🏈 The 1927 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
1927 national champion
Named by the selectors, with the road it took.
The path, Illinois7-0-1
- Oct 1vsBradleyW19-0
- Oct 8vsButlerW58-0
- Oct 15vsIowa StateT12-12
- Oct 22atNorthwesternW7-6
- Oct 29vsMichiganW14-0
- Nov 5atIowaW14-0
- Nov 12vsChicagoW15-6
- Nov 19atOhio StateW13-0
The 1927 major bowls
No title game this year. The big bowls of the season, by date.
- Rose BowlJan 2
The 1927 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.
1927 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.
1927 Elo at season endElo
Elo top 20
rating, z
The 1927 honours
The Heisman vote and the major awards side by side, then the All-Americans.
The 1927 honours
Consensus All-Americans
A star marks a unanimous selection.
- Larry BettencourtSt. Mary's
- Red CagleArmy
- Herb JoestingMinnesota
- Gibby Welch★ unanimousPittsburgh
- Morley DruryUSC
Show all 5 positions
- John SmithNotre Dame
- Ed HakePennsylvania
- Jesse HibbsUSC
- Larry BettencourtSt. Mary's
- Red CagleArmy
- Herb JoestingMinnesota
- Gibby Welch★ unanimousPittsburgh
- Morley DruryUSC
- John SmithNotre Dame
- Ed HakePennsylvania
- Jesse HibbsUSC
The best games of 1927
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 192710 games
Upsets of 1927
The results the ratings gave the winner the least chance of, lowest first.
How this is measured
Upsets of 192710 upsets
1927 standings by conference
Every conference at once: conference and overall record, and the final AP rank. A star marks the conference champion.
1927 standings by conference7 groups
Big Ten
10 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illinois★ conference champion | 5-0 | 7-0-1 | |
| 2 | Minnesota | 3-0-1 | 6-0-2 | |
| 3 | Michigan | 3-2 | 6-2 | |
| 4 | Purdue | 2-2 | 6-2 | |
| 5 | Chicago | 3-3 | 4-4 | |
| 6 | Northwestern | 2-3 | 4-4 | |
| 7 | Ohio State | 2-3 | 4-4 | |
| 8 | Indiana | 1-2-1 | 3-4-1 | |
| 9 | Iowa | 1-4 | 4-4 | |
| 10 | Wisconsin | 1-4 | 4-4 |
Missouri Valley
10 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Missouri★ conference champion | 5-1 | 7-2 | |
| 2 | Nebraska | 4-1 | 6-2 | |
| 3 | Oklahoma A&M | 2-1 | 4-4 | |
| 4 | Iowa State | 3-2 | 4-3-1 | |
| 5 | Washington University | 2-2-1 | 5-2-2 | |
| 6 | Kansas | 3-3-1 | 3-4-1 | |
| 7 | Oklahoma | 2-3 | 3-3-2 | |
| 8 | Kansas State | 2-4 | 3-5 | |
| 9 | Drake | 1-2 | 3-6 | |
| 10 | Grinnell | 0-5 | 0-7-1 |
Pacific Coast
9 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | USC★ conference champion | 4-0-1 | 8-1-1 | |
| 2 | Stanford★ conference champion | 4-0-1 | 8-2-1 | |
| 3 | Idaho | 2-0-2 | 4-1-3 | |
| 4 | Washington | 4-2 | 9-2 | |
| 5 | California | 2-3 | 7-3 | |
| 6 | Oregon State | 2-3 | 3-3-1 | |
| 7 | Washington State | 1-3-1 | 3-3-2 | |
| 8 | Oregon | 0-4-1 | 2-4-1 | |
| 9 | Montana | 0-4 | 3-4-1 |
Rocky Mountain
12 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colorado A&M★ conference champion | 7-1 | 7-1 | |
| 2 | Denver | 5-1 | 5-2 | |
| 3 | Montana State | 3-1 | 4-4 | |
| 4 | Colorado College | 5-2 | 6-2 | |
| 5 | Utah | 3-1-1 | 3-3-1 | |
| 6 | Colorado | 4-4 | 4-5 | |
| 7 | Utah State | 3-3-1 | 3-4-1 | |
| 8 | BYU | 2-4 | 2-4-1 | |
| 9 | Colorado Mines | 2-5 | 2-5 | |
| 10 | Wyoming | 1-4 | 4-5 | |
| 11 | Western State | 1-5 | 1-6 | |
| 12 | Colorado State College | 1-6 | 2-7 |
Southern
22 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Carolina State★ conference champion | 4-0 | 9-1 | |
| 2 | Georgia Tech★ conference champion | 7-0-1 | 8-1-1 | |
| 3 | Tennessee★ conference champion | 5-0-1 | 8-0-1 | |
| 4 | Georgia | 6-1 | 9-1 | |
| 5 | Vanderbilt | 5-0-2 | 8-1-2 | |
| 6 | Florida | 5-2 | 7-3 | |
| 7 | Mississippi | 3-2 | 5-3-1 | |
| 8 | Clemson | 2-2 | 5-3-1 | |
| 9 | Virginia | 4-4 | 5-4 | |
| 10 | Alabama | 3-4-1 | 5-4-1 | |
| 11 | LSU | 2-3-1 | 4-4-1 | |
| 12 | Mississippi State | 2-3 | 5-3 | |
| 13 | Virginia Tech | 2-3 | 5-4 | |
| 14 | Washington & Lee | 2-3 | 4-4-1 | |
| 15 | Maryland | 3-5 | 4-7 | |
| 16 | VMI | 2-4 | 6-4 | |
| 17 | South Carolina | 2-4 | 4-5 | |
| 18 | Tulane | 2-5-1 | 2-5-1 | |
| 19 | North Carolina | 2-5 | 4-6 | |
| 20 | Sewanee | 1-4 | 2-6 | |
| 21 | Kentucky | 1-5 | 3-6-1 | |
| 22 | Auburn | 0-6-1 | 0-7-2 |
Southwest
7 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas A&M★ conference champion | 4-0-1 | 8-0-1 | |
| 2 | SMU | 4-1 | 7-2 | |
| 3 | Arkansas | 2-1 | 8-1 | |
| 4 | Texas | 2-2-1 | 6-2-1 | |
| 5 | TCU | 1-2-2 | 4-3-2 | |
| 6 | Rice | 1-3 | 2-6-1 | |
| 7 | Baylor | 0-5 | 2-7 |
Independent
29 teams| # | Team | Conf | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Furman | - | 10-1 | |
| 2 | Army | - | 9-1 | |
| 3 | Georgetown | - | 8-1 | |
| 4 | Washington & Jefferson | - | 7-0-2 | |
| 5 | Dartmouth | - | 7-1 | |
| 6 | Yale | - | 7-1 | |
| 7 | Princeton | - | 6-1 | |
| 8 | Pittsburgh | - | 8-1-1 | |
| 9 | Notre Dame | - | 7-1-1 | |
| 10 | Creighton | - | 6-1-1 | |
| 11 | NYU | - | 7-1-2 | |
| 12 | Detroit | - | 7-2 | |
| 13 | Penn State | - | 6-2-1 | |
| 14 | Columbia | - | 5-2-2 | |
| 15 | Marquette | - | 6-3 | |
| 16 | Navy | - | 6-3 | |
| 17 | Colgate | - | 4-2-3 | |
| 18 | Lafayette | - | 5-3-1 | |
| 19 | Pennsylvania | - | 6-4 | |
| 20 | Syracuse | - | 5-3-2 | |
| 21 | Carnegie Tech | - | 5-4-1 | |
| 22 | Cornell | - | 3-3-2 | |
| 23 | Davidson | - | 4-4-1 | |
| 24 | Harvard | - | 4-4 | |
| 25 | Duke | - | 4-5 | |
| 26 | Michigan State | - | 4-5 | |
| 27 | West Virginia | - | 2-4-3 | |
| 28 | Brown | - | 3-6-1 | |
| 29 | Wake Forest | - | 2-6-2 |
1927 bowls
One line per game, latest first. A tag marks the playoff and the other major bowls.
1927 bowls1 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.