The 1920 California Golden Bears 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 the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

as a member of the

Pacific Coast Conference The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was a college athletic conference in the United States which existed from 1915 to 1959. Though the Pac-12 Conference claims the PCC's history as part of its own, with eight of the ten PCC members (including ...

(PCC) during the

1920 college football season The 1920 college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the ''Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book'' listing California, Georgia, Harvard, Notre Dame, and Princeton as national champions. Only California and Princeton claim na ...

. In their fifth year under head coach Andy Smith, the team compiled a 9–0 record (3–0 against PCC opponents), shut out seven of nine opponents, won the PCC championship, defeated

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

in the

1921 Rose Bowl The 1921 Rose Bowl, known at the time as the Tournament East-West Football Game, was a college football bowl game played on January 1, 1921 at Tournament Park in Pasadena, California. It was the seventh Rose Bowl Game. The defeated the Ohio St ...

, and outscored its opponents by a total of 510 to 14. There was no contemporaneous system in 1920 for determining a national champion. However, Cal was retroactively named as the national champion by the

College Football Researchers Association The College Football Researchers Association (CFRA) was founded in 1982 by Anthony Cusher of Reeder, North Dakota, and Robert Kirlin of Spokane, Washington. The CFRA took a vote of its members from 1982 to 1992 to select an annual college football ...

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,

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 Jeff Sagarin. Olin C. Majors was the team captain. Guard Tim Callahan was a consensus first-team selection on the 1920 All-American football team. Two other players received All-America recognition: end Harold Muller (

Newspaper Enterprise Association The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) is an editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1902. The oldest syndicate still in operation, the NEA was originally a secondary news ...

-1, Walter Camp-3) and tackle

Dan McMillan Dan McMillan (June 29, 1898 – October 22, 1975) was an American football player. McMillan was a prominent tackle for the USC Trojans football teams of the University of Southern California for two seasons until his sporting career was interrupt ...

(WC-2).

Schedule

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References

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

California Golden Bears football seasons College football national champions Pac-12 Conference football champion seasons Rose Bowl champion seasons College football undefeated seasons

California Golden Bears football The California Golden Bears football program represents the University of California, Berkeley in college football as a member of the Pac-12 Conference at the NCAA Division I FBS level. The team plays its home games at California Memorial Stad ...

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