The Princeton–Yale football rivalry is an American
college football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.
Unlike most ...
rivalry between the
Princeton Tigers of
Princeton University and the
Yale Bulldogs of
Yale University. The football rivalry is among the oldest in
American sports
Sports are an important part of culture in the United States. Historically, the national sport has been baseball. However, in more recent decades, American football has been the most popular sport in terms of broadcast viewership audience. B ...
.
Significance

The rivalry is one of the oldest continuous rivalries in American sports, the oldest continuing rivalry in the history of
American football, and is constituent to the
Big Three academic, athletic and social rivalry among alumni and students associated with
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 ...
, Yale and Princeton universities.
The
Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby is a horse race held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, almost always on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The competition is a Grade I stakes race for three-year ...
and
Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show example American sporting events that are older or have been engaged continuously longer than this contest.
Princeton claims 28 collegiate football national championships. Yale claims 27 collegiate national football championship. And the rivalry has been played seriously beyond the gridiron, sometimes for future undergraduate matriculants. Princeton's Undergraduate Dean of Admissions in 2002 was charged with hacking the Yale undergraduate admissions website.
Princeton and Yale first met on the gridiron in 1873 and soon dominated the sport. Princeton has been considered the best football program of the nineteenth century. Princeton played the
University of Virginia in 1890, a contest considered the first major
North–
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
intersectional football matchup. Princeton won, 116–0. Yale's record was 100–4–5 in the 1900s.
In the mid to late 20th century a saying regarding the fortunes of the Yale football program gained currency among different constituencies. As reported in the November 9, 1970 issue of ''
Sports Illustrated'', the saying offered that the alumni would rather beat Harvard, the coaches would rather beat Dartmouth, and "the players would rather beat Princeton".
Some past teams and participants have been noteworthy:
During the 25 seasons spanning 1869 through 1894 the consensus collegiate national champion was either Princeton (16 titles) or Yale (13 titles);
Three of four
Heisman Trophy
The Heisman Memorial Trophy (usually known colloquially as the Heisman Trophy or The Heisman) is awarded annually to the most outstanding player in college football. Winners epitomize great ability combined with diligence, perseverance, and hard ...
winners affiliated with
Ivy League football programs participated in the rivalry:
Clint Frank and
Larry Kelley for Yale, and
Dick Kazmaier for Princeton. Frank won the first
Maxwell Award in 1937 and Kazmaier won the Award in 1951;
Twenty nine members of 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 ...
have been associated with Yale's football program. Twenty six members of the Hall of Fame have been associated with Princeton's football program;
Princeton won the 1950 and 1951
Lambert Trophy.
Princeton last claimed a collegiate national championship in 1950. Yale shared the Lambert in 1960 with the
Navy team;
The first time a
movie camera recorded a football game was the November 14, 1903 Princeton–Yale contest.
Thomas Alva Edison manned the camera;
Twenty-five teams, eleven representing Princeton and fourteen representing Yale, have won outright or shared the
Ivy League football title;
Only
The Rivalry, between Lafayette and Lehigh, has been contested more often in football.
The Princeton–Yale football rivalry, many contests scheduled on
Thanksgiving at the
Polo Grounds
The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 through 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1876 and demolished in 1889, was built fo ...
or in the
New York metropolitan area during the late nineteenth century, is older and has been played more often than the
Harvard–Yale,
Army–Navy,
Cornell–Penn,
Columbia–Cornell,
Penn State–Pitt,
Amherst–Williams,
Minnesota–Wisconsin,
Indiana–Purdue,
UNC–UVA,
Auburn–Georgia,
Cal–Stanford, or
Andover–Exeter football rivalries.
Yale leads the series, 79–55–10.
Notable contests
;1873
College of New Jersey captain Cyrus Dershimer led the Tigers to victory, 3–0, November 15, 1873, in the inaugural contest. "A leather covered, egg-shaped projectile was tossed and kicked on a field that measured 120 yards in length and 75 yards in width." The College of New Jersey's trustees adopted the current name in 1896, announced during the school's sesquicentennial celebration.
;1876
Yale won, 2–0, on
Thanksgiving Day in
Hoboken, New Jersey. The contest was the first football game of any type played on Thanksgiving Day.
;1879
The 1879 game, a season-ending scoreless tie in Hoboken, was
Frederic Remington's last game at Yale. Walter Camp captained the Yale team. The programs, College of New Jersey 4–0–1 and Yale 3–0–2, were named consensus co-national champions.
Remington, reputed to dunk his uniform in animal blood "to look more businesslike on the field," removed from New Haven to take care of his ailing father, then headed to the
American frontier
The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of United States territorial acquisitions, American expansion in mainland North Amer ...
. Remington's illustrations of
cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaquer ...
s there became iconic images of the mythic West.
The contest has been considered the first in the series "played off school grounds" on a Thanksgiving.
;1884
The 1884 contest ends in a scoreless tie in front of a noteworthy 15,000 spectators in New York City.
;1888
Yale outscores opponents 698–0 during the season. Defeats College of New Jersey 10–0 to end season with 13–0 record.
;1890
Yale won, 32–0, on Thanksgiving Day, in
Brooklyn, New York. The victory is first of 37 consecutive wins, with 36 shutouts.
Yale football letterwinner Federic Remington depicts on canvas a Yale athlete scoring a touchdown that is displayed prominently in Ray Tompkins House, the administrative headquarters for Yale athletics.
;1891
Yale won, 19–0, at the Polo Grounds. Yale swept its 13-game schedule and held scoreless all thirteen opponents; in turn, Yale scored 488 points.
;1893
The College of New Jersey's best team in the nineteenth century was the
1893 team. The squad defeated Yale, 6–0, on Thanksgiving Day in New York City. Princeton's victory was the only loss suffered by four time consensus
All-American and College Football Hall of Famer
Frank Hinkey during his Yale career. The victory ended Yale's thirty-seven game win streak.
;1897
The Yale Banner 1956 opens its feature "end of an era", reporting Yale's football history up to the impending start of round-robin play among the appointed eight Ivy League programs in a few months, with the following quote, supposedly "from a father of a former player":
"And those girls in Blue! Mothers, sisters, sweethearts, their radiance is over you now. The loving worship of fair women for brave men, which preserves the courage of the human race is yours now.One and all of them would tear out their heart strings to bring you victory. Yale calls you. Where Yale calls there is no such thing as fail. Now go. Do or die like heroes and gentlemen and may the God of Battles crown the Blue with victory!" Yale won the game, 6–0.
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...
, a composer who championed American vernacular stylings in
American classical music, spectated the contest on November 20. The victory inspired the composer's ''Yale–Princeton Game''.
Ives proposed successfully to Harmony Twichell after the 1905 contest in
New Haven. Rev.
Joseph Twichell, Ives's
father-in-law, was a member of an investigative committee, convened at the behest of the
Harvard Board of Overseers, to determine the extent of brutality, as well as character-building, on college and prep school gridirons post the notorious 1894 Harvard–Yale game.
Groton founder Endicott Peabody was a committee member.
1906
Events
January–February
* January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...
Scoreless tie nets undefeated season for both programs and co-national championship. The season is first played under auspices of the NCAA's forerunner, the IAAUS, formed to reform unsportsmanlike play in the sport. The
forward pass is now legal.
;1914
Yale, by 19–14, won its debut at
Palmer Stadium on November 14, 1914. Palmer Stadium is the second largest stadium in the country. Yale Bowl is the largest.
;1922
Grantland Rice's
Team of Destiny, the 1922 Princeton Tigers football team, completed an undefeated season with 6–0 victory.
Bill Roper's squad is acknowledged as national champions for the season.
;1934
November 17 was the last time eleven football athletes, future
Downtown Athletic Club trophy winner Larry Kelley among them, as a unit played without substitutes to the final whistle from the opening kickoff in a major college football game. Yale defeated Princeton, 7–0, in front of 53,000 fans at Palmer Stadium.
Larry Kelley scored on an 80+ yard pass play as Yale was an obvious underdog versus one of Princeton's all-time great teams.
Princeton sought its sixteenth straight victory in a streak extending back to the 1933 season. Princeton coach
Fritz Crisler, the acknowledged father of two-platoon football, guided the Tigers to a 7–1 record one year after an undefeated season and a national championship.
The 1934 team outscored opponents 280–38.
The contest inspired two monographs. "Football's Last Iron Men: 1934, Yale vs. Princeton and One Stunning Upset" by Norman Macht,
University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books, published in 2010, and "Yale's Ironmen: A Story of Football and Lives In The Decade of The
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
and Beyond" by
''New York Times'' sportswriter and Yale alumnus William N. Wallace, published by Iunverse Press in 2005.
;1937
College Football Hall of Fame member Fritz Crisler coached his final game for Princeton versus Yale in 1937. Crisler's record was 2–3–1 versus his Yale counterparts (1–3 versus
Ducky Pond) but he led Princeton to consensus national championships the two seasons he defeated Yale. Crisler coached against Yale's Downtown Athletic and Heisman Trophy winners Larry Kelley and Clint Frank, and he coached in the Ironmen game. He lost the 1937 contest, 26–0.
;1949–1951
The 1949–1951 contests, each won by Princeton, featured Dick Kazmaier, the eventual winner of the 1951 Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Award,
Walter Camp Award, and
Associated Press Athlete of the Year. Kazmaier received 506 first place votes (first, second and third place votes are tallied) and 1,777 total points with the second-place finisher receiving, by contrast, 42 first place votes in the balloting. Kazmaier was a double threat—to run or to pass—in the
single wing offense
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 ...
.
Princeton won 21–13, 47–12 in New Haven (most points ever scored by a visiting team at the Bowl) and 27–0. Kazmaier appeared on the cover of the November 19, 1951 issue of ''
Time'', two days after the 27–0 victory.
Kazmaier dominated the contests; he, for example, tossed three touchdown passes and ran for another touchdown in the 27–0 victory his senior season. (Earlier in the season Kazmaier and teammates crushed Harvard, 54–13.) Kazmaier won the coveted Heisman Trophy for the season.
;1955
Princeton captain and future athletic director
Royce Flippin led the Tigers to a 13–0 at packed and partisan Palmer Stadium. Over 46,000 spectators saw contest. "Overall, Yale is our biggest rival", Flippin remarked years later, "so we took the game seriously."
Yale defeated an able Army team the week before and was ranked nationally but Princeton provided unsolved problems for Yale. Flippin, who was later also athletic director at
MIT, opened the scoring in the third quarter and Princeton won, 13–0, after Joe DiRenzo returned an interception for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
Robert Casciola, later a head coach the program, was on the field for Princeton.
;1960
The 1960 Ivy League football season ended with Yale 7–0 and Princeton 6–1. Yale, captained by
Mike Pyle, who switched to
offensive tackle
Offensive may refer to:
* Offensive, the former name of the Dutch political party Socialist Alternative
* Offensive (military), an attack
* Offensive language
** Fighting words or insulting language, words that by their very utterance inflict inj ...
from
center for the season, won before 65,000 spectators at the Bowl. The 1960 Yale team is the program's sole undefeated, untied team since 1923. The team was ranked 14th in the season-ending AP poll, in front of 16th ranked
Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...
and 19th ranked
Syracuse
Syracuse may refer to:
Places Italy
*Syracuse, Sicily, or spelled as ''Siracusa''
*Province of Syracuse
United States
*Syracuse, New York
**East Syracuse, New York
**North Syracuse, New York
*Syracuse, Indiana
* Syracuse, Kansas
*Syracuse, Miss ...
.
Pyle captained the
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...
during its 1963 NFL Championship season until the end of the 1969 season.
;1967
Yale won 29–7 at Palmer Stadium, the first of fourteen consecutive victories versus Princeton. The Tigers had enjoyed a six-game winning streak versus the Bulldogs.
Calvin Hill and
Brian Dowling led the Bulldogs during the contest. Cheerleading captain
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
lead Yalies post-contest. Bush was arrested by local police for attempting to tear down a goalpost.
;1979
Yale won 35–10, led by future three time Super Bowl winner
Ken Hill. The running back gained 129 yards on 19 carries. Yale was undefeated at 5–0 in the League and Princeton 4–1 before kickoff. Yale clinched sole possession of the football title with the lop-sided victory. The next day's Sunday ''
New York Times'' game story headline announced "Yale Takes Game, Ivy Crown And Purloined Mascot Home".
At halftime
Handsome Dan XII, named Bingo (and, in fact, a female pedigreed bulldog in the care of Yale professor Rollie Osterweiss), was returned to caregivers. Princeton undergrads Mark Hallam, Jamie Herbert, Rod Sheperd, and Scott Thompson posed as members of the Yale cheerleading squad and requested Bingo's appearance for publicity photographs. Osterweiss obliged the perpetrators. Bingo, adorned with an orange and black scarf, was handed off to actual Yale cheerleaders at halftime.
;1981
Princeton, in Palmer Stadium, ended a fourteen-game loss streak to Yale, 35–31, November 14.
Bob Holly, a future Super Bowl champion with the
Washington Redskins, passed for 501 yards and
wide receiver Derek Graham accounted for 278 yards, both Princeton records. Rich Diana ran for a Yale record 222 yards.
The Princeton Athletic News deemed the contest the Princeton game of the century.
Yale was 8–0 including a nationally televised "upset" victory versus
Navy. Yale Head Coach
Carm Cozza
Carmen Louis "Carm" Cozza (June 10, 1930 – January 4, 2018) was an American football and baseball player and coach of football. He served as the head football coach at Yale University from 1965 to 1996, winning ten Ivy League championships and ...
's record was 14–1 versus Princeton before the final whistle. Princeton had a 3–4–1 overall record, and had lost to Maine 55–44 the week before.
Holly, a right handed quarterback, scored the winning touchdown on a left roll out with four seconds remaining.
;1988
Jason Garrett,
captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
of the 1988 Princeton team and
Asa S. Bushnell
Asa Smith Bushnell I (September 16, 1834 – January 15, 1904) was an American U.S. Republican Party, Republican politician from Ohio. He served as the 40th governor of Ohio. Prior to becoming governor, he served as the president of the Warder, ...
Award winner as the Ivy League Player of the Year,
quarterbacked a 24–7 victory over Yale in New Haven. Garrett, who played professionally in three leagues and won two
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...
rings with the
Dallas Cowboys, is the former head coach of the Cowboys. Garrett was named NFL Coach of the Year for the 2016 season.
;1997
Princeton defeated Yale 9–0 in front of a little more than 6,000 spectators on a blustery and cloudy afternoon at the
Meadowlands, home to the
NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The J ...
and
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...
. The following day's New York Times game story, by William N. Wallace, began: "A century ago Princeton – Yale was the game, played at the Polo Grounds in New York from 1887 to 1896 before capacity crowds." That was not the case across the
Hudson River just west of the mentioned Polo Grounds, now home to a rundown
New York City Housing Authority development.
The Princeton Tigers football team spent the season on the road while
Princeton Stadium
Powers Field at Princeton Stadium is a stadium in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. It is primarily used for American football, and has been the home field of the Princeton Tigers since 1998. The stadium seats 27,773. Since 2007, the playing su ...
was constructed. The Yale game was the sole game Princeton played in New Jersey in 1997. Palmer Stadium had been demolished for the construction of Princeton Stadium on the same site. William Powers, once an All Ivy punter for Princeton, contributed $10 million to the Princeton athletic department. Princeton Stadium's playing surface is named in honor of his family.
[https://www.goprincetontigers.com/news/2006/6/18/295165.aspx]
Game results
See also
*
List of NCAA college football rivalry games
*
List of most-played college football series in NCAA Division I
This is a list of the most-played college football series in NCAA Division I. The Lehigh–Lafayette rivalry, known as "The Rivalry," is the most-played in Division I at 157 games. Lehigh and Lafayette are members of the Football Championship Sub ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Princeton-Yale football rivalry
College football rivalries in the United States
Princeton Tigers football
Yale Bulldogs football