The 1951 Boston University Terriers 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

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

as an independent during the

1951 college football season The 1951 college football season finished with seven unbeaten major college teams, of which five were unbeaten and untied. Ultimately, the Tennessee Volunteers were voted the best team by the Associated Press, followed by the Michigan State Sparta ...

. In its fifth season under head coach

Aldo Donelli Aldo Teo "Buff" Donelli (July 22, 1907 – August 9, 1994) was an American football player and coach, association football, soccer player, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Duquesne University from 193 ...

, the team compiled a 6–4 record and outscored their opponents by a total of 299 to 157. Although they finished with four losses (including their final game of the season against an average 5–4

Syracuse Syracuse may refer to: Places Italy *Syracuse, Sicily, or spelled as ''Siracusa'' *Province of Syracuse United States *Syracuse, New York **East Syracuse, New York **North Syracuse, New York *Syracuse, Indiana * Syracuse, Kansas *Syracuse, Miss ...

team), defeated only one opponent that was ranked at the time of the game (No. 16 Pacific (CA), which finished 6–5 and unranked), and defeated no opponents that finished with a winning percentage above .600 other than 7–3 William & Mary, the Terriers still managed to secure a spot on the final

AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broadca ...

, just shy of the top 15. This was largely due to two first place votes that were granted to the team, becoming only the second team to receive first place votes in the final poll with a winning percentage of .600 or worse, the first being 5–4–1 Holy Cross in 1942. The 1951 Boston team is considered by James Vautravers, a college football historian who analyzes past AP polls, to be the worst AP rated team of all time. The team was ranked at No. 54 in the 1951 Litkenhous Ratings.

Schedule

References

{{Boston University Terriers football navbox

Boston University Terriers football seasons

Boston University Terriers football : ''For information on all Boston University sports, see Boston University Terriers'' The Boston University Terriers football team was the American football team for Boston University located in Boston, Massachusetts. The school's first football te ...