🏈 The 1926 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
1926 national champion
Named by the selectors, with the road it took.
The path9-0-1
- Sep 24vsMillsapsW54-0
- Oct 2atVanderbiltW19-7
- Oct 9atMississippi StateW26-7
- Oct 16atGeorgia TechW21-0
- Oct 23vsSewaneeW2-0
- Oct 30vsLSUW24-0
- Nov 6vsKentuckyW14-0
- Nov 13vsFloridaW49-0
- Nov 25vsGeorgiaW33-6
- Jan 1vsStanfordT7-7Rose Bowl
The 1926 major bowls
No title game this year. The big bowls of the season, by date.
The 1926 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.
1926 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.
1926 Elo at season endElo
Elo top 19
rating, z
The 1926 honours
The Heisman vote and the major awards side by side, then the All-Americans.
The 1926 honours
Consensus All-Americans
A star marks a unanimous selection.
- Bud BoeringerNotre Dame
- Benny FriedmanMichigan
- Herb JoestingMinnesota
- Ralph BakerNorthwestern
- Mort KaerUSC
Show all 5 positions
- Harry ConnaughtonGeorgetown
- Bernie ShivelyIllinois
- Bud BoeringerNotre Dame
- Benny FriedmanMichigan
- Herb JoestingMinnesota
- Ralph BakerNorthwestern
- Mort KaerUSC
- Harry ConnaughtonGeorgetown
- Bernie ShivelyIllinois
The best games of 1926
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 192610 games
Upsets of 1926
The results the ratings gave the winner the least chance of, lowest first.
How this is measured
Upsets of 192610 upsets
1926 standings by conference
Every conference at once: conference and overall record, and the final AP rank. A star marks the conference champion.
1926 standings by conference7 groups
Big Ten
10 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michigan★ conference champion | 5-0 | 7-1 | |
| 2 | Northwestern★ conference champion | 5-0 | 7-1 | |
| 3 | Ohio State | 3-1 | 7-1 | |
| 4 | Purdue | 2-1-1 | 5-2-1 | |
| 5 | Wisconsin | 3-2-1 | 5-2-1 | |
| 6 | Illinois | 2-2 | 6-2 | |
| 7 | Minnesota | 2-2 | 5-3 | |
| 8 | Indiana | 0-4 | 3-5 | |
| 9 | Iowa | 0-5 | 3-5 | |
| 10 | Chicago | 0-5 | 2-6 |
Missouri Valley
10 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oklahoma A&M★ conference champion | 3-0-1 | 3-4-1 | |
| 2 | Nebraska | 5-1 | 6-2 | |
| 3 | Missouri | 4-1 | 5-1-2 | |
| 4 | Grinnell | 3-1-1 | 6-1-1 | |
| 5 | Oklahoma | 3-2-1 | 5-2-1 | |
| 6 | Kansas State | 2-2 | 5-3 | |
| 7 | Iowa State | 3-3-1 | 4-3-1 | |
| 8 | Drake | 1-4 | 2-6 | |
| 9 | Kansas | 1-5 | 2-6 | |
| 10 | Washington University | 0-6 | 1-7 |
Pacific Coast
9 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stanford★ conference champion | 4-0 | 10-0-1 | |
| 2 | USC | 5-1 | 8-2 | |
| 3 | Oregon State | 4-1 | 7-1 | |
| 4 | Washington State | 4-1 | 6-1 | |
| 5 | Washington | 3-2 | 8-2 | |
| 6 | Idaho | 1-4 | 3-4-1 | |
| 7 | Oregon | 1-4 | 2-4-1 | |
| 8 | Montana | 0-4 | 3-5 | |
| 9 | California | 0-5 | 3-6 |
Rocky Mountain
12 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Utah★ conference champion | 5-0 | 7-0 | |
| 2 | Montana State | 4-0 | 4-2-1 | |
| 3 | Utah State | 4-1-2 | 5-1-2 | |
| 4 | Colorado A&M | 5-2 | 6-2-1 | |
| 5 | Colorado College | 5-2 | 5-2 | |
| 6 | Colorado State College | 3-3 | 6-4 | |
| 7 | Denver | 4-4 | 4-4 | |
| 8 | Wyoming | 1-2-2 | 2-4-2 | |
| 9 | Colorado | 2-5-1 | 3-5-1 | |
| 10 | BYU | 1-4-1 | 1-5-1 | |
| 11 | Colorado Mines | 1-5 | 1-6 | |
| 12 | Western State | 0-7 | 0-8 |
Southern
22 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama★ conference champion | 8-0 | 9-0-1 | |
| 2 | Tennessee | 5-1 | 8-1 | |
| 3 | Vanderbilt | 4-1 | 8-1 | |
| 4 | South Carolina | 4-2 | 6-4 | |
| 5 | Georgia | 4-2 | 5-4 | |
| 6 | Virginia | 4-2-1 | 6-2-2 | |
| 7 | Virginia Tech | 3-2-1 | 5-3-1 | |
| 8 | Washington & Lee | 3-2-1 | 4-3-2 | |
| 9 | Georgia Tech | 4-3 | 4-5 | |
| 10 | LSU | 3-3 | 6-3 | |
| 11 | Auburn | 3-3 | 5-4 | |
| 12 | Mississippi | 2-2 | 5-4 | |
| 13 | North Carolina | 3-3 | 4-5 | |
| 14 | Mississippi State | 2-3 | 5-4 | |
| 15 | VMI | 2-4 | 5-5 | |
| 16 | Tulane | 2-4 | 3-5-1 | |
| 17 | Maryland | 1-3-1 | 5-4-1 | |
| 18 | Florida | 1-4-1 | 2-6-2 | |
| 19 | Kentucky | 1-4-1 | 2-6-1 | |
| 20 | Clemson | 1-3 | 2-7 | |
| 21 | North Carolina State | 0-4 | 4-6 | |
| 22 | Sewanee | 0-5 | 2-6 |
Southwest
7 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SMU★ conference champion | 5-0 | 8-0-1 | |
| 2 | Baylor | 3-1-1 | 6-3-1 | |
| 3 | TCU | 1-1-2 | 6-1-2 | |
| 4 | Texas | 2-2 | 5-4 | |
| 5 | Texas A&M | 1-3-1 | 5-3-1 | |
| 6 | Arkansas | 0-1 | 5-5 | |
| 7 | Rice | 0-4 | 4-4-1 |
Independent
26 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brown | - | 9-0-1 | |
| 2 | Navy | - | 9-0-1 | |
| 3 | Notre Dame | - | 9-1 | |
| 4 | Furman | - | 8-1-1 | |
| 5 | Army | - | 7-1-1 | |
| 6 | Pennsylvania | - | 7-1-1 | |
| 7 | Washington & Jefferson | - | 7-1-1 | |
| 8 | Cornell | - | 6-1-1 | |
| 9 | Princeton | - | 5-1-1 | |
| 10 | Carnegie Tech | - | 7-2 | |
| 11 | Presbyterian | - | 7-2 | |
| 12 | Davidson | - | 7-2-1 | |
| 13 | Syracuse | - | 7-2-1 | |
| 14 | Citadel | - | 7-3 | |
| 15 | Colgate | - | 5-2-2 | |
| 16 | Columbia | - | 6-3 | |
| 17 | Pittsburgh | - | 5-2-2 | |
| 18 | West Virginia | - | 6-4 | |
| 19 | Penn State | - | 5-4 | |
| 20 | Wake Forest | - | 5-4-1 | |
| 21 | Dartmouth | - | 4-4 | |
| 22 | Yale | - | 4-4 | |
| 23 | Michigan State | - | 3-4-1 | |
| 24 | Harvard | - | 3-5 | |
| 25 | Duke | - | 3-6 | |
| 26 | Wofford | - | 2-8 |
1926 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.