Which college team has won the most national championships in college football?

Answer 1

Cincinnati bearcats

Since the question does not restrict the answer to a particular division, the answer is the Mount Union Purple Raiders, who have won 10 Division III National Championships.

There are a couple of Division I-A teams who "have" more than 10 national championships, but few, if any, of them were actually "won", as is required by the parameters of this question. Prior to the inception of the BCS system, national championships were awarded by various polling groups (AP, UPI, Coaches, etc.). The only thing any team "won" in those years was a popularity contest vote. Nothing was won on the field of play. Nothing was won in a game. With the inception of the BCS in 1998, the two "best" teams in the country faced each other in a "national championship game", and the national champion was the team that won that game. 1998 was the first time a Division I-A national championship was "won" by anyone.

There are those who say that even the BCS does not crown a "true" national champion, because they disagree with the way the "two best" teams are selected. I sympathize with this position, and agree that we will never have a "true" national champion in Division I-A until the NCAA adopts an 8-team or 16-team playoff. But, in the meantime, at least the national champions can claim that they won the national championship, because they did win it, in a game, on the field, even if some believe the team they beat wasn't the strongest possible opponent.

But it makes no difference for the answer to this question, because the most national championships any Division I-A team has "won" under the BCS system is 2, which doesn't come anywhere near Mount Union's 10. By the way, the Division III national champion is, and always has been, determined by a playoff. So all 10 of Mount Union's championships would be considered as having been "won", by ANYONE'S standards.

Answer 2

Princeton has 28 National Championships. The closest to them is Yale with 26.