What if

Alternate universes

The belt has exactly one rule and one starting point. Change either and the same 109,211 games produce a different history — sometimes a wildly different one. These are four of them, computed the same way as the real belt, over every game since 1869.

The real belt

Notre Dame

Whoever beats the holder takes it; ties stay with the holder; bowls count; since Rutgers–Princeton, 1869.

328 reigns101 programsthe one that counts

Ties pass the belt

Notre Dame same as the real belt

A tie hands the belt to the challenger instead of leaving it with the holder.

413 reigns108 programsagrees with the real belt 46% of the time

Bowls don't count

Michigan

Postseason games can't move the belt; the holder carries it through the winter untouched.

318 reigns106 programsagrees with the real belt 53% of the time

The poll era

Notre Dame same as the real belt

The belt is born the week the first AP poll comes out, in October 1936, held by that poll's No. 1.

257 reigns80 programsagrees with the real belt 100% of the time

The BCS era

Notre Dame same as the real belt

The belt starts with the 1998 preseason AP No. 1 and follows the modern game from there.

103 reigns48 programsagrees with the real belt 85% of the time

Every universe uses the real engine with one change. A holder that stops playing (a program that dropped football, or vanishes from the record) hands the belt back to the program it took it from, the same rule the FBS and FCS scopes use. Agreement is the share of days since the universe began on which it and the real belt named the same holder.