1885 In College Football

A glance at a forgotten year

1885 In College Football

The interesting thing about college football in 1885 is that it seems that the number of active teams shrunk. Here’s the unofficial 1884 standings, per Wikipedia:

And here they are for 1885:

Now, one thing you need to realize is that most of these teams received little to no press coverage. I spent quite a bit of time looking in vain for original newspapers about Johns Hopkins’ 1884 team, for example. I also doubt there are many newspaper articles out there about the two games Olivet University played that season.

The truth is that college football was still largely defined by the Ivy League schools — and that Yale and Princeton were the biggest of the lot. Teams such as Colorado College and Cincinnati were likely rag tag squads put together for a single game.

The truth is inescapable: the real origins of college football lie in the Ivy League.