The wartime teams for both the schools and the Military Units are hard to understand because the rosters were so ridiculously fluid.
Here is Ohio State, for just one example (but obviously the one I am most familiar with):
Paul Brown became HC at Ohio State in 1941. IMHO, Brown was the greatest football coach ever but not the greatest at Ohio State nor in the B1G because he was only at Ohio State for three seasons (1941-1943). Ohio State was coming off of a rather lackluster few years including 4-4 in 1940 then went 6-1-1 in 1941 with a loss to Northwestern (QB was Otto Grahm whom Brown sought out for his Pro Squad postwar). The tie was with Michigan in Ann Arbor. In the final AP Poll tOSU was #13 while Michigan was #5 and Northwestern was #11.
In 1942 Paul Brown coached Ohio State's first NC. The team went 9-1 and was ranked #1 in the final poll. The lone loss was at Wisconsin 17-7 and supposedly the Buckeyes were all sick due to the drinking water on their train being contaminated because the cars had sat unused due to the War. Also, Wisconsin was VERY good, they tied ND, lost to Iowa, and finished 8-1-1 and #3.
In 1943 the Buckeyes were awful. The finished 3-6 with the wins coming against fellow-3-win-teams Mizzou, Pitt, and Illinois. The Buckeyes got drilled:
- 28-13 by Iowa Pre Flight
- 30-7 by Purdue
- 45-7 by Michigan
They were THAT bad because they had affiliated with the Army's rather than the Navy's Specialized Training Program. The Army's did not allow trainees to participate in varsity sports while the Navy's did. Notably Michigan and Purdue were affiliated with the Navy's program. Ohio State's players were all 17 year old freshman awaiting enlistment at their 18th birthday and they got annihilated by IPF, PU, and M's much older players.
The next year, in 1944 the Buckeyes had Service Trainees able to play and they went undefeated (9-0) with only the Michigan Game (18-14) being close. They'd have been National Champions again except that Army which had essentially their pick of recruits was 9-0 and even better. Ohio State was the only non-military in the AP final top-6:
- 9-0 Army
- 9-0 Ohio State
- 9-0 Randolph Field
- 6-3 Navy
- 10-0 Bainbridge Naval
- 10-1 Iowa Pre-Flight
- 7-0-2 USC
- 8-2 Michigan
- 8-2 Notre Dame
- 7-0-2 March Field/4th Air Force
- 6-4 Dook
- 7-0-1 Tennessee
- 6-0 Norman Pre-Flight
- 8-2 GaTech
- 5-4-1 Illinois
- 7-1 El Toro Marines
- 8-2 Great Lakes Naval
- 8-0 Fort Pierce Naval
- 5-3 St. Mary's Pre-Flight
- 8-2-1 2nd Air Force
As you can see, 12 of the AP top-20 were military teams and of those only Army and Navy were permanent Military Academy Teams, the rest were temporary.
Over those three seasons Ohio State had a NC and a near-NC with a flat awful team sandwiched between them and almost no body was on the roster for even two of those seasons let alone all three.