1888 Yale Bulldogs football team

1888 Yale Bulldogs football
National champion
ConferenceIndependent
Record13–0
Head coach
CaptainWilliam Herbert Corbin
Home stadiumYale Field
Seasons
← 1887
1889 →
1888 Eastern college football independents records
Conf Overall
Team W   L   T W   L   T
Yale     13 0 0
Harvard     12 1 0
Princeton     11 1 0
Lehigh     10 2 0
Trinity (CT)     5 1 1
Lafayette     6 3 0
Cornell     4 2 0
Penn     9 7 0
Bucknell     2 3 0
Fordham     1 2 0
Massachusetts     2 4 0
Wesleyan     2 7 0
Worcester Tech     1 4 0
Rutgers     1 6 1
Penn State     0 2 1
Swarthmore     0 5 0

The 1888 Yale Bulldogs football team represented Yale University in the 1888 college football season. In its first season under head coach Walter Camp, the team compiled a 13–0 record, did not allow a single point, and outscored opponents by a total of 694 to 0.[1] The team has been retrospectively named as the national champion by the Billingsley Report, Helms Athletic Foundation, Houlgate System, National Championship Foundation, and Parke H. Davis.[2]

Yale's point total was the largest ever made by a Yale team. The team scored 126 touchdowns and kicked 69 goals from touchdown and eight goals from the field. Its scoring leaders included William Wurtenburg with 20 touchdowns, Lee McClung with 16, Charles O. Gill with 14, Frederic W. "Kid" Wallace with eight, William Herbert Corbin with six, and John A. Hartwell and Ashbel Barney Newell with five each.[3]

Head coach Walter Camp and five players (Corbin, Pudge Heffelfinger, McClung, Amos Alonzo Stagg, and George Washington Woodruff) have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

  1. ^ "1888 Yale Bulldogs Schedule and Results". SR/College Football. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved February 10, 2020.
  2. ^ National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) (2015). "National Poll Rankings" (PDF). NCAA Division I Football Records. NCAA. p. 107. Retrieved January 4, 2016.
  3. ^ "Intercollegiate Football". Wilkes-Barre Sunday Morning Leader. December 9, 1888. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.