The 1895 Penn Quakers 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 the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

as an independent during the

1895 college football season The 1895 college football season was the season of American football played among colleges and universities in the United States during the 1895–96 academic year. The 1895 Penn Quakers football team, led by head coach George Washington Woodr ...

. In their fourth season under head coach

George Washington Woodruff George Washington Woodruff (February 22, 1864 – March 24, 1934) was an American football player, rower, coach, teacher, lawyer and politician. He served as the head football coach at the University of Pennsylvania (1892–1901), the University ...

, the Quakers compiled a 14–0 record, shut out 10 of 14 opponents, and outscored all opponents by a total of 480 to 24. There was no contemporaneous system in 1895 for determining a national champion. However, Penn 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 ...

Houlgate System The Houlgate System, also known as the Deke Houlgate collegiate football rating system, was a mathematical rating system for determining annual college football national championships. The ratings, which rated teams according to the strength of th ...

, 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. Four Penn players were consensus first-team selections on the 1895 All-American football team: halfback George H. Brooke; center Alfred E. Bull; end

Charlie Gelbert Charles Magnus Gelbert (January 26, 1906 – January 13, 1967) was a professional baseball player. He played all or part of ten seasons in Major League Baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals (1929–32 and 1935–36), Cincinnati Reds (1937), Detroi ...

; and guard Charles Wharton. Brooke, Gelbert, and Wharton 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 ...

Schedule

References

{{College Football National Champion pre-AP Poll navbox Penn Penn Quakers football seasons College football national champions College football undefeated seasons

Penn Quakers football The Penn Quakers football program is the college football team at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The Penn Quakers have competed in the Ivy League since its inaugural season of 1956, and are a Division I Football Championship ...