CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

1942 college football rankings

Wikimedia list article

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 14, 2025
Entity authorityQ4565076 ↗
Source-derived summary

One human poll comprised the 1942 college football rankings. Unlike most sports, college football's governing body, the NCAA, does not bestow a national championship, instead that title is bestowed by one or more different polling agencies. There are two main weekly polls that begin in the preseason—the AP Poll and the Coaches' Poll. The Coaches' Poll began operation in 1950; in addition, the AP Poll did not begin conducting preseason polls until that same year.

Legend

AP Poll

The final AP Poll was released on November 30, at the end of the 1942 regular season, weeks before the major bowls. The AP would not release a post-bowl season final poll regularly until 1968.

AP Service Poll

On December 2, a special panel of 91 sportswriters for the Associated Press released a ranking of the US service academy football teams, as they had not been permitted in the regular 1942 AP poll (this practice would be reversed in 1943). The Great Lakes Naval Training Station football team was awarded service champion, garnering the most overall (812) and 1st place votes (50) in the special poll. The ranking system was ten points to the first place team, nine for 2nd place, and so on, with the sportswriters ranking their top ten. Teams that did not finish in the overall top ten but still received individual votes were also added to the final standings.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1942 college football rankings” is wikimedia list article. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through college, football and rankings, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1942, 1950, 1968, 1943—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, college, football and rankings is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “wikimedia list article” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 14, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4565076. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1950, 1968 and 1943.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1942 college football rankings”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1942 college football rankings primary sources, 1942 college football rankings archive and college research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1942 college football rankings”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1942 college football rankings” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.