๐Ÿˆ The 1914 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 5 conferences ยท 0 bowls
Jump to any season1869โ€“2026
1914season

1914 national champion

Named by the selectors, with the road it took.

National champion
9-0HELMS, NCF

The path, Army9-0

  1. Oct 3vs
    Stevens
    W49-0
  2. Oct 10vs
    Rutgers
    W13-0
  3. Oct 17vs
    Colgate
    W21-7
  4. Oct 24vs
    Holy Cross
    W14-0
  5. Oct 31vs
    Villanova
    W41-0
  6. Nov 7vs
    Notre Dame
    W20-7
  7. Nov 14vs
    Maine
    W28-0
  8. Nov 21vs
    Springfield
    W13-6
  9. Nov 28vs
    Navy
    W20-0

The 1914 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.
HarvardAuburnWashington & JeffersonNebraskaIllinoisArmy15 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.

1914 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.

1914 Elo at season endElo

Elo top 17

rating, z
1Harvard1924 ยท z +2.1
2Auburn1886 ยท z +1.9
3Washington & Jefferson1852 ยท z +1.8
4Nebraska1830 ยท z +1.7
5Illinois1798 ยท z +1.5
6Virginia1776 ยท z +1.4
7Minnesota1759 ยท z +1.3
8Texas1749 ยท z +1.3
9Washington & Lee1738 ยท z +1.2
10Army1733 ยท z +1.2
11Cornell1725 ยท z +1.1
12Dartmouth1724 ยท z +1.1
13Yale1723 ยท z +1.1
14Chicago1717 ยท z +1.1
15Georgia Tech1689 ยท z +0.9
16Oklahoma1682 ยท z +0.9
17Lehigh1682 ยท z +0.9

The 1914 honours

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

The 1914 honours

Consensus All-Americans

A star marks a unanimous selection.

C
B
E
Show all 5 positions
G
T

The best games of 1914

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 191410 games
Rank by
1
10-9 ยท 1914-10-10 ยท Elo score 1853
0.79
game score
2
13-13 ยท 1914-10-24 ยท Elo score 1770
0.76
game score
3
0-0 ยท 1914-10-31 ยท Elo score 1798
0.72
game score
4
7-7 ยท 1914-11-26 ยท Elo score 1686
0.62
game score
5
16-12 ยท 1914-10-24 ยท Elo score 1719
0.60
game score
6
Chicago beat Iowa
7-0 ยท 1914-10-17 ยท Elo score 1753
0.58
game score
7
21-7 ยท 1914-11-14 ยท Elo score 1783
0.57
game score
8
0-0 ยท 1914-11-14 ยท Elo score 1716
0.57
game score
9
13-10 ยท 1914-11-07 ยท Elo score 1784
0.57
game score
10
17-7 ยท 1914-10-24 ยท Elo score 1614
0.56
game score

Upsets of 1914

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 191410 upsets
1
Missouri-RollaNon-major beat Missouri
9-0 ยท 1914-10-03
6.6%
win chance
2
6-3 ยท 1914-11-13
7.0%
win chance
3
10-0 ยท 1914-10-03
9.8%
win chance
4
19-13 ยท 1914-10-17
10.0%
win chance
5
OuachitaNon-major beat Arkansas
15-9 ยท 1914-10-10
11%
win chance
6
OuachitaNon-major beat Mississippi
7-0 ยท 1914-10-31
13%
win chance
7
18-0 ยท 1914-11-20
13%
win chance
8
52-3 ยท 1914-10-17
14%
win chance
9
Missouri-RollaNon-major beat Arkansas
44-0 ยท 1914-10-24
15%
win chance
10
SwarthmoreNon-major beat Bucknell
9-0 ยท 1914-10-10
18%
win chance

1914 standings by conference

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

1914 standings by conference5 groups

Big Nine

9 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Illinoisโ˜… conference champion6-07-0
2Minnesota3-16-1
3Chicago4-2-14-2-1
4Ohio State2-25-2
5Purdue2-25-2
6Wisconsin2-2-14-2-1
7Iowa1-24-3
8Indiana1-43-4
9Northwestern0-61-6

Missouri Valley

7 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Nebraskaโ˜… conference champion3-07-0-1
2Missouri4-15-3
3Iowa State2-14-3
4Kansas2-25-2-1
5Washington University0-1-13-3-1
6Drake0-3-14-3-1
7Kansas State0-31-5-1

Rocky Mountain

8 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Colorado Minesโ˜… conference champion5-0-15-0-1
2Colorado4-15-1
3Colorado College3-1-14-1-1
4Colorado A&M3-33-4
5Utah2-33-3
6Utah State1-22-5
7Denver1-45-4
8Wyoming0-51-5

Southwest

6 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Texas4-08-0
2Texas A&M2-06-1-1
3Oklahoma2-19-1-1
4Oklahoma A&M2-2-16-2-1
5Rice2-2-13-2-3
6Southwestern1-23-3

Independent

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