1936 college football season The 1936 college football season was the first in which the Associated Press writers ' poll selected a national champion . The first AP poll , taken of 35 writers , was released on October 20 , 1936 . 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 . In the first poll , Minnesota received 32 first place votes , and 3 votes for an additional 25 points , for a total of 345 altogether . The year 1936 also saw the addition of another major New Year ' s Day game , as Dallas hosted the first Cotton Bowl Classic . Major conferences that existed in 1936 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 ( later the Big 12 ) and the Southwest Conference . September . September 19 TCU opened with a 6 - 0 win at Howard Payne College at Brownwood , Texas . September 26 In Seattle , Minnesota opened its season with a 14 - 7 win over Washington . 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 . Sugar Bowl winner TCU lost at Texas Tech 7 - 0 . LSU beat visiting Rice 20 - 7 . Alabama beat Samford 34 - 0 and Pittsburgh beat Ohio Wesleyan 53 - 0 . October . October 3 Santa Clara beat Loyola Marymount 13 - 6 LSU and Texas played to a 6 - 6 tie . Alabama defeated Clemson 32 - 0 Northwestern opened with an 18 - 7 win over Iowa . Pittsburgh beat West Virginia 34 - 0 October 10 Minnesota beat visiting Nebraska 7 - 0 . Pittsburgh won at Ohio State 6 - 0 Washington won at UCLA 14 - 0 Santa Clara beat San Francisco 15 - 7 . Alabama beat Mississippi State 7 - 0 . Northwestern beat North Dakota State 40 - 7 . October 17 Minnesota defeated Michigan 26 - 0 . Santa Clara won at San Jose State 20 - 0 In Birmingham , Alabama and Tennessee played to a 0 - 0 tie . Northwestern edged Ohio State 14 - 13 . In a meeting between Pittsburgh ' s two unbeaten ( 3 - 0 - 0 ) and untied schools , Pittsburgh was beaten by Duquesne , 7 - 0 . Washington beat Oregon State 19 - 7 . 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 . The Gophers were followed by 2 . Duke 3 . Army 4 . Northwestern and 5 . Purdue . USC , ranked # 6 , received one first place vote . October 24 # 1 Minnesota hosted # 5 Purdue , in a meeting of unbeaten ( 3 - 0 - 0 ) schools . Minnesota proved the AP voters right by winning 33 - 0 . # 2 Duke ( 5 - 0 - 0 ) lost to ( 1 - 2 - 1 ) Tennessee , 15 - 13 . # 3 Army beat Springfield College 33 - 0 . # 4 Northwestern won at Illinois 13 - 2 . # 8 Washington beat California 13 - 0 . # 9 Pittsburgh beat visiting , and previously unbeaten , # 7 Notre Dame 26 - 0 . # 16 Fordham edged visiting # 12 St . Mary ' s 7 - 6 . The next top five was 1 . Minnesota 2 . Pitt 3 . Northwestern 4 . Washington 5 . Fordham October 31 In a Friday night game , # 1 Minnesota and # 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 . At the Polo Grounds in New York , # 2 Pittsburgh and # 5 Fordham played to a 0 - 0 tie . In Portland , # 4 Washington beat Oregon 7 - 0 , but dropped to 6th . # 10 Marquette beat visiting # 20 St . Mary ' s 20 - 6 and rose to 4th place ( the Warriors would give up football after 1960 ) . The next top five was 1 . Northwestern 2 . Minnesota 3 . Fordham 4 . Marquette 5 . Pitt . November . November 7 # 1 Northwestern beat Wisconsin 26 - 18 . # 2 Minnesota beat Iowa 52 - 0 # 3 Fordham defeated visiting Purdue 15 - 0 . # 4 Marquette narrowly won in Omaha against Creighton , 7 - 6 . # 5 Pittsburgh beat Penn State 34 - 7 . # 14 Alabama and # 10 Tulane , both 5 - 0 - 1 , met at Tuscaloosa . Alabama ' s 34 - 7 win was followed by its rise to 4th place in the poll . November 14 # 1 Northwestern won 9 - 0 at Michigan to clinch the Big Ten title , while # 2 Minnesota beat Texas 47 - 19 . # 3 Fordham was idle . # 4 Alabama beat Georgia Tech in Atlanta , 20 - 16 . # 5 Pittsburgh won at Nebraska 19 - 6 In Birmingham , # 7 LSU beat Auburn 19 - 6 to extend its record to 7 - 0 - 1 . November 21 # 1 Northwestern lost at # 11 Notre Dame , 26 - 6 , while # 2 Minnesota won at Wisconsin 24 - 0 # 3 Fordham and visiting Georgia played to a 7 - 7 tie . # 4 Pittsburgh was idle . # 5 LSU beat Lafayette College of Louisiana 93 - 0 . # 9 Santa Clara won in San Francisco at St . Mary ' s , 19 - 0 . 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 : 1 . Minnesota 2 . LSU 3 . Alabama 4 . Pitt 5 . Santa Clara . On November 26 , Thanksgiving Day , # 3 Alabama beat Vanderbilt 14 - 6 in Birmingham . # 4 Pittsburgh beat its other crosstown rival , Carnegie Tech , 31 - 14 . # 6 Washington beat # 20 Washington State 40 - 0 . At Yankee Stadium Fordham , which had fallen to 8th , ( 5 - 0 - 2 ) lost to NYU , 7 - 6 . November 28 # 2 LSU clinched the SEC title with a 33 - 0 win over # 19 Tulane . # 5 Santa Clara lost to # 18 TCU , 9 - 0 . Conference standings . The following is an incomplete list of conference standings : Final Associated Press Poll . Prior to 1968 the final AP Poll was released before the bowl games were played . Bowl Games . " 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 . " . Pitt had been ranked # 3 by the AP , behind # 2 LSU , which met Santa Clara in the Sugar Bowl . # 1 ranked Minnesota , like other Big Ten teams , was not allowed to play postseason . LSU had lost the previous Sugar Bowl to TCU , by a 3 - 2 score . A crowd of 41 , 000 turned out in New Orleans , only to see the Tigers lose again . The Santa Clara Broncos took a 14 - 0 lead in the first quarter and won 21 - 14 . A crowd of 17 , 000 turned out in Dallas to watch the first Cotton Bowl Classic . Sammy Baugh of Texas Christian completed only 5 of 13 pass attempts , but had 110 yards , a touchdown , and the win , as TCU beat Marquette 16 - 6 . In the first annual Orange Bowl , 12 , 000 filled the stands in Miami to see the Duquesne Dukes beat the Mississippi State Bulldogs 13 - 12 . Boyd Brumbaugh scored Duquesne ' s first touchdown and made the only extra point by either side . Villanova tied Auburn , 7 - 7 , in the Bacardi Bowl , played before 6 , 000 spectators in sunny Havana , Cuba , Tuskegee Institute beat Prairie View A & M 6 - 0 in Houston before 3 , 000 , and Hardin - Simmons beat Texas School of Mines 34 - 6 at the Sun Bowl in El Paso . Heisman Trophy . In 1936 , John Heisman died and the trophy that is awarded to the best college football player in the nation 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 . " 1935 had been the first year that the Heisman Trophy was ever awarded , although it was named differently in the first year . In 1935 , it was presented by the Downtown Athletic Club ( DAC ) in Manhattan , New York , a privately owned recreation facility near the site of the former World Trade Center . It was first known simply as the " DAC Trophy " for its inaugural year . ( The first winner , Jay Berwanger , was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles but declined to sign for them . He never played professional football for any team . )