The 1886 Northwestern Purple football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

during the

1886 college football season The 1886 college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the ''Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book'' listing Princeton and Yale as having been selected national champions. Conference and program changes Season notes On Thank ...

. The Northwestern team played only one game, a 32–4 loss at Evanston to a team representing the Harvard School Athletic Club. The loss to the Harvard School was only the fourth game played by a Northwestern football team, one game having been played in

1876 Events January–March * January 1 ** The Reichsbank opens in Berlin. ** The Bass Brewery Red Triangle becomes the world's first registered trademark symbol. * February 2 – The National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs i ...

and two games having been played six years later in

1882 Events January–March * January 2 ** The Standard Oil Trust is secretly created in the United States to control multiple corporations set up by John D. Rockefeller and his associates. ** Irish-born author Oscar Wilde arrives in ...

Schedule

References

Northwestern Northwestern Wildcats football seasons College football winless seasons Northwestern Purple football {{collegefootball-1880s-season-stub