The 1950 Princeton Tigers football team represented

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

(NCAA) intercollegiate competition during the 1950 season. The Tigers were led by sixth-year head coach

Charlie Caldwell Charles William Caldwell (August 2, 1901 – November 1, 1957) was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Williams College for 15 seasons between 1928 and 1944 and at Princeton Un ...

, a future

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 ...

inductee, who utilized an "unbalanced" version of the

single-wing formation In American and Canadian football, a single-wing formation was a precursor to the modern spread or shotgun formation. The term usually connotes formations in which the snap is tossed rather than handed—formations with one wingback and a hand ...

. The Princeton offense, which made use of the

buck-lateral series Buck-lateral is an American football play or a series of plays used in the Single-wing formation. Since the Single-Wing formation lost prominence by 1950, the football play referred to as the Buck-lateral is almost gone from football's vocabulary. ...

, was one of the last successful employers of the single-wing formation, which had been made obsolete by the modernized T formation. Princeton finished with a perfect undefeated record of 9–0, and the Tigers outscored their opponents 349–94. Against other future

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...

teams, Princeton compiled a 5–0 record. Some selectors named Princeton the national champions, most notably the NCAA-recognized

Poling System The Poling System was a mathematical rating system used to select college football national championship teams on a current basis from 1935 to 1984. Its selections were published in the ''Football Review Supplement'' and several newspapers.

and Boand System. Princeton was ranked sixth in the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

and eighth in the

United Press United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...

final polls. After the season, Tigers halfback

Dick Kazmaier Richard William Kazmaier Jr. (November 23, 1930 – August 1, 2013) was an American businessman and naval lieutenant. He played college football at Princeton University from 1949 through 1951 and was the winner of the 1951 Heisman Trophy, Maxwell ...

, tackle Holland Donan, and center Redmond Finney received first-team

All-America The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed upon an amateur sports person from the United States who is considered to be one of the best amateurs in their sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an All-Am ...

honors. Kazmaier and Donan were eventually inducted into the

Schedule

References

{{Princeton Tigers football navbox

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

Princeton Tigers football seasons College football national champions Lambert-Meadowlands Trophy seasons College football undefeated seasons

Princeton Tigers football The Princeton Tigers football program represents Princeton University and competes at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I Football Championship, Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level as a member ...