๐Ÿˆ The 1911 college football season

The champion and its path, the poll race week by week, the honours, the best games and every conference table.

Source: Citizen of Nowhere college football database ยท 4 conferences ยท 1 bowls
Jump to any season1869โ€“2026
1911season

1911 national champion

Named by the selectors, with the road it took.

National champion, shared
8-0-2HELMS, NCF
Also named champion
8-0-1NCF

The path8-0-2

  1. Sep 30vs
    Stevens
    W37-0
  2. Oct 3vs
    Rutgers
    W37-0
  3. Oct 7vs
    Villanova
    W31-0
  4. Oct 11vs
    Lehigh
    T6-6
  5. Oct 14vs
    Colgate
    W31-0
  6. Oct 21at
    Navy
    T0-0
  7. Oct 28vs
    Holy Cross
    W20-0
  8. Nov 4vs
    Harvard
    W8-6
  9. Nov 11vs
    Dartmouth
    W3-0
  10. Nov 18at
    Yale
    W6-3

The 1911 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
The chart plots the 15 highest-rated teams at the end of the season, sampled each Sunday from the first game to the last. Ratings are on the site's college football Elo scale, where the average major team finishes the season at 1500. The final top five and the champion are drawn in team colours; tap a line or pick a team to follow one.
MinnesotaCarlisleVanderbiltPenn StatePrinceton15 teams ยท tap or drag for that week ยท tap a line to lock it
  • Regular season ends
  • Bowl season

Tap or drag on the chart to read a team's Elo in any week.

1911 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.

1911 Elo at season endElo

Elo top 14

rating, z
1Minnesota1853 ยท z +1.9
2Carlisle1836 ยท z +1.9
3Vanderbilt1784 ยท z +1.6
4Penn State1758 ยท z +1.4
5Princeton1757 ยท z +1.4
6Harvard1751 ยท z +1.4
7Colorado1728 ยท z +1.3
8Yale1727 ยท z +1.3
9Navy1714 ยท z +1.2
10Chicago1706 ยท z +1.1
11Michigan1696 ยท z +1.1
12Nebraska1686 ยท z +1.0
13Pennsylvania1680 ยท z +1.0
14Wisconsin1668 ยท z +0.9

The 1911 honours

The Heisman vote and the major awards side by side, then the All-Americans.

The 1911 honours

Consensus All-Americans

A star marks a unanimous selection.

B
E
G
Show all 4 positions
T

The best games of 1911

The ten best games of the season by Game Score. Switch to the Elo score for a second opinion.

How this is measured
Game score is the college football workbook's own rating of how good a game was; it weighs a lot more than the margin. The Elo score is a second view built from the ratings alone: the two teams' average pre-game Elo, plus stakes (150 for the national championship game, 90 for a playoff game or a major bowl, 40 for another bowl or a conference title game, 15 for a rivalry), plus up to 60 for a close finish and 15 for overtime. The Elo view takes its own top ten from every game between major teams. Sort by any column.
The best games of 191110 games
Rank by
1
6-6 ยท 1911-11-18 ยท Elo score 1834
0.76
game score
2
0-0 ยท 1911-11-18 ยท Elo score 1775
0.75
game score
3
9-8 ยท 1911-10-28 ยท Elo score 1776
0.74
game score
4
Navy beat Army
3-0 ยท 1911-11-24 ยท Elo score 1749
0.69
game score
5
6-0 ยท 1911-10-21 ยท Elo score 1785
0.67
game score
6
9-0 ยท 1911-11-18 ยท Elo score 1676
0.66
game score
7
8-6 ยท 1911-11-04 ยท Elo score 1808
0.64
game score
8
0-0 ยท 1911-10-21 ยท Elo score 1751
0.63
game score
9
20-6 ยท 1911-10-28 ยท Elo score 1777
0.60
game score
10
0-0 ยท 1911-10-14 ยท Elo score 1559
0.57
game score

Upsets of 1911

The results the ratings gave the winner the least chance of, lowest first.

How this is measured
Win chance is the winner's pre-game probability from the site's college football Elo ratings, home field included, so 3% means the winner would be expected to win about one time in thirty. Games against lower-level opponents count and carry a tag for the level (FCS, Division II and so on). Where the AP poll had ranks, the rank line is shown as context. Elo gap is the loser's pre-game rating minus the winner's.
Upsets of 191110 upsets
1
OklahomaNon-major beat Texas
6-3 ยท 1911-11-25
4.5%
win chance
2
OklahomaNon-major beat Kansas
3-0 ยท 1911-11-11
4.7%
win chance
3
SwarthmoreNon-major beat Virginia
9-8 ยท 1911-10-14
7.3%
win chance
4
AustinNon-major beat Baylor
9-0 ยท 1911-10-07
7.8%
win chance
5
OklahomaNon-major beat Missouri
14-6 ยท 1911-11-04
9.3%
win chance
6
South DakotaNon-major beat Denver
10-0 ยท 1911-10-28
9.4%
win chance
7
Trinity (CT)Non-major beat Colgate
9-0 ยท 1911-10-21
11%
win chance
8
12-11 ยท 1911-11-18
11%
win chance
9
Kansas StateNon-major beat Arkansas
3-0 ยท 1911-11-18
11%
win chance
10
SpringfieldNon-major beat Syracuse
9-5 ยท 1911-10-28
11%
win chance

1911 standings by conference

Every conference at once: conference and overall record, and the final AP rank. A star marks the conference champion.

1911 standings by conference4 groups

Missouri Valley

6 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Iowa Stateโ˜… conference champion2-0-16-1-1
2Nebraskaโ˜… conference champion2-0-15-1-2
3Kansas1-1-14-2-2
4Missouri0-2-22-4-2
5Drake0-2-15-2-1
6Washington University0-0-24-2-2

Rocky Mountain

7 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Coloradoโ˜… conference champion5-06-0
2Utah3-1-15-1-1
3Denver3-1-15-2-1
4Colorado College3-24-3
5Wyoming2-34-3-1
6Colorado Mines1-52-5
7Colorado A&M0-50-6

Western Intercollegiate

8 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Minnesotaโ˜… conference champion3-0-16-0-1
2Chicago5-16-1
3Wisconsin2-1-15-1-1
4Illinois2-2-14-2-1
5Iowa2-23-4
6Purdue1-33-4
7Northwestern1-43-4
8Indiana0-3-13-3-1

Independent

50 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Penn State-8-0-1
2Carlisle-11-1
3Florida-5-0-1
4Princeton-8-0-2
5Vanderbilt-8-1
6Texas A&M-6-1
7Georgetown-7-1-1
8Georgia-7-1-1
9Navy-6-0-3
10Army-6-1-1
11North Carolina-6-1-1
12Lafayette-8-2
13Virginia-8-2
14Virginia Tech-6-1-2
15Michigan-5-1-2
16Mississippi State-7-2-1
17Yale-7-2-1
18Arkansas-6-2-1
19Georgia Tech-6-2-1
20Harvard-6-2-1
21Texas-5-2
22Cornell-7-3
23Brown-7-3-1
24Alabama-5-2-2
25Citadel-5-2-2
26LSU-6-3
27Mississippi-6-3
28Bucknell-6-3-1
29Sewanee-6-3-1
30Auburn-4-2-1
31Pennsylvania-7-4
32Davidson-5-3
33North Carolina State-5-3
34Washington & Lee-4-2-2
35Tulane-5-3-1
36Syracuse-5-3-2
37Washington & Jefferson-6-4
38Pittsburgh-4-3-1
39Lehigh-5-5-1
40Southwestern-2-2-2
41Mercer-4-5-1
42Baylor-3-4-2
43Tennessee-3-4-2
44Clemson-3-5
45Wake Forest-3-5
46Colgate-3-6
47South Carolina-1-4-2
48Samford-1-6-1
49Mississippi College-1-5
50Villanova-0-5-1

1911 bowls

One line per game, latest first. A tag marks the playoff and the other major bowls.

1911 bowls1 bowls
Jan 1Mississippi State12Havana AC0Bacardi Bowl

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 programsโ€™, 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 siteโ€™s college football Elo, which rates every game since 1869 and counts games against lower-level opponents. Each seasonโ€™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.