The 1894 Yale Bulldogs 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

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

as an independent during the

1894 college football season The 1894 college football season was the season of American football played among colleges and universities in the United States during the 1894–95 academic year. The 1894 Yale Bulldogs football team compiled a perfect 16–0 record, outscore ...

. The team finished with a 16–0 record, shut out 13 of 16 opponents, and outscored all opponents by a total of 485 to 13. William Rhodes was the head coach, and

Frank Hinkey Frank Augustus Hinkey (December 23, 1870 – December 30, 1925) was an American college football player and coach. He was notable for being one of only three college football players in history to be named a four-time consensus All-American. He ...

was the team captain. There was no contemporaneous system in 1894 for determining a national champion. However, Yale 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 ...

, 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 ...

, and as a co-national champion by Parke H. Davis. Five Yale players were selected as consensus first-team players on the 1894 All-America team. The team's consensus All-Americans were: quarterback George Adee, fullback

Frank Butterworth Frank Seiler Butterworth Sr. (September 21, 1870 – August 21, 1950) was an American football player and coach. Butterworth attended Yale University, where he was a fullback on Yale's football teams and a member of the Skull and Bones soci ...

, end

, center

Phillip Stillman Phillip Tracy "P.T." StillmanThe 1895 Yale yearbook, ''The Yale Pot-Pourri'', at page 67, references Stillman in the "Those Who Joined Us" section: "Phillip Tracy Stillman slowly ambled into the class in the fall of Junior year, as he knew a good t ...

, and guard Bill Hickok. The Bulldogs' 16–0 record was not matched again at any level of college football until 125 years later when the

2019 North Dakota State Bison football team The 2019 North Dakota State Bison football team represented North Dakota State University in the 2019 NCAA Division I FCS football season. They were led by first-year head coach Matt Entz. The team played in the Fargodome in Fargo, North Dakota ...

won the 2019 FCS national championship.

Schedule

References

{{College Football National Champion pre-AP Poll navbox

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

Yale Bulldogs football seasons College football national champions College football undefeated seasons

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