🏈 The 1897 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
1897 national champion
Named by the selectors, with the road it took.
The path, Pennsylvania15-0
- Sep 22atBucknellW17-0
- Sep 25vsFranklin & MarshallW33-0
- Sep 29vsWashington & JeffersonW18-4
- Oct 2vsBucknellW33-0
- Oct 6vsGettysburgW57-0
- Oct 9vsLehighW58-0
- Oct 13vsVirginiaW42-0
- Oct 16vsDartmouthW34-0
- Oct 20vsPenn StateW24-0
- Oct 23vsLafayetteW46-0
- Oct 30atBrownW40-0
- Nov 6vsCarlisleW20-10
- Nov 13vsWesleyanW22-0
- Nov 20vsHarvardW15-6
- Nov 25vsCornellW4-0
The 1897 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.
1897 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.
The 1897 honours
The Heisman vote and the major awards side by side, then the All-Americans.
The 1897 honours
Consensus All-Americans
A star marks a unanimous selection.
- Alan DoucetteHarvard
- Benjamin DibbleeHarvard
- John MindsPennsylvania
- Addison KellyPrinceton
- Charles DeSaullesYale
Show all 5 positions
- T. Truxton HarePennsylvania
- Gordon BrownYale
- John OutlandPennsylvania
- Burr ChamberlinYale
- Alan DoucetteHarvard
- Benjamin DibbleeHarvard
- John MindsPennsylvania
- Addison KellyPrinceton
- Charles DeSaullesYale
- T. Truxton HarePennsylvania
- Gordon BrownYale
- John OutlandPennsylvania
- Burr ChamberlinYale
The best games of 1897
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 189710 games
Upsets of 1897
The results the ratings gave the winner the least chance of, lowest first.
How this is measured
Upsets of 189710 upsets
1897 standings by conference
Every conference at once: conference and overall record, and the final AP rank. A star marks the conference champion.
1897 standings by conference2 groups
Western Intercollegiate
7 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wisconsin★ conference champion | 3-0 | 9-1 | |
| 2 | Chicago | 3-1 | 11-1 | |
| 3 | Michigan | 2-1 | 6-1-1 | |
| 4 | Illinois | 1-1 | 6-2 | |
| 5 | Purdue | 1-2 | 5-3-1 | |
| 6 | Northwestern | 0-2 | 5-3 | |
| 7 | Minnesota | 0-3 | 4-4 |
Independent
21 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pennsylvania | - | 15-0 | |
| 2 | Princeton | - | 10-1 | |
| 3 | Yale | - | 9-0-2 | |
| 4 | Harvard | - | 10-1-1 | |
| 5 | Navy | - | 7-1 | |
| 6 | Army | - | 6-1-1 | |
| 7 | Lafayette | - | 9-2-1 | |
| 8 | Dickinson | - | 7-3-2 | |
| 9 | Brown | - | 7-4 | |
| 10 | Cornell | - | 5-3-1 | |
| 11 | Carlisle | - | 6-4 | |
| 12 | Dartmouth | - | 4-3 | |
| 13 | Bucknell | - | 3-3-1 | |
| 14 | Trinity (CT) | - | 4-4-1 | |
| 15 | Tufts | - | 6-7 | |
| 16 | Wesleyan | - | 6-7 | |
| 17 | Penn State | - | 3-6 | |
| 18 | Amherst | - | 2-6-2 | |
| 19 | Franklin & Marshall | - | 2-6-2 | |
| 20 | Lehigh | - | 3-7 | |
| 21 | Williams | - | 1-7-1 |
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.