Total # of teams 88 | Number of bowls 1 | |
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Champions Georgia Tech Golden Tornado | ||
The 1917 NCAA football season had no clear-cut champion, with the Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book listing Georgia Tech as national champions, the South's first. Pittsburgh, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Williams, and Washington State were also undefeated, and one-loss Navy was strong.
Contents
- Conference changes
- September
- October
- November
- Rose Bowl
- Conference standings
- All Americans
- Statistical leaders
- References
Tech coach John Heisman challenged Pitt coach Pop Warner to a postseason contest to determine a national champion, but as such a match did not occur until the next season, Tech was named national champion. The Golden Tornado was invited to play a 4–3 Oregon team in the Rose Bowl, but by then many players had joined the war effort.
In the second week of play, Georgia Tech beat Penn 41–0. Bernie McCarty called it "Strupper's finest hour, coming through against powerful Penn in the contest that shocked the East." By comparison, Pitt defeated Penn 14–6.
Conference changes
September
September 29 In a doubleheader, Georgia Tech beat Furman and then Wake Forest; 25–0 and 33–0 respectively. Navy beat Davidson 27–6. Pitt beat West Virginia 14–9.
October
October 6 Georgia Tech beat Penn at home 41 to 0. Centre beat KMI 104–0. West Virginia beat Navy 6–0. Williams beat Cornell 14–10.
October 13 Georgia Tech beat Davidson 32–10, its closest game all season. DePauw beat Centre 6–0. Syracuse beat Rutgers 14–10. Wisconsin tied Notre Dame 0–0.
October 20 Georgia Tech beat Washington & Lee 63–0. Auburn beat Clemson 7–0. Pittsburgh beat Syracuse 28–0. Nebraska beat Notre 7–0. Washington State beat Oregon 26–3.
October 27 Undefeated Pittsburgh beat Penn on the road 14 to 6. Auburn beat Mississippi A&M 13–6.
November
November 3 Georgia Tech gave Vanderbilt its worst ever beating, 83–0. Auburn crushed Florida 68–0. Centre beat Kentucky 3–0. Texas A&M beat Tulane 35–0. Wisconsin beat Minnesota 10–7. Illinois tied Chicago 0–0. Rutgers tied West Virginia 3–3.
November 10 A freshman Buck Flowers at Davidson upset Auburn 21–7. All of Georgia Tech's backs rushed for 100 yards in a 48–0 defeat of Tulane. Texas A&M beat Baylor 7–0. Ohio State beat Wisconsin 16–3. Navy beat Georgetown 28–7.
November 17 Georgia Tech beat Carlisle 98–0. Penn beat Michigan 16–0. Ohio State beat Illinois 13–0.
November 24 Auburn fought undefeated Ohio State to a scoreless tie. Coach Heisman of Georgia Tech(who previously coached at Auburn) and his players were at the game, rooting for the Tigers. Minnesota beat Illinois 27–6.
November 29 Georgia Tech beat Auburn 68 to 7. Davidson beat Clemson 21–9. Mississippi A&M beat Haskell 7–6.
Rose Bowl
The Mare Island Marines would defeat Camp Lewis 19-7 in the 1918 Rose Bowl.
Conference standings
The following is a potentially incomplete list of conference standings:
All-Americans
The consensus All-America team included: