This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/eastexaslion on 2024-03-28 20:00:45.
Click here to see the introductory post about this series.
Click here to see previous entries in this series.
National Champions
Columbia (4-1-1) Parke H Davis
*Harvard (5-0) National Championship Foundation, Parke H. Davis
Princeton (2-0) Billingsley Report, Parke H. Davis
Bold indicates main national championship selector recognized by NCAA Championship List
\Harvard does not claim this championship while the NCAA reognizes the Nationl Championship Foundation’s selection as champion.)
- The United States Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in public accommodations and jury duty.
- Brigham Young University (est. as Brigham Young Academy) is founded.
- Walter Chrysler (Of Chrysler cars fame), Harry March (Co-Founder of the NY Giants), and CFB Hall of Famers “Buck” O’Neill, Bennie Owen, and Charles Rinehart are born
- Former President Andrew Johnson dies.
- ***The Ball: Egg-shaped, rubber covered Rugby ball.*
- ***The field is 110 yds. by 53 1/3 yds., uprights 18 1/2’ apart, crossbar 10’ high uprights*
- ***To score 1 point, you must score a Touchdown (by crossing the endzone and touching the ball on the ground) and make the kick after*
- ***Each team consists of 15 players*
- ***Holding and carrying the ball is finally permitted*
- *The game’s regulation is separated into two halves, both 45 minutes. If the game is tied at the end of regulation, the next scored point wins the game.
Italics denote rule change from previous season.
\Not an official rule at the time, but will be used in the playoff.)
\*The rules used are only used in Harvard’s games. The majority of American schools did not use these rules except when Yale visited Harvard.)
Rule Changes
As you can see the whole game has changed as the rules above are what will be adopted for this playoff. I will explain why when we get to the Harvard/Yale game in the season breakdown, but the rule that we’ll use is that whoever has home-field advantage will choose either last year’s rules or the rules described above. This comes in handy for one team in particular because look who our No. 1 seed is for the tournament.
The Teams
- Harvard (5-0); Coach - None
- Princeton (2-0); Coach - None
- Columbia (4-1-1); Coach - None
- Yale (2-2); Coach - None
- Rutgers (1-1-1); Coach - None
- Stevens (3-3); Coach - None
Season Breakdown By Zach Bigalke
Harvard and Yale meet for the first time, and this matchup is perhaps the most influential for the next few years. Yale agrees to finally host Harvard under “concessionary rules” which supposedly mixes the rules between the IFA game and rugby rules described above, though I haven’t been able to find what rules were accepted and molded to play this hybrid game. What comes from this though is that after this season, Yale will come to abandon the rules of the kicking game and convince the other schools to abandon them as well in a meeting next year. Harvard would win this game 4-0.
Also perhaps the most impressive game of the season is the fact Harvard beat a Canadian All-Star team this year….TWICE. Making them an easy pick for the first seed for the rankings.
Players of Interest
Princeton still retains Collins Denny and the school’s President’s son A.J. McCosh for this last year. Harvard’s William Whiting got injured after the Yale game but it isn’t clear how long it would was until he recovered. Yale’s only notable player was Eugene Baker.
Playoffs
Round 1
No 4. Yale shuts out Rutgers under 1874 rules 4-0. They go on to play No. 1 Harvard.
No. 3 Columbia wins vs No. 6 Stevens Tech 3-1 under 1874 rules. They go on to play No. 2 Princeton.
Final Four
No. 3 Columbia travels to No. 2 Princeton and will play under 1874 rules. Princeton makes the matchup no contest at all, as Princeton will win the game 6-0, and goes on to their sixth Championship game appearance, hoping to reclaim their crown. Immediately after the game, A.J. McCosh asks the team to stay to practice the rugby rules they are bound to play under.
No. 1 Harvard hosts No. 4 Yale and play under the rules above. Harvard scores seven touchdowns, but miss the kick after twice. Yale was able to get one touchdown but the kick after is no good. Harvard wins 5-0 and goes on to play Princeton in Brooklyn, NY for their first Championship Game appearance!
The Championship Game at the Capitoline Grounds, Brooklyn, NY
Organizers of the game were scared that with Harvard being farther than any team that has appeared before, that the attendance would crater from last year. However, what instead happened was that 5,000 show up again. Roughly a third of the crowd is Princeton supporters wanting to see their school reclaim the crown, another third of the crowd is Harvard supporters, and the rest of the crowd just wanting to see this new rugby game on a huge stage like this one. It is no secret after all, since Harvard being the No. 1 team, would pick the rugby style game to play under. After the first whistle, the game starts with a kickoff, and Harvard receives the ball and in quick secession scores a touchdown easily and the kick after, leading 1-0. What they didn’t expect was Princeton answering back so quickly, as 20 minutes in Princeton would score a touchdown and kick, to tie it up. The Crimson goes on ahead and scores two more tries but misses both kicks as we go into the half. As it stands, Harvard would win the game if the game stays tied. The Tigers are still full of surprises, as they go on ahead and manage to score a touchdown and the kick after taking the lead 2-1. Whiting is furious, he is a sixth generation Harvard student, he can’t let these men of New Jersey win against them in their game. He riles up his players and scores two more tries but only is able to kick the ball through the uprights once as they tie the game at two. With 10 minutes left, Harvard kicks the ball in the air and Princetons’ Denny catches it. He would later say that in this moment, he thought the free-kick rule applied, but it doesn’t as Harvard players tackle Denny and force the ball out. Whiting picks it up and scores a Touchdown. He kicks the ball through the uprights and time winds down after. Harvard wins their first Championship 3-2!
Champion:
Harvard (5-0) Beat Princeton 3-2
Runner-Up:
Princeton (2-0) Lost to Harvard 3-2
Final Four Finish:
Columbia (4-1-1) Lost to Princeton 6-0
Yale (2-2) Lost to Harvard 5-0
Fifth Place Finish:
Rutgers (1-1-1) Lost to Yale 4-0
Stevens (3-3) Lost to Columbia 3-1
Other Note:
Let’s talk about Championship selectors since we have an interesting case here. The NCAA recognizes Harvard as the champion of this year but Harvard themselves doesn’t recognize the claim. It’s not clear why, but it highlights a problem with National Championship claims, it’s that there are a LOT of them, and you don’t have to recognize them. If you’re like me whose earliest memories of the game were the seasons the BCS was in play, the concept of a Championship selector outside of the BCS or College Football Playoff is a foreign idea. But before the conferences agreed on the BCS, you had random organizations that would come out with a methodology to select these champions, and if your methodology was credible enough, a school would use it to claim a championship from you. This leads to having some weird selectors, like Parke H. Davis, who was a football coach (for Amherst, Lafayette, and Wisconsin) and historian (who actually has a good book on early football history that I just checked out from my library, but you an read here), who last year also gave a championship to Columbia despite the fact there are two different undefeated teams, including Princeton who beat them (He would also name a team he coached in 1896 as co-champion). This system of championship selectors …
Content cut off. Read original on old.reddit.com/…/simulating_a_playoff_for_every_s…