1876 Yale Bulldogs football team

1876 Yale Bulldogs football
National champion
ConferenceIndependent
Record3–0
Head coach
  • None
CaptainEugene V. Baker
Home stadiumHamilton Park
Seasons
← 1875
1877 →
1876 college football records
Conf Overall
Team W   L   T W   L   T
Yale     3 0 0
Rutgers     1 0 0
Harvard     3 1 0
Princeton     3 2 0
Stevens     2 2 0
CCNY     1 1 0
Penn     1 2 0
Columbia     1 3 0
Canada All-Stars     0 1 0
McGill     0 1 0
Northwestern     0 1 0
Philadelphia All-Stars     0 1 0
NYU     0 2 0

The 1876 Yale Bulldogs football team represented Yale University in the 1876 college football season. The team finished with a 3–0 record and was retroactively named national champion by the Billingsley Report, National Championship Foundation, and Parke H. Davis.[1][2] The Yale team defeated rival Harvard for the first time. Walter Camp also played for the first time.[3] The team's captain was Eugene V. Baker.

Harvard-Yale lineups

The Princeton-Yale matchup effectively decided the national championship after Princeton defeated Columbia. Thompson and Camp executed the first "legal" forward pass in football history. Early in the game, Camp ran for a good gain on a play, however when he was finally tackled, he threw the ball forward to O. D. Thompson, who ran for a touchdown. The Princeton players protested the play. Since the rules of football were still unclear in 1876, a coin toss was used by the referee to decide if the play stood. Yale won the toss and the touchdown stood.

  1. ^ National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) (2015). "National Poll Rankings" (PDF). NCAA Division I Football Records. NCAA. p. 107. Retrieved January 4, 2016.
  2. ^ "1876 Yale Bulldogs Schedule and Results". SR/College Football. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved February 27, 2017.
  3. ^ "Harvard-Yale 1876 in NY Daily Herald (Pt. 2)". New York Daily Herald. November 19, 1876. p. 10.