1876 Yale Bulldogs football team

The 1876 Yale Bulldogs football team represented Yale University in the 1876 college football season. The team finished with a 3–0 record and was retroactively named national champion by the Billingsley Report, National Championship Foundation, and Parke H. Davis.[1][2] The Yale team defeated rival Harvard for the first time. Walter Camp also played for the first time.[3] The team's captain was Eugene V. Baker.

Harvard-Yale lineups

1876 Yale Bulldogs football
National champion
ConferenceIndependent
Record3–0
Head coach
  • None
CaptainEugene V. Baker
Home stadiumHamilton Park
1876 college football records
ConfOverall
TeamW L TW L T
Yale   –  3 –0 –0
Rutgers   –  1 –0 –0
Harvard   –  3 –1 –0
Princeton   –  3 –2 –0
Stevens   –  2 –2 –0
CCNY   –  1 –1 –0
Penn   –  1 –2 –0
Columbia   –  1 –3 –0
Canada All-Stars   –  0 –1 –0
McGill   –  0 –1 –0
Northwestern   –  0 –1 –0
Philadelphia All-Stars   –  0 –1 –0
NYU   –  0 –2 –0

The Princeton-Yale matchup is considered to have popularized the tradition of Thanksgiving football.[4] It effectively decided the national championship after Princeton defeated Columbia. Thompson and Camp executed the first "legal" forward pass in football history. Early in the game, Camp ran for a good gain on a play, however when he was finally tackled, he threw the ball forward to O. D. Thompson, who ran for a touchdown. The Princeton players protested the play. Since the rules of football were still unclear in 1876, a coin toss was used by the referee to decide if the play stood. Yale won the toss and the touchdown stood.

Schedule
DateTimeOpponentSiteResultAttendanceSource
November 183:00 p.m.Harvard
W 1–02,000[5][6]
November 30vs. Princeton
W 2–0>1,000[7]
December 93:20 p.m.vs. Columbia
  • St. George's Cricket Club
  • Hoboken, NJ
W 2–0[8][9]

[2]

References
  1. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) (2015). "National Poll Rankings" (PDF). NCAA Division I Football Records. NCAA. p. 107. Retrieved January 4, 2016.
  2. "1876 Yale Bulldogs Schedule and Results". SR/College Football. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved February 27, 2017.
  3. "Harvard-Yale 1876 in NY Daily Herald (Pt. 2)". New York Daily Herald. November 19, 1876. p. 10.
  4. Tomlinson, Brett (November 27, 2014). "Princeton's Role in the Birth of Thanksgiving Football | Princeton Alumni Weekly". Paw.princeton.edu. Retrieved June 15, 2022.
  5. "Game Between The Harvard and Yale Clubs At Hamilton Park - Yale Wins". New York Herald. November 19, 1876. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. "Foot Ball.—The Yales Defeat Harvard and Princeton Defeats Columbia". The Boston Daily Globe. Boston, Massachusetts. November 20, 1876. p. 3. Retrieved March 26, 2022 – via Newspapers.com open access.
  7. "Foot-Ball—From the New York Herald, Dec. 1st". Buffalo Commercial Advisor. Buffalo, New York. December 2, 1872. p. 2. Retrieved March 26, 2022 – via Newspapers.com open access.
  8. "Football.—An Exciting Game With The Thermometer Fourteen Degrees Below The Freezing Point—Yale Vs. Columbia—Yale The Winner". New York Herald. New York, New York. December 10, 1876. p. 10. Retrieved March 26, 2022 – via Newspapers.com open access.
  9. "Yale Against Columbia". New-York Daily Tribune. New York, New York. December 11, 1876. p. 10. Retrieved March 26, 2022 – via Newspapers.com open access.


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