1946 Army Vs. Notre Dame Football Game - Aftermath

Aftermath

Both teams would finish the season undefeated with this one tie, but it was Notre Dame that was awarded the National Championship by the Associated Press, with Army coming in second. Neither school accepted bowl bids in that era, and so neither put itself at risk of a loss that would have tarnished their National Championship bid. The Pacific Coast Conference and the Big Nine Conference, the forerunners of the Pac-12 and Big Ten, signed the agreement to start with the 1947 Rose Bowl of matching their conference champions. The national sports writers wanted to match either Notre Dame or Army with #4 and undefeated UCLA. Instead, #5 Illinois was the first Midwestern team to go by the terms of the agreement and routed UCLA 45-14.

With Blanchard, Davis and Tucker having graduated, Army's unbeaten streak would be broken the next year, by Columbia University. Notre Dame would not lose until early in the 1950 season. Sporting News named the 1944-45 Army Cadets and the 1946 Fighting Irish the second and fifth greatest teams of the Twentieth Century respectively.

This was only the sixth time that the number one ranked team faced the number two ranked team since the inception of the Associated Press Football Poll in 1936. This would not happen again until the 1963 Rose Bowl.