🏈 The 1892 college football season
The champion and its path, the poll race week by week, the honours, the best games and every conference table.
Jump to any season1869–2026
1892 national champion
Named by the selectors, with the road it took.
The path, Yale13-0
- Oct 5vsWesleyanW6-0
- Oct 8atCrescent ACW22-0
- Oct 12vsWilliamsW32-0
- Oct 15atManhattan ACW22-0
- Oct 19vsAmherstW29-0
- Oct 22atOrange ACW58-0
- Oct 26atSpringfieldW50-0
- Oct 29vsTuftsW44-0
- Nov 5vsWesleyanW72-0
- Nov 8atNew York ACW48-0
- Nov 12vsPennsylvaniaW28-0
- Nov 19atHarvardW6-0
- Nov 24vsPrincetonW12-0
The 1892 Elo race
Elo by week, higher is better. There was no AP poll this year, so the ratings tell the story.
How this is measured
Tap or drag on the chart to read a team's Elo in any week.
1892 Elo at season end
There is no AP poll before 1936, so the ratings stand in: the ten highest-rated major teams when the season ended.
1892 Elo at season endElo
Elo top 5
rating, z
The 1892 honours
The Heisman vote and the major awards side by side, then the All-Americans.
The 1892 honours
Consensus All-Americans
A star marks a unanimous selection.
- William LewisHarvard
- Charles BrewerHarvard
- Harry ThayerPennsylvania
- Philip KingPrinceton
- Vance McCormickYale
The best games of 1892
The ten best games of the season by Game Score. Switch to the Elo score for a second opinion.
How this is measured
The best games of 189210 games
Upsets of 1892
The results the ratings gave the winner the least chance of, lowest first.
How this is measured
Upsets of 189210 upsets
1892 standings by conference
Every conference at once: conference and overall record, and the final AP rank. A star marks the conference champion.
1892 standings by conference1 groups
Independent
27 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Minnesota | - | 5-0 | |
| 2 | Purdue | - | 8-0 | |
| 3 | Yale | - | 13-0 | |
| 4 | Pennsylvania | - | 15-1 | |
| 5 | Cornell | - | 10-1 | |
| 6 | Harvard | - | 10-1 | |
| 7 | Princeton | - | 13-2 | |
| 8 | Tufts | - | 8-2 | |
| 9 | Navy | - | 5-2 | |
| 10 | Army | - | 3-1-1 | |
| 11 | Chicago | - | 8-4-1 | |
| 12 | Amherst | - | 9-5 | |
| 13 | Dartmouth | - | 5-3 | |
| 14 | Illinois | - | 7-4-1 | |
| 15 | Michigan | - | 7-5 | |
| 16 | Northwestern | - | 6-4-2 | |
| 17 | MIT | - | 4-3 | |
| 18 | Springfield | - | 4-3 | |
| 19 | Wisconsin | - | 4-3 | |
| 20 | Brown | - | 4-5-1 | |
| 21 | Lafayette | - | 5-7 | |
| 22 | Massachusetts | - | 4-6-2 | |
| 23 | Rutgers | - | 3-5-1 | |
| 24 | Williams | - | 4-7 | |
| 25 | Trinity (CT) | - | 2-4-1 | |
| 26 | Lehigh | - | 3-6 | |
| 27 | Wesleyan | - | 1-8-1 |
Where these numbers come from
Enough to disbelieve this page on purpose rather than by accident.
Champions, polls, standings, bowls, honours and games are read from the Citizen of Nowhere college football database, built from its own workbook one season at a time. Team colours and crests are the current programs’, so a school is drawn the way it looks today even where it played under another name.
The AP poll begins in 1936, so earlier seasons have no poll race and no final poll, but they do have an Elo race, and their champions are those the selectors named. Before 1992 there was no title game, so those seasons list the major bowls instead; from 1992 the title game is shown with the other major bowls, and from 2014 the playoff bracket. Where the database has no entry for a section, the section is left out rather than shown empty.
Elo ratings, the upsets and the best games come from the site’s college football Elo, which rates every game since 1869 and counts games against lower-level opponents. Each season’s ratings are shown on a scale where the average major team ends the season at 1500; z is the distance from that average in standard deviations.