1889 Princeton Tigers football team

1889 Princeton Tigers football
National champion
ConferenceIndependent
Record10–0
Head coach
  • None
CaptainEdgar Allan Poe
Seasons
← 1888
1890 →
1889 Eastern college football independents records
Conf Overall
Team W   L   T W   L   T
Princeton     10 0 0
Massachusetts     2 0 0
Yale     15 1 0
Harvard     9 2 0
Franklin & Marshall     5 1 1
Dickinson     4 1 1
Navy     4 1 1
Tufts     3 1 0
Lehigh     8 3 2
Cornell     8 4 0
Penn     7 6 0
Brown     2 2 0
Penn State     2 2 0
Delaware     1 1 1
Wesleyan     5 7 1
Bucknell     2 3 1
Lafayette     3 4 2
Columbia     2 7 2
Fordham     1 3 0
Rutgers     1 4 0
NYU     0 2 0

The 1889 Princeton Tigers football team was an American football team that represented Princeton University as an independent during the 1889 college football season. The team compiled a perfect 10–0 record, shut out six of ten opponents, and outscored all opponents by a total of 484 to 29.[1] The team captain and quarterback was Edgar Allan Poe, the second cousin of his namesake, the writer Edgar Allan Poe.[2]

There was no contemporaneous system in 1889 for determining a national champion. However, Princeton was retroactively named as the national champion by the Billingsley Report, Helms Athletic Foundation, Houlgate System, National Championship Foundation, and Parke H. Davis.[3] It was Princeton's 15th national championship.[4]

Five players from the 1889 Princeton team were selected by Caspar Whitney for the first All-America college football team: quarterback Edgar Allan Poe; halfback Roscoe Channing; fullback Knowlton "Snake" Ames; tackle Hector Cowan; and center William George.[5] Ames and Cowan were later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.[6][7]

  1. ^ "1889 Princeton Tigers Schedule and Results". SR/College Football. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved February 27, 2017.
  2. ^ "All-Time Princeton Results" (PDF). goprincetontigers.com. Princeton University. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  3. ^ "National Poll Champions" (PDF). NCAA Division I Football Records. National Collegiate Athletic Association. 2017. p. 110. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  4. ^ "Championships - Tigers Football". princetontigersfootball.com. Princeton University. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  5. ^ "Football Award Winners" (PDF). National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). 2016. p. 6. Retrieved October 21, 2017.
  6. ^ "Knowlton Ames". National Football Foundation. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
  7. ^ "Hector Cowan". National Football Foundation. Retrieved March 25, 2022.