The 1926 college football season was the first in which an attempt was made to recognize a national champion after the season.
Stanford (10–0) faced unbeaten Alabama (9–0) in the Rose Bowl, and the two teams played to a 7–7 tie. Seven years later, Parke H. Davis, a renowned football historian and football rules committee member, declared Lafayette (9–0), where he had previously coached, a "National Champion Foot Ball Team" in Spalding's Official Foot Ball Guide.[1]
defeated Whittier 74–0;
Brown beat the University of Rhode Island, 14–0 and Pennsylvania (which had all 9 of its games scheduled at home in Philadelphia) shut out Franklin & Marshall, 41–0. Lafayette beat Muhlenberg College 35–0
In the South, defending Rose Bowl champion
Alabama beat Millsaps College (Jackson, Miss) 54–0. Tennessee
defeated Carson-Newman, 13–0.
October
October 2
Navy opened its season with a 17–13 win over Purdue, while Army started with a 21–0 win over Mercy College of Detroit. Brown beat Colby College (of Maine), 35–0 and Pennsylvania beat Johns Hopkins, 40–7. Lafayette
won again, beating Schuylkill (which later was merged with Albright College) 47–0;
Stanford defeated Occidental 19–0 and USC defeated Santa Clara 42–0.
Alabama played Vanderbilt at Nashville and won 19–7; Tennessee
beat North Carolina, 34–0.
Notre Dame tuned up with a game against Wisconsin's Beloit College, winning 77–0. In the Missouri Valley, Kansas State
beat Texas, 13–3.
October 9 At Annapolis,
Navy's football team played a doubleheader, albeit with two different squads. The varsity beat a weak Drake University team, 24–7, and the reserves beat Richmond, 26–0.[2]Army defeated West Virginia's Davis & Elkins College, 21–7. Lafayette beat Pittsburgh, 17–7 and Pennsylvania
beat Swarthmore, 44–0.
Michigan
crushed Michigan State, 55–3, in a conference game.
Notre Dame
won at Minnesota, 19–7
Stanford had a 7–3 victory over an amateur team, the Olympic Club (from San Francisco). USC defeated a strong Washington State team, 16–7
Alabama beat Mississippi State 26–7 at a game in Meridian, Mississippi, while Tennessee won at LSU, 14–7. Kansas State
won at Creighton 12–0.
October 16 In New York, Columbia University hosted
Ohio State
in an intersectional game, and lost, 32–7.
Navy won at Princeton 27–13, while Army played a strong Syracuse team and won 27–21. Lafayette
beat Dickinson 30–7.
Stanford defeated Nevada 33–0, and USC beat Occidental, 28–6
Michigan (4–0–0) played in Baltimore in an intersectional match of unbeatens. Though the Wolverines were heavily favored, Navy blocked a field goal and held Michigan 2 yards from goal in the first half; Hamilton of Navy kicked a field goal, made a key interception to set up a touchdown, and added the point after for a 10–0 win.[3]
In Los Angeles, another big game between unbeatens matched Stanford and Southern California (USC), both 5–0–0, faced off. USC scored first, but Dick Hyland blocked the extra point; after a second Trojan touchdown, the kick failed, and USC had a 12–0 lead. Stanford scored, but the extra point kick hit the upright, and it was 12–6 at halftime. Biff Hoffman's pass to Dick Hyland tied the game for Stanford, and George Bogue's point after kick proved to be the winning margin in Stanford's 13–12 win.[4]Lafayette and Washington & Jefferson were both 5–0–0 when they met in Philadelphia; the Presidents lost to Lafayette, 16–10
At Champaign,
Ohio State won at the University of Chicago, 18–0., and Northwestern
won its rematch with the Hoosiers at Indiana, 21–0.
Kansas State went to 5–0–0 in beating Arkansas, 16–7.
November
November 6
Navy played an easy opponent in West Virginia Wesleyan College, winning 53–7. Army won its sixth straight, a 55–0 whitewash of Franklin & Marshall. Lafayette won again, beating Rutgers 37–0; Brown beat Norwich College, 27–0 and Pennsylvania
beat Penn State, 3–0.
Notre Dame won at Indiana, 26–0. In Milwaukee, Kansas State
suffered its first defeat, losing to Marquette, 14–0.
On Armistice Day (November 11, USC (5–1–0) and Oregon State (4–0–0) played at Portland, Oregon. USC won 17–7.
November 13 In Yankee Stadium,
Michigan
(5–1–0). The visitors won by a point, 17–16.
Tennessee (7–0) and Vanderbilt (6–1) faced off in Nashville, and the Vols suffered their first defeat, 20–3. Stanford (8–0–0) hosted Washington State (7–1–0) in another big PCC game, and won, 29–10.
Navy played Loyola College of Baltimore, winning 35–13, and Army beat Ursinus, 21–15. Lafayette
completed its season with a 35–0 win in its annual game against Lehigh
Brown defeated New Hampshire, 40–12, to extend its record to 9–0–0.
Michigan recorded the same score in a rematch against the Gophers at Minnesota. Northwestern
defeated Iowa, 13–6. All three schools finished 7–1–0, with Michigan and Northwestern being 5–0 in Western Conference play.
Notre Dame beat Drake, 21–0. Kansas State, after winning its first five, lost its next three, including a 3–2 defeat by visiting Iowa State; the Wildcats' final record was 5–3–0. USC defeated Idaho, 38–6. Stanford
closed the regular season with its traditional finale against California. Though the Golden Bears had the home field, they were also having their first losing season since 1916, when their program began. California lost, 41–6.
Navy, at 9–0–0, was unbeaten, while Army (7–1–0) had a single loss, to Notre Dame. The two teams played to a 21–21 tie. In Providence, Brown
and Colgate tied, 10–10.
December 4 In Los Angeles,
Notre Dame closed its season with a 13–12 win over USC
.
At season's end, there were two "unbeaten and untied" teams, the Indians (later, "the Cardinal") of Leland Stanford University, and the Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama. Alabama, which had won the Rose Bowl the previous year, was invited to return to Pasadena to face Stanford's PCC champion team.
United Press called the 1927 Rose Bowl "the football championship of America", and the game was considered the most exciting in the series up to that time. The crowd of 68,000 set an attendance record. Stanford's George Bogue missed an 18-yard field goal attempt in the first quarter, then threw a touchdown pass to Ed Walker and kicked the point after to put Stanford up, 7–0. Stanford held that lead through most of the rest of the game, but in the final minutes, they were forced to punt on fourth down. Frankie Wilton's kick was blocked, and Alabama took over 14 yards from goal. Four plays later, and with a minute left, Jimmy Johnson carried the ball for a touchdown, making it 7–6. The two-point conversion, and overtime, were decades in the future. Stanford's only hope was to block the point after, but Alabama ran the play quickly and Herschel Caldwell's kick tied Stanford, and took away a Stanford victory in the final minute.
[5]
Conference standings
For this article, major conferences defined as those including multiple state flagship public universities.
Frank G. Dickinson, an economics professor at the University of Illinois, had invented the
Big Ten) conference. Chicago clothing manufacturer Jack Rissman then persuaded Dickinson to rank the nation's teams under the system, and awarded the Rissman Trophy to the winning university.[6]
Although Dickinson had applied the system to the 1924 and 1925 seasons, 1926 was the first year in which the
Rissman Trophy was awarded at season's end. The system awarded 30 points for a win over a "strong team", and 20 for a win over a "weak team". Losses were awarded points (15 for loss to a strong team, 10 for loss to a weak team). Ties were treated as half a win and half a loss (22.5 for a tie with a strong team, 15 for a tie with a weak team). An average was then derived by dividing the points by games played.[7]
Professor Dickinson's rating metrics were unfavorable to Alabama, which won all nine of its regular season games, but were given an average rating of 16.67, less than the average for wins over weak (20.00 point) contenders. Alabama was the only Southern team in the 1926 rankings.
^"Stanford and Alabama Play Tie", Oakland Tribune, Jan. 2, 1927, p D-1; [www.rosebowlhistory.org]
^Herschel Nissenson Tales From College Football's Sidelines (Sports Publishing LLC, 2001), p93.
^"The Dickinson system awards 30 points for a victory over a strong team, and 20 for victory over a weak team. Defeats count half as much as victories, and ties are considered as games half won and half lost. Dividing this total by the number of games played gives the final rating, "ILLINOIS BEST FOOTBALL TEAM OF YEAR", The Syracuse Herald, Dec. 4, 1927, p23
^"System Places Stanford First", Nevada State Journal (Reno), December 17, 1926, p6