1871 college football season

American college football season

1871 college football season

Regular season| None
Champion(s)| None
| ← 1870 · | football seasons | · 1872 →

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The 1871 college football season is the only year since the first season in 1869 in which no games were played.[1][2]

Princeton did play several games against a Princeton Theological Seminary team in 1871, although the Tigers considered these "practice" (or exhibition) games, and the general convention is not to count these as official games.[3][4]

Only two college football games had been played in each of the previous seasons (1869 and 1870) by only three teams (Rutgers, Princeton, and Columbia).

There are accounts of a competitive game played between the University of Virginia and Washington & Lee University in 1871, but no score or statistics are known. [5]

Because no games were played, 1871 is the only year since college football play began in which no college football national champion has been named, retroactively or otherwise.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Jimmy Atkinson (March 13, 2006). "National Champions: 1869-1879". College Football Blog. Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved January 18, 2015.
2. ^ Professional Football Researchers Association. "Camp and his Followers: American Football 1876-1889" (PDF). Professional Football Researchers Association. Retrieved January 18, 2015.
3. ^ Tex Noel, Stars of an Earlier Autumn: An Unofficial College Football Records Book (iUniverse, 2011), ISBN 978-1462053063, p. 107. Excerpts available at Google Books.
4. ^ Mel Smith, "We're Not That Kind of School" Archived 2011-05-06 at the Wayback Machine, College Football Historical Society Newsletter, May 2003, p. 12-13.
5. ^ Ratcliffe, Jerry (2008). University of Virginia Football Vault. Atlanta, Ga.: Whitman Publishing, LLC. p. 8\. ISBN 978-0-7948-2647-5.

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