available to play against us but they chose to play Oklahoma instead of accepting the invitation. The team with the best argument against us was Oklahoma. Washington was #3 but didn’t even win the PAC 12 (that’s why they could have played us). Washington beat Oklahoma.
Every other team had significant flaws in their arguments.
The number of players that went on the long and productive NFL careers is another measure that shows our ‘84 team stacked up well against every other team that year.
They were a deserving champion. One could argue it was a down year in CFB. But who cares? The tournament champ for Basketball in a down year is still the champ. Same for us in ‘84 in football.