The 1905 Chicago Maroons 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 Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

during the

1905 Western Conference football season The 1905 Western Conference football season was the tenth season of college football played by the member schools of the Western Conference (later known as the Big Ten Conference) and was a part of the 1905 college football season. The 1905 Ch ...

. In coach

Amos Alonzo Stagg Amos Alonzo Stagg (August 16, 1862 – March 17, 1965) was an American athlete and college coach in multiple sports, primarily American football. He served as the head football coach at the International YMCA Training School (now called Springfie ...

's 14th year as head coach, the Maroons finished with an 11–0 record (7–0 against Western Conference opponents), shut out 10 of 11 opponents, and outscored all opponents by a total of 271 to 5. The team played its home games at

Marshall Field Marshall Field (August 18, 1834January 16, 1906) was an American entrepreneur and the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores. His business was renowned for its then-exceptional level of quality and customer ...

on the school's campus. There was no contemporaneous system in 1905 for determining a national champion. However, Chicago 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 ...

, the

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 ...

, the

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 the

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 ...

. End Mark Catlin Sr. was the team captain. Two Chicago players, Catlin and quarterback

Walter Eckersall Walter Herbert "Eckie" Eckersall (June 17, 1883 – March 24, 1930) was an American college football player, official, and sportswriter for the ''Chicago Tribune''. He played for the Maroons of the University of Chicago, and was elected to the C ...

, were consensus first-team selections on the 1905 All-American football team. Other notable players included fullback

Hugo Bezdek Hugo Francis Bezdek (April 1, 1884 – September 19, 1952) was a Czech American athlete who played American football and was a coach of football, basketball, and baseball. He was the head football coach at the University of Oregon (1906, 1913– ...

and center Burton Pike Gale, both of whom were selected 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 ...

as third-team players on the All-America team. Three persons associated with the team have been 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 ...

. Stagg and Eckersall were part of the Hall's first class of inductees in 1951. Bezdek was added, based on his coaching accomplishments, in 1954.

Schedule

Game summaries

Chicago 2, Michigan 0

The game, dubbed "The First Greatest Game of the Century," broke Michigan's 56-game unbeaten streak. The 1905 Michigan team had outscored opponents 495-0 in its first 12 games. The game was lost in the final ten minutes of play when Denny Clark was tackled for a safety as he attempted to return a punt from behind the goal line. Newspapers described Clark's play as "the wretched blunder" and a "lapse of brain work." Clark transferred to

M.I.T. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

the following year and was haunted by the play for the rest of his life. In 1932, he shot himself, leaving a suicide note that reportedly expressed hope that his "final play" would atone for his error at Marshall Field in 1905. The game was played in halves of 35 minutes each. 1905_University_of_Chicago_National_Champion_football_team

1905_University_of_Chicago_National_Champion_football_team

Roster

* Head coach:

(14th year at Chicago)

References

{{Big Ten Conference football champions

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Chicago Maroons football seasons College football national champions Big Ten Conference football champion seasons College football undefeated seasons Chicago Football