Sacred Heart Pioneers (2001)

Did you know Sacred Heart football won a national championship in 2001? Well, before you check the NCAA record book for confirmation, there's a catch.

Before the NCAA expanded the I-AA/FCS tournament field from 16 to 20 (and today, 24) teams, several conferences, including the Pioneers' Northeast Conference, did not receive automatic bids to the postseason, a policy that also affected the Pioneer League and the old Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. The Sports Network (which I think still conducts FCS media polls) created a media poll for these mid-major have-nots and presented a trophy from 2001-07 for the top-ranked team at the end of the season. And the school got to call itself a "national champion." (Maybe they should have just called it Division I-AAA and had their own tourney, but I digress.) 

The 2001 Sacred Heart Pioneers.

 

A 2001 Sacred Heart schedule. The photo was likely taken in 2000.

Under second-year coach Jim Fleming (who's engineered quite the turnaround at Rhode Island lately), Sacred Heart stormed through the regular season undefeated, allowing fewer than 10 points six times. The Pioneers were passed over for an NCAA I-AA tourney bid, but they did earn a trip to Pittsburgh to face MAAC champ Duquesne in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Bowl. SHU dispatched Duquesne 31-15 for the championship, and after the season, Sacred Heart claimed the Sports Network Cup in the final poll, beating out Dayton by 10 points.  

Sacred Heart players show off their ECAC Bowl
trophy after defeating Duquesne.

Thankfully, we don't have this silliness anymore, and the low/no scholarship schools now have a chance to show their mettle in the FCS tourney. Sacred Heart has made four FCS tourneys, and while the Pioneers have yet to win a playoff game, they've put up a fight the last two seasons against pretty damn good Delaware and Holy Cross teams.

As for the uniforms, Sacred Heart's helmets mimic Ohio State (hey, might as well imitate a winner, right?), while the jerseys have a bit of an Oklahoma look, with "PIONEERS" on the front at home and "SACRED HEART" on the road. I'm not 100% on the color of the NEC patch. Strange how so much stuff from the last 20 years has become lost media.

Arnold Terriers (1951)

Time for another trip through the football graveyard, this time with a defunct school. 

Finding info on Arnold College is like looking for a lucky call from a referee. According to this page, Arnold was a physical education school that started in Brooklyn, N.Y. and moved to New Haven, Conn. before settling down in nearby Milford in 1929. Thanks to financial struggles, the school — and, thus its sports teams — were swallowed up by the University of Bridgeport in 1953. (I profiled a couple Bridgeport teams here. The Knights dropped football after the 1974 season.)

The 1951 Arnold Terriers, not long before the school
— and the team — bid farewell. 

Arnold, despite an enrollment of about 500 students, fielded a football team from 1927-41 and again from 1947-52. It's most famous football alumnus, by far, is Pro Football Hall of Famer Andy Robustelli, a six-time All-Pro defensive end who won an NFL title with the New York Giants in 1956. Not bad for a 19th-round draft pick. But the Terriers achieved only three winning seasons, which makes one think football was always an uphill battle for such a small school.

Andy Robustelli in his Arnold days. Not just a wearer of the gold jacket,
but also a member of the Varsity Club Dance Committee!

Thankfully, the University of Bridgeport has Arnold yearbooks online through 1952. (With the school closing in '53, I wonder if the school bothered with a "farewell" edition that year?) This uniforms above are from the program's next-to-last team in 1951, which beat Bridgeport and King's of Pennsylvania. (Minor grammar rant: I always prefer using "next-to-last" to "penultimate," which sounds like it should mean something BEYOND ultimate.) 

Other foes that year included Wagner (still kicking around in the NEC), Moravian (D-III school in Pennsylvania) and fellow football dropees Adelphi, Rider, Brandeis and Saint Michael's (Vt.). Most of Arnold's opponents historically would be considered Division II or III today, but the Terriers occasionally played current D-I schools such as Rhode Island, Maine and Northeastern. 

Arnold's 1951 defense (top) and offense (above). I guess the 
Terriers' defense was so ferocious they needed to use only seven guys.

The uniforms are typical for that period; plain jerseys and helmets with some "Northwestern" stripes on the sleeves. The basic pattern is actually similar to Bridgeport's from that era, only with red instead of purple. 

More info on Arnold's sports teams can be found here.