๐Ÿˆ The 1925 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 7 conferences ยท 1 bowls
Jump to any season1869โ€“2026
1925season

1925 national champion

Named by the selectors, with the road it took.

National champion
10-0HELMS, NCF

The path, Alabama10-0

  1. Sep 26vs
    Union (Tennessee)
    W53-0
  2. Oct 2vs
    Birmingham Southern
    W50-7
  3. Oct 10at
    LSU
    W42-0
  4. Oct 17vs
    Sewanee
    W27-0
  5. Oct 24at
    Georgia Tech
    W7-0
  6. Oct 31vs
    Mississippi State
    W6-0
  7. Nov 7vs
    Kentucky
    W31-0
  8. Nov 14vs
    Florida
    W34-0
  9. Nov 26vs
    Georgia
    W27-0
  10. Jan 1vs
    Washington
    W20-19
    Rose Bowl

The 1925 major bowls

No title game this year. The big bowls of the season, by date.

The 1925 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.
AlabamaDartmouthMichiganNotre DameWest Virginia15 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.

1925 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.

1925 Elo at season endElo

Elo top 21

rating, z
1Alabama1885 ยท z +2.4
2Dartmouth1827 ยท z +2.0
3Michigan1810 ยท z +1.9
4Notre Dame1774 ยท z +1.7
5West Virginia1762 ยท z +1.6
6Illinois1748 ยท z +1.5
7Tulane1741 ยท z +1.5
8Yale1740 ยท z +1.5
9Washington1738 ยท z +1.5
10Nebraska1734 ยท z +1.4
11Pittsburgh1721 ยท z +1.4
12Georgia Tech1709 ยท z +1.3
13North Carolina1699 ยท z +1.2
14Florida1698 ยท z +1.2
15Princeton1692 ยท z +1.2
16USC1679 ยท z +1.1
17Wisconsin1675 ยท z +1.1
18Army1658 ยท z +1.0
19Colgate1657 ยท z +1.0
20Syracuse1651 ยท z +0.9
21Texas A&M1649 ยท z +0.9

The 1925 honours

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

The 1925 honours

Consensus All-Americans

A star marks a unanimous selection.

C
B
E
Show all 5 positions
G
T

The best games of 1925

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 192510 games
Rank by
1
20-19 ยท Rose Bowl ยท 1926-01-01 ยท Elo score 1974
0.95
game score
2
16-13 ยท 1925-10-17 ยท Elo score 1789
0.66
game score
3
7-6 ยท 1925-10-17 ยท Elo score 1536
0.61
game score
4
3-3 ยท 1925-11-26 ยท Elo score 1714
0.60
game score
5
3-3 ยท 1925-10-10 ยท Elo score 1614
0.59
game score
6
0-0 ยท 1925-10-17 ยท Elo score 1597
0.59
game score
7
10-10 ยท 1925-10-17 ยท Elo score 1617
0.58
game score
8
6-6 ยท 1925-10-10 ยท Elo score 1604
0.58
game score
9
7-0 ยท 1925-10-24 ยท Elo score 1798
0.57
game score
10
7-0 ยท 1925-11-14 ยท Elo score 1722
0.56
game score

Upsets of 1925

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 192510 upsets
1
Olympic ClubNon-major beat California
15-0 ยท 1925-10-10
2.5%
win chance
2
LafayetteNon-major beat Pittsburgh
20-9 ยท 1925-10-03
4.8%
win chance
3
HawaiiNon-major beat Colorado A&M
41-0 ยท 1925-12-12
4.8%
win chance
4
Chadron StateNon-major beat Colorado
3-0 ยท 1925-09-26
5.1%
win chance
5
Olympic ClubNon-major beat Stanford
9-0 ยท 1925-09-26
6.0%
win chance
6
15-13 ยท 1925-10-17
7.1%
win chance
7
TrinityNon-major beat Baylor
10-3 ยท 1925-10-17
7.3%
win chance
8
17-12 ยท 1925-11-28
7.8%
win chance
9
21-7 ยท 1925-11-14
9.6%
win chance
10
Holy CrossNon-major beat Harvard
7-6 ยท 1925-10-17
12%
win chance

1925 standings by conference

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

1925 standings by conference7 groups

Big Ten

10 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Michiganโ˜… conference champion5-17-1
2Northwestern3-15-3
3Wisconsin3-1-16-1-1
4Minnesota1-1-15-2-1
5Illinois2-25-3
6Iowa2-25-3
7Chicago2-2-13-4-1
8Ohio State1-3-14-3-1
9Indiana0-3-13-4-1
10Purdue0-3-13-4-1

Missouri Valley

10 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Missouriโ˜… conference champion5-16-1-1
2Drake5-25-3
3Kansas State3-2-15-2-1
4Iowa State3-2-14-3-1
5Nebraska2-2-14-2-2
6Oklahoma3-3-14-3-1
7Grinnell2-2-13-3-2
8Kansas2-5-12-5-1
9Washington University1-4-12-5-1
10Oklahoma A&M0-3-12-5-1

Pacific Coast

9 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Washingtonโ˜… conference champion5-010-1-1
2Stanford4-17-2
3USC3-211-2
4Oregon State3-27-2
5California2-26-3
6Washington State2-33-4-1
7Idaho2-33-5
8Montana1-43-4-1
9Oregon0-51-5-1

Rocky Mountain

12 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Colorado A&Mโ˜… conference champion8-09-1
2Utah State5-16-1
3Utah5-16-2
4Colorado5-26-3
5Wyoming4-36-3
6Colorado College4-45-4-1
7BYU3-33-3
8Western State2-43-4
9Colorado Mines2-62-7
10Montana State1-46-5
11Denver1-61-6
12Colorado State College0-62-6-1

Southern

22 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Alabamaโ˜… conference champion7-010-0
2Tulaneโ˜… conference champion5-09-0-1
3North Carolina4-0-17-1-1
4Washington & Lee5-15-5
5Virginia4-1-17-1-1
6Georgia Tech4-1-16-2-1
7Kentucky4-26-3
8Florida3-28-2
9Auburn3-2-15-3-1
10South Carolina2-27-3
11Tennessee2-2-15-2-1
12Vanderbilt3-36-3
13Virginia Tech3-3-15-3-2
14Georgia2-44-5
15Sewanee1-44-4-1
16Mississippi State1-43-4-1
17LSU0-2-15-3-1
18VMI1-55-5
19North Carolina State0-4-13-5-1
20Mississippi0-45-5
21Maryland0-43-5
22Clemson0-41-7

Southwest

7 teams
#TeamConfAll
1TCU2-0-17-1-1
2Texas A&Mโ˜… conference champion4-17-1-1
3Texas2-1-16-2-1
4SMU1-1-25-2-2
5Rice1-2-14-4-1
6Baylor0-3-23-5-2
7Arkansas0-2-14-4-1

Independent

34 teams
#TeamConfAll
1Dartmouth-8-0
2Colgate-7-0-2
3Pittsburgh-8-1
4West Virginia-8-1
5Syracuse-8-1-1
6Princeton-5-1-1
7Army-7-2
8Pennsylvania-7-2
9Cornell-6-2
10Notre Dame-7-2-1
11Gonzaga-7-2-2
12Oglethorpe-8-3
13Wake Forest-6-2-1
14Washington & Jefferson-6-2-1
15Davidson-6-2-2
16Furman-7-3
17Carnegie Tech-5-2-1
18Navy-5-2-1
19Yale-5-2-1
20Columbia-6-3-1
21William & Mary-7-4
22Newberry-5-3
23Citadel-6-4
24Harvard-4-3-1
25Brown-5-4-1
26Penn State-4-4-1
27Duke-4-5
28Mercer-4-5
29Hampden-Sydney-3-5-1
30Michigan State-3-5
31Centre-3-6
32Presbyterian-3-6
33Richmond-3-6
34Wofford-3-7

1925 bowls

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

1925 bowls1 bowls
Jan 1Alabama20Washington19Rose BowlMajor

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.