1899 Sewanee Tigers football team

1899 Sewanee Tigers football
SIAA champion
ConferenceSouthern Intercollegiate Athletic Association
Record12–0 (11–0 SIAA)
Head coach
CaptainHenry Seibels
Home stadiumHardee Field
Seasons
← 1898
1900 →
1899 Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association football standings
Conf Overall
Team W   L   T W   L   T
Sewanee $ 11 0 0 12 0 0
Vanderbilt 5 0 0 7 2 0
Alabama 1 0 0 3 1 0
Nashville 4 1 0 4 1 1
Tennessee 2 1 0 6 2 0
Auburn 2 1 1 3 1 1
Texas 3 2 0 6 2 0
North Carolina 1 1 0 7 3 0
Ole Miss 3 4 0 3 4 0
Georgia 2 3 1 2 3 1
Clemson 1 2 0 4 2 0
Central (KY) 1 2 0 1 2 0
LSU 1 3 0 1 4 0
Kentucky State 0 1 0 5 2 2
SW Presbyterian 0 1 0 1 1 0
Cumberland (TN) 0 3 0 0 3 0
Georgia Tech 0 5 0 0 6 0
Tulane 0 5 0 0 6 1
  • $ – Conference champion

The 1899 Sewanee Tigers football team represented Sewanee: The University of the South in the 1899 Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association football season. Sewanee was one of the first college football powers of the South and the 1899 team was one of its best. The 1899 Tigers won 12 games and lost none, outscored opponents 322–10, and won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) title.

The team of 21 players was led by head coach Herman "Billy" Suter and future College Football Hall of Famer and captain Henry "Ditty" Seibels. The team also featured Ormond Simkins,[a] and the team's manager was future US Senator and newspaper publisher Luke Lea. The 11 extra points against Cumberland by Bart Sims is still a school record. John Heisman's Auburn team was the only team to score on Sewanee.

With just 18 players, the team known as the "Iron Men" embarked on a ten-day, 2,500 mile train trip, where they played five games in six days. Sewanee had five shutout wins over Texas (in Austin), Texas A&M (in Houston), Tulane (in New Orleans), LSU (in Baton Rouge), and Ole Miss (in Memphis). Sportswriter Grantland Rice called the group "the most durable football team I ever saw."[2] The road trip is recalled memorably with the Biblical allusion "...and on the seventh day they rested."[3][4][b]

  1. ^ Harvey, Bill (2003). Texas Cemeteries: The Resting Places of Famous, Infamous, and Just Plain Interesting Texans. University of Texas Press. pp. 101. ISBN 0-292-73466-2.
  2. ^ "Grantland Rice". Reading Eagle. November 27, 1941.
  3. ^ Patrick Dorsey (September 23, 2011). "Sewanee, long-lost member of the SEC". Archived from the original on January 11, 2016.
  4. ^ Larry Dagenhart. "Kings of the Mountain" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Part 2 Part 3


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