The 1912 Penn State Nittany Lions 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 ...

team that represented Pennsylvania State College as an independent during the

1912 college football season The 1912 college football season was the first of the modern era, as the NCAA implemented changes to increase scoring: *Teams were given ''4 downs'' instead of ''3 downs'' to gain ten yards *The value of a touchdown was increased from ''5 points ...

. In their third season under head coach

Bill Hollenback William Marshall "Big Bill" Hollenback (February 22, 1886 – March 12, 1968) was an American football player and coach. He played football at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was selected as an All-American fullback three straight year ...

, the team compiled an 8–0 record, shut out seven of eight opponents, and outscored all opponents by a total of 285 to 6. There was no contemporaneous system in 1912 for determining a national champion. However, Penn State was retroactively named as the national champion by 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 ...

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 ...

was recognized as the 1912 national champion by most selectors. This team is known for playing the first of a series of games against eventual rival Ohio State, in which the Buckeyes forfeited because of the alleged rough play of the Nittany Lions once the score was 37–0. The official score was 1–0, but the gameball lists the score as 37–0. Three persons associated with the 1912 Penn State team 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 vo ...

: coach Hollenback (inducted 1951); fullback Pete Mauthe (inducted 1957); and quarterback

Shorty Miller Eugene Ellsworth "Shorty" Miller (November 15, 1890 – September 20, 1966) was an American football player. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1974. Miller played quarterback at Penn State from 1910 to 1913, missing only o ...

(inducted 1974).

Schedule

References

Penn State Penn State Nittany Lions football seasons College football national champions College football undefeated seasons

Penn State Nittany Lions football The Penn State Nittany Lions team represents the Pennsylvania State University in college football. The Nittany Lions compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the Big Ten Conference, which they joined in 1993 a ...

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