.
Split national championships were a reality of life up until the BCS era began (and we've had a few even since then). It's no biggie to be one of two or three teams with an equal claim (like us and Oklahoma in 1950, or us, Maryland and Michigan State in 1951). All those teams can fairly and legitimately celebrate a championship.
ESPN isn't automatically right. Just because that network decided they would single out the AP poll winner as THE national champ each year from 1936 on, that doesn't mean their perspective is any more valid than any other.
And yes, it's a little silly to celebrate a national championship that no one but you yourself claim (UCF in 2018) or one where just a single outlier named your team (Tennessee in 1967), but that doesn't make it wrong. Just weaker than the more substantive claims.
Any Vol fan who celebrates anything from 2 to 7 championships, is right. Because she or he gets to decide what the threshold is for him/herself.
I personally go with 4. *shrug*
