🏈 The 1919 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
1919 national champion
Named by the selectors, with the road it took.
The path9-0-1
- Sep 27vsBatesW53-0
- Oct 4vsBoston CollegeW17-0
- Oct 11vsColbyW35-0
- Oct 18vsBrownW7-0
- Oct 25vsVirginiaW47-0
- Nov 1vsSpringfieldW20-0
- Nov 8atPrincetonT10-10
- Nov 15vsTuftsW23-0
- Nov 22vsYaleW10-3
- Jan 1vsOregonW7-6Rose Bowl
The 1919 major bowls
No title game this year. The big bowls of the season, by date.
The 1919 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
- Regular season ends
- Bowl season
Tap or drag on the chart to read a team's Elo in any week.
1919 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.
1919 Elo at season endElo
Elo top 20
rating, z
The 1919 honours
The Heisman vote and the major awards side by side, then the All-Americans.
The 1919 honours
Consensus All-Americans
A star marks a unanimous selection.
- Bo McMillinCentre
- Edward CaseyHarvard
- Charles HarleyOhio State
- Ira RodgersWest Virginia
- Ben BoyntonWilliams
- Lester BeldingIowa
- Bob HigginsPenn State
- Henry MillerPennsylvania
Show all 5 positions
- D. Belford WestColgate
- Wilbur HenryWashington & Jefferson
- Bo McMillinCentre
- Edward CaseyHarvard
- Charles HarleyOhio State
- Ira RodgersWest Virginia
- Ben BoyntonWilliams
- Lester BeldingIowa
- Bob HigginsPenn State
- Henry MillerPennsylvania
- D. Belford WestColgate
- Wilbur HenryWashington & Jefferson
The best games of 1919
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 191910 games
Upsets of 1919
The results the ratings gave the winner the least chance of, lowest first.
How this is measured
Upsets of 191910 upsets
1919 standings by conference
Every conference at once: conference and overall record, and the final AP rank. A star marks the conference champion.
1919 standings by conference6 groups
Big Ten
10 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illinois★ conference champion | 6-1 | 6-1 | |
| 2 | Ohio State | 3-1 | 6-1 | |
| 3 | Chicago | 4-2 | 5-2 | |
| 4 | Wisconsin | 3-2 | 5-2 | |
| 5 | Minnesota | 3-2 | 4-2-1 | |
| 6 | Iowa | 2-2 | 5-2 | |
| 7 | Michigan | 1-4 | 3-4 | |
| 8 | Northwestern | 1-4 | 2-5 | |
| 9 | Indiana | 0-2 | 3-4 | |
| 10 | Purdue | 0-3 | 2-4-1 |
Missouri Valley
7 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Missouri★ conference champion | 4-0-1 | 5-1-2 | |
| 2 | Iowa State | 3-1-1 | 5-2-1 | |
| 3 | Washington University | 2-2 | 5-2 | |
| 4 | Drake | 2-2 | 4-3 | |
| 5 | Kansas | 1-1-1 | 3-2-3 | |
| 6 | Kansas State | 0-3-1 | 3-5-1 | |
| 7 | Grinnell | 0-3 | 1-4-1 |
Pacific Coast
6 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Washington★ conference champion | 2-1 | 5-1 | |
| 2 | Oregon★ conference champion | 2-1 | 5-2 | |
| 3 | California | 2-2 | 6-2-1 | |
| 4 | Washington State | 2-2 | 5-2 | |
| 5 | Stanford | 1-1 | 4-3 | |
| 6 | Oregon State | 1-3 | 4-4-1 |
Rocky Mountain
8 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colorado A&M★ conference champion | 7-1 | 7-1 | |
| 2 | Utah | 3-1 | 5-2 | |
| 3 | Colorado College | 3-1-1 | 4-2-1 | |
| 4 | Utah State | 2-2 | 5-2 | |
| 5 | Colorado | 2-3-1 | 2-3-1 | |
| 6 | Wyoming | 2-3 | 3-5 | |
| 7 | Denver | 0-4-1 | 1-5-1 | |
| 8 | Colorado Mines | 0-4-1 | 0-4-2 |
Southwest
8 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas A&M★ conference champion | 4-0 | 10-0 | |
| 2 | Rice | 3-1 | 8-1 | |
| 3 | Oklahoma | 2-1 | 5-2-3 | |
| 4 | Texas | 3-2 | 6-3 | |
| 5 | Arkansas | 1-2 | 3-4 | |
| 6 | SMU | 0-2-1 | 5-4-1 | |
| 7 | Baylor | 0-3-1 | 5-3-1 | |
| 8 | Oklahoma A&M | 0-2 | 3-3-2 |
Independent
60 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Centre | - | 9-0 | |
| 2 | Notre Dame | - | 9-0 | |
| 3 | Harvard | - | 9-0-1 | |
| 4 | Alabama | - | 8-1 | |
| 5 | Auburn | - | 8-1 | |
| 6 | Washington & Lee | - | 8-1 | |
| 7 | Navy | - | 7-1 | |
| 8 | Penn State | - | 7-1 | |
| 9 | Dartmouth | - | 6-1-1 | |
| 10 | West Virginia | - | 8-2 | |
| 11 | Colgate | - | 5-1-1 | |
| 12 | North Carolina State | - | 7-2 | |
| 13 | LSU | - | 6-2 | |
| 14 | Lafayette | - | 6-2 | |
| 15 | Mississippi State | - | 6-2 | |
| 16 | VMI | - | 6-2 | |
| 17 | Vanderbilt | - | 5-1-2 | |
| 18 | Washington & Jefferson | - | 6-2 | |
| 19 | Syracuse | - | 8-3 | |
| 20 | Furman | - | 6-2-1 | |
| 21 | Pennsylvania | - | 6-2-1 | |
| 22 | Pittsburgh | - | 6-2-1 | |
| 23 | Tulane | - | 6-2-1 | |
| 24 | Clemson | - | 6-2-2 | |
| 25 | Georgetown | - | 7-3 | |
| 26 | Georgia Tech | - | 7-3 | |
| 27 | Army | - | 6-3 | |
| 28 | Lehigh | - | 6-3 | |
| 29 | Princeton | - | 4-2-1 | |
| 30 | Boston College | - | 5-3 | |
| 31 | Florida | - | 5-3 | |
| 32 | Rutgers | - | 5-3 | |
| 33 | Yale | - | 5-3 | |
| 34 | Georgia | - | 4-2-3 | |
| 35 | Wofford | - | 3-2-1 | |
| 36 | North Carolina | - | 4-3-1 | |
| 37 | Maryland | - | 5-4 | |
| 38 | Presbyterian | - | 4-3-2 | |
| 39 | Virginia Tech | - | 5-4 | |
| 40 | Brown | - | 5-4-1 | |
| 41 | Bucknell | - | 5-4-1 | |
| 42 | Citadel | - | 4-4-1 | |
| 43 | Mississippi | - | 4-4 | |
| 44 | Nebraska | - | 3-3-2 | |
| 45 | Spring Hill | - | 3-3-1 | |
| 46 | Tennessee | - | 3-3-3 | |
| 47 | Kentucky | - | 3-4-1 | |
| 48 | Davidson | - | 4-6-1 | |
| 49 | Samford | - | 3-5-2 | |
| 50 | Mississippi College | - | 3-5-1 | |
| 51 | Cornell | - | 3-5 | |
| 52 | Southwestern | - | 3-5 | |
| 53 | Sewanee | - | 3-6 | |
| 54 | Virginia | - | 2-5-2 | |
| 55 | Erskine | - | 2-5 | |
| 56 | Newberry | - | 1-4-2 | |
| 57 | Oglethorpe | - | 2-6-1 | |
| 58 | TCU | - | 2-6 | |
| 59 | Wake Forest | - | 2-6 | |
| 60 | South Carolina | - | 1-7-1 |
1919 bowls
One line per game, latest first. A tag marks the playoff and the other major bowls.
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.