1934 College Football Season

The 1934 college football season saw the addition of not one, but two New Year's Day football games to rival the venerable Rose Bowl. On February 15, Warren V. Miller and Joseph M. Cousins had organized the New Orleans Mid-Winter Sports Association and by October, the group had enough funds to sponsor the Sugar Bowl. Meanwhile, W. Keith Phillips and the Greater Miami Athletic Club worked in November at a January 1 game for Florida, and the Orange Bowl was created. Once again, a Big Ten team was selected by Professor Dickinson (of the University of Illinois) as the national champion, with the Minnesota Golden Gophers being accorded the honor. The conference, however, still had a bar against its members playing in the postseason, so Minnesota did not play in any of the bowl games. The Alabama Crimson Tide was selected national champions by Dunkel, Williamson and Football Thesaurus.

Major conferences that existed in 1934 were the Western Conference (today's Big Ten), the Pacific Coast Conference (now the Pac-12), the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the old Southern Conference (whose members later played in the ACC), the Big Six Conference (later the Big 12) and the Southwest Conference.