The 1936 college football season was the first in which the Associated Press writers' poll selected a national champion.

Each writer listed his choice for the top ten teams, and points were tallied based on 10 for first place, 9 for second, etc., and the AP then ranked the twenty teams with the highest number of points.

Of the seven contemporary math system selectors, two chose Pittsburgh as the top team.

September 19 TCU opened with a 6–0 win at Howard Payne College at Brownwood, Texas.

Defending champ (under the Dickinson ratings) SMU had a tough time in beating North Texas, 6–0, and Rose Bowl winner Stanford lost its opener to visiting Santa Clara 13–0.

The first AP Poll was released on October 20, with Minnesota being the majority favorite, with 32 of 35 first place votes, and 345 out of 350 points.

3 Northwestern, both unbeaten (4–0–0), met in a Big Ten conference game at Evanston.

The Gophers had not lost a game in more than three years, and the game was scoreless after three quarters, until Northwestern's line "ripped a gaping hole in the Gophers' forward wall" and Steve Toth drove across the goal line.

With five minutes left, Minnesota's Rudy Gmitro was in the clear for a touchdown before being brought down by Fred Vanzon, and Northwestern held on for the 6–0 win.

Alabama's 34–7 win was followed by its rise to 4th place in the poll, with Marquette dropping to 8th.

1 Northwestern won 9–0 at Michigan to clinch the Big Ten title, while No.

7 LSU beat Auburn 19–6 to extend its record to 7–0–1 and move to 5th place in the poll, with Alabama falling to 8th.

In the poll that followed, Northwestern—which had been one game away from a perfect season—fell to seventh place and Minnesota regained the top spot, ahead of LSU, Alabama, Pitt, and Santa Clara.

The final AP Poll ranked Minnesota, LSU, Pitt, Alabama, and Washington as the top five.

"There is no longer any blot left on Pittsburgh's Rose Bowl escutcheon," wrote Grantland Rice.

"Here was a Panther who belonged to the jungle and not to the zoo-- a fast, hard driving slashing Panther who put both fang and claw to work in beating Washington's Huskies 21 to 0 before 87,200 chilly witnesses.

1 ranked Minnesota, like other Big Ten Conference teams, was not allowed to play postseason.

LSU had lost the previous Sugar Bowl to TCU, by a 3–2 score.

[7] In the first annual[8] Orange Bowl, 12,000 filled the stands in Miami to see the Duquesne Dukes beat the Mississippi State Maroons, 13–12.

Boyd Brumbaugh scored Duquesne's first touchdown and made the only extra point by either side.

[9] Villanova tied Auburn, 7–7, in the Bacardi Bowl, played before 6,000 spectators in Havana, Cuba, Tuskegee beat [[{{{school}}}|Prairie View State]], 6–0, in Houston before 3,000, and Hardin–Simmons beat Texas Mines, 34–6, at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas.

In 1936, John Heisman died and the trophy that is awarded to the best college football player in the US was renamed in his honor.

Larry Kelley, the second winner of the award was the first man to win it officially named as the "Heisman Trophy.

Thus, a number of sportswriters across the country began to nominate several small colleges based on wins over the national championship contenders via the transitive property.

These were Minnesota (consensus), Pitt (BS, CFRA, HS), Duke (SR, WS), and LSU (BQPRS).

The most prominent claim for the national championship via transitive property was Slippery Rock College, which was given a claim because they had beaten Westminster College of Pennsylvania, which defeated West Virginia Wesleyan, which beat No.

The claim gave Slippery Rock wide notoriety throughout the country, and is why certain football teams, most notably Michigan and Texas, have occasionally broadcast the score of a Slippery Rock game during halftime.

[11][12][13][14] Other claims to the 1936 national championship by this method were also made by Saint Vincent College of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, which followed the majority of Slippery Rock's line of successive wins, beating West Virginia Wesleyan 6 to 0 earlier in the 1936 season.

A case was made for Indiana State Teachers College as well, as they tied Lock Haven, who beat West Chester, which defeated Waynesburg, which connected to the Slippery Rock and St. Vincent's claims by defeating West Virginia Wesleyan 14 to 7.

[15] A week before Thanksgiving, St. Thomas College of Pennsylvania was given national championship recognition after defeating Saint Vincent, 13 to 6.