1917 Harvard Crimson football team

1917 Harvard Crimson football
ConferenceIndependent
Record3–1–3
Head coach
Home stadiumHarvard Stadium
Seasons
← 1916
1918 →
1917 Eastern college football independents records
Conf Overall
Team W   L   T W   L   T
Pittsburgh     10 0 0
Williams     7 0 1
Yale     3 0 0
Princeton     2 0 0
Syracuse     8 1 1
Army     7 1 0
Rutgers     7 1 1
Penn     9 2 0
Brown     8 2 0
Fordham     7 2 0
Lehigh     7 2 0
Boston College     6 2 0
Swarthmore     6 2 0
Washington & Jefferson     7 3 0
Colgate     4 2 0
Harvard     3 1 3
New Hampshire     3 2 2
Dartmouth     5 3 0
Geneva     5 3 1
Penn State     5 4 0
Buffalo     4 4 0
NYU     2 2 3
Tufts     3 3 0
Carnegie Tech     2 3 1
Bucknell     3 5 1
Lafayette     3 5 0
Holy Cross     3 4 0
Rhode Island State     2 4 2
Carlisle     3 6 0
Columbia     2 4 0
Delaware     2 5 0
Cornell     3 6 0
Franklin & Marshall     2 6 0
Villanova     0 3 2
Temple     0 6 1

The 1917 Harvard Crimson football team, also known as the Harvard Informals,[1] represented Harvard University in the 1917 college football season. The Crimson finished with a 3–1–3 record under first-year head coach Wingate Rollins.[2] Walter Camp did not select any Harvard players as first-team members of his 1917 College Football All-America Team.[3]

The team was known as the "Informals" for legal reasons. Prior to the United States' entry into World War I, the team had signed binding contracts to play games with various universities and colleges. When war was declared, the team cancelled its season and cancelled the contracts. When students decide to play football after all, the team was denoted as an "informal" team to fulfill the desire for football without opening the team up to suits for breach of contract.[4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference DA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Harvard Football Yearly Records". GoCrimson.com. Harvard University. Archived from the original on August 14, 2014. Retrieved August 13, 2014.
  3. ^ "Championship Teams Picked for Season". Fort Wayne Sentinel. November 29, 1919.
  4. ^ "Harvard's "Informal" Team Avoids Legal Consequences". The Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.). November 4, 1917. p. V-1 – via Newspapers.com.