The 1933 Columbia 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

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

as an independent during the

1933 college football season The 1933 college football season saw the Michigan Wolverines repeat as winners of the Knute Rockne Memorial Trophy as national champion under the Dickinson System. The unofficial east–west championship game, the Rose Bowl, was between Stanford ...

. In their fourth season under head coach

Lou Little Luigi "Lou Little" Piccirilli December 6, 1891 – May 28, 1979) was an American football player and coach born in Boston, Massachusetts. City of Boston, Birth Registrations, number 8583, December 6, 1891After Lou's birth, his father changed his ...

, the Lions compiled an 8–1 record and outscored opponents with four shutouts. The Lions' lone setback was a 20–0 loss to

Fritz Crisler Herbert Orin "Fritz" Crisler (; January 12, 1899 – August 19, 1982) was an American college football coach who is best known as "the father of two-platoon football," an innovation in which separate units of players were used for offense and d ...

's undefeated national champion

Princeton Tigers The Princeton Tigers are the athletic teams of Princeton University. The school sponsors 35 varsity teams in 20 sports. The school has won several NCAA national championships, including one in men's fencing, three in women's lacrosse, six in ...

. The Lions concluded the 1933 season on

New Year's Day New Year's Day is a festival observed in most of the world on 1 January, the first day of the year in the modern Gregorian calendar. 1 January is also New Year's Day on the Julian calendar, but this is not the same day as the Gregorian one. Wh ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

with a victory over

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

in the mud in the The school claims a

national championship A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or competition, contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the be ...

for This Rose Bowl, held , remains the most recent postseason game for any member of today's

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...

, which began league play in 1956. Team captain and quarterback Cliff Montgomery was 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

{{Columbia Lions football navbox Columbia Columbia Lions football seasons College football national champions Rose Bowl champion seasons

Columbia Lions football The Columbia Lions football program is the intercollegiate American football team for Columbia University. The team competes in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and are members of the Ivy League. The Columbia football ...