The 1911 Penn State Nittany Lions 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

Pennsylvania State College The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State became ...

as an independent during the

1911 college football season The 1911 college football season was the last one before major reforms were made to the American game in 1912. In 1911, touchdowns were worth five points, the field was 110 yards in length, and a team had three downs within which to advance the ...

. In its second season under head coach

Bill Hollenback William Marshall "Big Bill" Hollenback (February 22, 1886 – March 12, 1968) was an American football player and coach. He played football at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was selected as an All-American fullback three straight year ...

, the team compiled an 8–0–1 record, shut out seven of nine opponents, and outscored all opponents by a total of 199 to 15. There was no contemporaneous system in 1911 for determining a national champion. However, Penn State was retroactively named as the national champion by the

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 ...

. Penn state end

Dexter Very Dexter W. Very (November 27, 1889 – September 27, 1980) was an American college football player the Penn State Nittany Lions football team of Pennsylvania State University. Very started at right end for the Nittany Lions in every game fro ...

was selected by

Walter Camp Walter Chauncey Camp (April 7, 1859 – March 14, 1925) was an American football player, coach, and sports writer known as the "Father of American Football". Among a long list of inventions, he created the sport's line of scrimmage and the system ...

as a second-team player on the 1911 All-America college football team. Five persons associated with the 1911 Penn State team 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 ...

: coach Hollenback (inducted 1951); tackle Dick Harlow (inducted 1954 as a coach); fullback Pete Mauthe (inducted 1957); quarterback Shorty Miller (inducted 1974); and Very (inducted 1976).

Schedule

References

{{College Football National Champion pre-AP Poll navbox

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...

Penn State Nittany Lions football seasons College football national champions College football undefeated seasons

Penn State Nittany Lions football The Penn State Nittany Lions team represents the Pennsylvania State University in college football. The Nittany Lions compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the Big Ten Conference, which they joined in 1993 afte ...