The 1898 Harvard Crimson 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

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

as an independent during the

1898 college football season Events January–March * January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, B ...

. In their second year under head coach

William Cameron Forbes William Cameron Forbes (May 21, 1870 – December 24, 1959) was an American investment banker and diplomat. He served as Governor-General of the Philippines, governor-general of the Philippines from 1909 to 1913 and ambassador of the United States ...

, the Crimson compiled an 11–0 record, shut out seven of eleven opponents, and outscored all opponents by a total of 257 to 19. There was no contemporaneous system in 1898 for determining a national champion. However, Harvard was retroactively named as the national champion by the

Billingsley Report The Billingsley Report is a college football rating system developed in the late 1960s to determine a national champion. Billingsley has actively rated college football teams on a current basis since 1970. Beginning in 1999, Billingsley's ratings ...

Helms Athletic Foundation The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, was a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to the promotion of athletics and sportsmanship. Paul H. Helms was the organization's founder and benefactor, funding the foundation via his ownership ...

Houlgate System The Houlgate System, also known as the Deke Houlgate collegiate football rating system, was a mathematical rating system for determining annual college football national championships. The ratings, which rated teams according to the strength of th ...

, and

National Championship Foundation The National Championship Foundation (NCF) was established by Mike Riter of Hudson, New York. The NCF retroactively selected college football national champions for each year from 1869 to 1979, and its selections are among the historic national ch ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

, which finished the 1898 season 11–0–1, was named champion by one selector, Parke H. Davis. Three Harvard players were consensus first-team selections on the 1898 All-American football team: quarterback

Charles Dudley Daly Charles Dudley Daly (October 31, 1880 – February 12, 1959) was an American football player and coach, an author, and served in the United States Army during World War I. He played college football as a quarterback at Harvard University and the ...

; halfback

Benjamin Dibblee Benjamin Harrison Dibblee (July 8, 1876 – November 11, 1945) was an American college football player and coach. He played halfback for Harvard University from 1896 to 1898, and was a consensus All-American in 1897 and 1898. Dibblee served as ...

; and end

John Hallowell John White Hallowell (December 24, 1878 – January 5, 1927) was a prominent American businessman and American football, football player. He played college football at Harvard University and was a consensus All-American at the End (American footb ...

. Other notable players included fullback

Bill Reid William Ronald Reid Jr. (12 January 1920 – 13 March 1998) ( Haida) was a Canadian artist whose works include jewelry, sculpture, screen-printing, and paintings. Producing over one thousand original works during his fifty-year career, Reid is ...

; tackles

Percy Haughton Percy Duncan Haughton (July 11, 1876 – October 27, 1924) was an American football and baseball player and coach. He served as head football coach at Cornell University from 1899 to 1900, at Harvard University from 1908 to 1916, and at Columbia ...

and

Malcolm Donald Malcolm Donald (1877–1949) was an American lawyer, eugenicist, white nationalist, and a founder of the Pioneer Fund. He graduated Harvard College (where he played footballStaff report (October 8, 1899). ATHLETICS AT HARVARD.; Malcolm Donald Sa ...

; guard Walter Boal; halfback Leicester Warren; center Percy Malcolm Jaffrey; and end Francis Douglas Cochran. Haughton and Daly were later inducted into the

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...

Schedule

References

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Harvard Crimson football seasons College football national champions College football undefeated seasons

Harvard Crimson football The Harvard Crimson football program represents Harvard University in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA). Harvard's football program is one of the oldest in the world, having begun c ...

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