1886 Princeton Tigers football team

1886 Princeton Tigers football
National champion (Billingsley) Co-national champion (Davis)
Conference	Independent
Record	7–0–1
Head coach	None
Captain	Henry Savage
Seasons ←  1885 1887  →

1886 Eastern college football independents records

v t e	Conf.							Overall
Team	W		L		T			W		L		T
Yale			–					9	–	0	–	1
Princeton			–					7	–	0	–	1
Harvard			–					12	–	2	–	0
Lafayette			–					10	–	2	–	0
Williams			–					5	–	1	–	1
Massachusetts			–					2	–	1	–	0
Penn			–					9	–	7	–	1
Lehigh			–					4	–	3	–	1
Dartmouth			–					2	–	2	–	0
Amherst			–					3	–	4	–	0
Rutgers			–					1	–	3	–	0
Wesleyan			–					2	–	6	–	0
MIT			–					2	–	6	–	1
Vermont			–					0	–	1	–	0
Stevens			–					0	–	7	–	1
Tufts			–					0	–	8	–	0
NYU			–					0	–	3	–	0
Swarthmore			–							–
Trinity (CT)			–							–

The 1886 Princeton Tigers football team represented Princeton University in the 1886 college football season. The team finished with a 7–0–1 record and was retroactively named as the national champion by the Billingsley Report and as a co-national champion by Parke H. Davis. ^{[1] [2]}

On Thanksgiving Day in Princeton, New Jersey, undefeated teams from Yale and Princeton met. The game started late due to the absence of a referee, and heavy rain caused the game to be called on account of darkness with Yale leading 4–0 in the second half. Under the rules of the time, the game was declared "no contest" by the substitute referee, and the final score was declared to be 0–0. After a special meeting of the Intercollegiate Football Association held to review the game, the Association issued a two-part resolution: that (1) Yale should have been acknowledged the winner, but that (2) under their existing rules, the Association did not have the authority to award the game to them. ^[3]

Schedule

Date	Time	Opponent	Site	Result	Attendance	Source
October 9		Stevens	Princeton College grounds Princeton, NJ	W 58–0		[4]
October 13		at Stevens	St. George's Cricket Grounds Hoboken, NJ	W 61–0	300	[5]
October 16		Penn	Princeton, NJ (rivalry)	W 30–0		[6]
October 23	3:40 p.m.	at Penn	University Athletic Grounds Philadelphia, PA	W 55–9		[7] [8]
November 6	3:10 p.m.	at Penn	University Athletic Grounds Philadelphia, PA	W 28–6	1,500	[9]
November 13	2:30 p.m.	Harvard	Princeton, NJ (rivalry)	W 12–0		[10]
November 20	3:00 p.m.	vs. Wesleyan	Hartford, CT	W 70–6		[11] [12]
November 25	3:30 p.m.	Yale	Princeton, NJ (rivalry)	T 0–0	> 6,000	[13]

Roster

• Knowlton Ames
• Black
• Church
• Cook
• Hector Cowan
• William George
• Hirst
• H. Hodge
• R. Hodge
• William Mann Irvine
• McCance
• Moore
• Price
• Savage
• Sloan
• Spiel
• F. Spalding
• W. Spalding
• Woody Wagenhorst

References

1. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) (2015). "National Poll Rankings" (PDF). NCAA Division I Football Records. NCAA. p. 107. Retrieved January 4, 2016.
2. "1886 Princeton Tigers Schedule and Results". SR/College Football. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved February 27, 2017.
3. "No Football Champions.; But Princeton Challenges Yale To Another Game On Saturday". The New York Times. November 28, 1886.
4. "Football At Princeton". The New York Times . New York, New York. October 10, 1886. p. 1. Retrieved March 24, 2022– via Newspapers.com .
5. "Princeton Wins Easily". The New York Times . New York, New York. October 14, 1886. p. 8. Retrieved March 24, 2022– via Newspapers.com .
6. "Victories At Football". The New York Times . New York, New York. October 17, 1886. p. 1. Retrieved March 24, 2022– via Newspapers.com .
7. "College Foot-Ball". The Times . Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. October 23, 1886. p. 2. Retrieved March 24, 2022– via Newspapers.com .
8. "Princeton Wins Easily". The Times . Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. October 24, 1886. p. 7. Retrieved March 24, 2022– via Newspapers.com .
9. "Good Foot-Ball". The Times . Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. November 7, 1886. p. 2. Retrieved March 24, 2022– via Newspapers.com .
10. "Winning A Second Victory". The New York Times. November 14, 1886. p. 9.
11. "Princeton's Third Victory". The Boston Sunday Globe . Boston, Massachusetts. November 21, 1886. p. 4. Retrieved March 24, 2022– via Newspapers.com .
12. "Princeton Men Sad". The New York Times . New York, New York. November 21, 1886. p. 9. Retrieved March 24, 2022– via Newspapers.com .
13. "Yale Outplays Princeton: Weather Bad and Tempers Worse Make Trouble". The New York Times. November 26, 1886. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.