The 1908 Harvard Crimson 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 wi ...

that represented

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

as an independent during the

1908 college football season The 1908 college football season ran from Saturday, September 19, to November 28. The Penn Quakers and the Harvard Crimson each finished the season unbeaten but with one tied. The LSU Tigers went unbeaten and untied against a weaker opposition. ...

. In their first season under head coach

Percy Haughton Percy Duncan Haughton (July 11, 1876 – October 27, 1924) was an American football and baseball player and coach. He served as head football coach at Cornell University from 1899 to 1900, at Harvard University from 1908 to 1916, and at Columbia ...

, the Crimson finished with a 9–0–1 record, shut out eight of ten opponents, and outscored all opponents by a total of 132 to 8. There were no polls at the time to determine a national championship. However, in later analyses, Harvard was recognized as the 1908 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 ...

. Most of the later analyses (

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 owners ...

, Houlgate System,

Parke H. Davis Parke Hill Davis (July 15, 1871 – June 5, 1934)"PARKE H. DAVIS BURIED.; Many Prominent Men at Funeral of Football Authority", special to ''The New York Times'', June 9, 1934 was an American football player, coach, and historian. Shortly befo ...

) designated Penn as the national champion. 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 ...

chose Penn and LSU as co-national champions. Three Harvard players were consensus first-team picks on the 1908 All-America college football team: halfback Hamilton Corbett; center

Charles Nourse Charles Joseph Nourse (February 24, 1888 – April 25, 1974) was an American football player and lawyer. He played college football at Harvard University and was a consensus first-team selection to the 1908 College Football All-America Team. E ...

; and tackle

Hamilton Fish III Hamilton Fish III (born Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish and also known as Hamilton Fish Jr.; December 7, 1888 – January 18, 1991) was an American soldier and politician from New York State. Born into a family long active in the state, he served in t ...

. Five other Harvard players also received All-American honors: quarterback Johnny Cutler (first-team honors from ''The New York Times'' and ''The Christian Science Monitor'', second-team from Walter Camp); halfback Ernest Ver Wiebe (first-team honors from ''The Christian Science Monitor'', second-team from Camp); end Gilbert Goodwin Browne (first-team honors from ''Philadelphia Press''); tackle Robert McKay (first-team from ''The Christian Science Monitor''); and guard Samuel Hoar (first-team from ''New York World'', Tad Jones, and ''Philadelphia Press'').

Schedule

References

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Harvard Crimson football seasons College football national champions College football undefeated seasons

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

1900s in Boston {{collegefootball-1908-season-stub