The 1899 Yale Bulldogs football team represented

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in the

1899 college football season The 1899 college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the ''Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book'' listing Harvard and Princeton as having been selected national champions. Chicago, Kansas, and Sewanee went undefeated. Wit ...

. The team compiled a 7–2–1 record, recorded eight shutouts, and outscored all opponents by a total of 191 to 16. The team defeated

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

(6–0),

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

(24–0), and Penn State (42–0), played a scoreless tie against Harvard, and lost to Columbia (0–5) 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 ...

(10–11). The loss to Columbia at Manhattan Field was described by ''

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'' as "one of the most disastrous defeats Yale has ever experienced in her athletic history." Columbia's freshman back Harold Weekes scored the game's only points on a 50-yard touchdown run in the middle of the second half. A relative unknown in 1899, Weekes was selected as a consensus All-American in

1901 Events January * January 1 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton becomes the first Prime Minist ...

and was later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Harvard and Princeton are recognized as the national champions for the 1899 season. Yale played the former to a scoreless tie and lost by one point to the latter. The loss to Princeton was decided with one minute left in the game by a dropkicked field goal (then worth five points) from the 35-yard line by Princeton's All-American Art Poe. Four Yale players (halfback Albert Sharpe, fullback Malcolm McBride, tackle George S. Stillman and guard

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tony B ...

) were consensus picks for the

1899 College Football All-America Team The 1899 College Football All-America team is composed of college football players who were selected as All-Americans by various organizations and writers that chose College Football All-America Teams for the 1899 college football season. The orga ...

. The team's head coach was James O. Rodgers who had played for Yale from 1894 to 1897. He was announced as the head coach on September 28, 1899, just two days before the season opened. Rodgers was at the time a student at Harvard Law School and was unable to devote his full time to coaching the team. Rodgers was assisted as the team's coach 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 ...

and Fred Murphy.

Schedule

References

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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

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 competi ...