๐Ÿˆ The 1913 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 0 bowls
Jump to any season1869โ€“2026
1913season

1913 national champion

Named by the selectors, with the road it took.

National champion
9-0HELMS, NCF

The path, Harvard9-0

  1. Sep 27vs
    Maine
    W34-0
  2. Oct 4vs
    Bates
    W14-0
  3. Oct 11vs
    Williams
    W23-3
  4. Oct 18vs
    Holy Cross
    W47-7
  5. Oct 25vs
    Penn State
    W29-0
  6. Nov 1vs
    Cornell
    W23-6
  7. Nov 8at
    Princeton
    W3-0
  8. Nov 15vs
    Brown
    W37-0
  9. Nov 22vs
    Yale
    W15-5

The 1913 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.
HarvardAuburnCarlisleChicagoNebraska15 teams ยท tap or drag for that week ยท tap a line to lock it

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

1913 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.

1913 Elo at season endElo

Elo top 15

rating, z
1Harvard1898 ยท z +2.2
2Auburn1879 ยท z +2.1
3Carlisle1866 ยท z +2.0
4Chicago1833 ยท z +1.8
5Nebraska1780 ยท z +1.5
6Washington & Jefferson1765 ยท z +1.4
7Minnesota1728 ยท z +1.2
8Michigan1710 ยท z +1.1
9Georgia1695 ยท z +1.1
10Virginia1689 ยท z +1.0
11Washington & Lee1668 ยท z +0.9
12Princeton1667 ยท z +0.9
13Vanderbilt1650 ยท z +0.8
14Navy1647 ยท z +0.8
15Colgate1642 ยท z +0.8

The 1913 honours

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

The 1913 honours

Consensus All-Americans

A star marks a unanimous selection.

C
B
E
Show all 5 positions
G
T

The best games of 1913

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 191310 games
Rank by
1
7-7 ยท 1913-10-18 ยท Elo score 1723
0.66
game score
2
6-0 ยท 1913-11-27 ยท Elo score 1667
0.64
game score
3
3-0 ยท 1913-11-08 ยท Elo score 1823
0.62
game score
4
0-0 ยท 1913-10-25 ยท Elo score 1762
0.62
game score
5
30-7 ยท 1913-11-27 ยท Elo score 1618
0.61
game score
6
Auburn beat LSU
7-0 ยท 1913-11-01 ยท Elo score 1695
0.60
game score
7
13-6 ยท 1913-10-25 ยท Elo score 1695
0.60
game score
8
Texas beat Sewanee
13-7 ยท 1913-10-25 ยท Elo score 1692
0.59
game score
9
7-6 ยท 1913-10-18 ยท Elo score 1580
0.59
game score
10
6-0 ยท 1913-10-25 ยท Elo score 1667
0.59
game score

Upsets of 1913

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 191310 upsets
1
12-7 ยท 1913-10-25
2.1%
win chance
2
Michigan StateNon-major beat Michigan
12-7 ยท 1913-10-18
6.4%
win chance
3
ColbyNon-major beat Brown
10-0 ยท 1913-09-27
6.7%
win chance
4
Oklahoma A&MNon-major beat Texas A&M
3-0 ยท 1913-11-15
7.9%
win chance
5
HaskellNon-major beat Texas A&M
28-0 ยท 1913-11-19
11%
win chance
6
Southwestern (KS)Non-major beat Kansas State
13-10 ยท 1913-10-03
11%
win chance
7
35-13 ยท 1913-11-01
12%
win chance
8
33-2 ยท 1913-10-25
12%
win chance
9
12-6 ยท 1913-10-18
13%
win chance
10
StetsonNon-major beat Mercer
13-6 ยท 1913-11-08
14%
win chance

1913 standings by conference

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

1913 standings by conference4 groups

Big Nine

9 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Chicagoโ˜… conference champion7-07-0
2Iowa2-15-2
3Minnesota2-15-2
4Purdue2-1-24-1-2
5Illinois2-2-14-2-1
6Wisconsin1-2-13-3-1
7Ohio State1-24-2-1
8Indiana2-43-4
9Northwestern0-61-6

Missouri Valley

7 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Nebraskaโ˜… conference champion3-08-0
2Missouriโ˜… conference champion4-07-1
3Kansas3-25-3
4Iowa State2-24-4
5Drake1-34-3-1
6Kansas State0-23-4-1
7Washington University0-41-5

Rocky Mountain

7 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Coloradoโ˜… conference champion4-0-15-1-1
2Colorado Mines5-15-1
3Colorado College2-2-15-2-1
4Colorado A&M2-23-2
5Utah1-22-4-1
6Denver1-32-5
7Wyoming0-50-5

Independent

53 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Auburn-8-0
2Harvard-9-0
3Notre Dame-7-0
4Washington & Jefferson-10-0-1
5Army-8-1
6Washington & Lee-8-1
7Carlisle-10-1-1
8Dartmouth-7-1
9Texas-7-1
10Virginia-7-1
11Michigan-6-1
12North Carolina State-6-1
13Navy-7-1-1
14Virginia Tech-7-1-1
15Colgate-6-1-1
16Mississippi State-6-1-1
17VMI-7-1-2
18Arkansas-7-2
19Georgia Tech-7-2
20LSU-6-1-2
21Georgia-6-2
22Oklahoma-6-2
23Pittsburgh-6-2-1
24Princeton-5-2-1
25Alabama-6-3
26Tennessee-6-3
27Mississippi-6-3-1
28Pennsylvania-6-3-1
29Yale-5-2-3
30Lehigh-5-3
31Vanderbilt-5-3
32West Virginia Wesleyan-5-3
33Bucknell-6-4
34Syracuse-6-4
35Florida-4-3
36Sewanee-4-3
37South Carolina-4-3
38North Carolina-5-4
39Cornell-5-4-1
40Baylor-4-4-2
41Clemson-4-4
42Georgetown-4-4
43Lafayette-4-5-1
44Brown-4-5
45Citadel-3-4-2
46Texas A&M-3-4-2
47West Virginia-3-4-2
48Tulane-3-5
49Mercer-2-5-1
50Davidson-2-5
51Penn State-2-6
52Southwestern-1-5
53Wake Forest-0-8

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.