The 1899 college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the ''Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book'' listing

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 ...

and

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 ni ...

as having been selected

national champions National champions are corporations which are technically private businesses but due to governmental policy are ceded a dominant position in a national economy. In this system, these large organizations are expected not only to seek profit but als ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

, and

Sewanee Sewanee may refer to: * Sewanee, Tennessee * Sewanee: The University of the South * ''The Sewanee Review'', an American literary magazine established in 1892 * Sewanee Natural Bridge * Saint Andrews-Sewanee School See also * Suwanee (disambiguati ...

went undefeated. With just 13 players, the Sewanee team, known as the "Iron Men", had a six-day road trip with five shutout wins over

Texas A&M Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

;

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

;

Tulane Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...

;

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

; and Ole Miss. Sportswriter

Grantland Rice Henry Grantland "Granny" Rice (November 1, 1880July 13, 1954) was an early 20th-century American sportswriter known for his elegant prose. His writing was published in newspapers around the country and broadcast on the radio. Early years Rice wa ...

called the group "the most durable football team I ever saw."

Conference and program changes

Conference establishments

*One conference played its final season in 1899: **

Maryland Intercollegiate Football Association The Maryland Intercollegiate Football Association (MIFA), also called the Maryland Intercollegiate League, was an early college football conference with a membership composed of schools located primarily in the state of Maryland. One exception was ...

Conference and program changes

Conference establishments

Membership changes

Conference standings

Major conference standings

Independents

Minor conferences

See also

References