1908 College Football Season - October

October

October 3, Harvard beat Maine, 16-0 and Penn defeated Bucknell by the same score. Yale was held to a touchdown by Syracuse, 6-0. Annapolis defeated Rutgers 18-0, and beat St. John's 22-0 the following day, while West Point beat Tufts 5-0. Cornell beat Hamilton College, 11-0. Princeton beat the Springfield Training School, 18-0, to raise its record to 2-0-1. Dartmouth defeated Massachusetts Agricultural, 28-0.

Further west, Carlisle and State University (later referred to as Penn State) met at Wilkes-Barre, PA, with Carlisle winning 12-5. Pittsburgh defeating little Mount Union College (now a Division III school, from Athens, Ohio), 34-4. Michigan beat Case, 16-6. Chicago beat Purdue, 39-0. Wooster College defeated Ohio State 8-0. In the South, Tennessee beat North Carolina, 12-0 and Auburn beat Howard College (not to be confused with Howard University), 18-0. Georgia Tech defeated Gordon College, 32-0.

At the end of the first Saturday in October, seven schools remained unbeaten, untied and unscored upon against college oppoinents: Harvard and Penn, both at 3-0-0; Yale, Annapolis (Navy) and Cornell, at 2-0-0; the University of Chicago, Auburn, and Tennessee.

October 10 Following a Wednesday (Oct. 7) afternoon win over Villanova (11-0), Penn beat State College (Penn State) 6-0. Harvard defeated Williams, 10-0. Annapolis won 22-0 over Dickinson, and West Point beat Tufts, 33-0. Cornell dropped from the ranks of the unscored upon, but defeated Oberlin, 23-10. Yale beat Holy Cross, 18-0.

Further west, Chicago was scored on in its 29-6 win over Indiana. In Buffalo, Carlisle defeated Syracuse, 12-0. Pittsburgh beat Marietta College 7-0. At East Lansing, Michigan and Michigan State played to a 0-0 tie, and Princeton and Lafayette played a scoreless draw as well. Wisconsin opened its season with a 35-0 win over Lawrence College., In the south, Auburn shut out Georgia's Gordon College 42-0. Tennessee beat Maryville College, 39-5. Vanderbilt defeated visiting Rose Polytechnic (later Rose-Hulman), 32-0. Unbeaten, untied and unscored upon were Harvard, Penn, Yale, Navy, Auburn, and Wisconsin.

In Wednesday afternoon games (October 14), Annapolis won at Maryland, 57-0. Penn stayed unbeaten, but was scored upon for the first time, when Gettysburg College managed a field goal; the final score was 23-4.

October 17 In New Haven, Yale faced West Point in a meeting of unbeatens, and won 6-0. In Philadelphia, Penn (6-0-0) faced Brown (4-0) and won, 12-0. Annapolis beat Lehigh, 16-0, and Harvard beat Springfield Teachers College, 44-0. Pitt defeated cross-town rival Carnegie Tech, 22-0, and Princeton beat Virginia Tech, 10-4. Cornell beat Colgate, 9-0. Carlisle was idle.

Further west, Michigan beat Notre Dame 12-6, and Chicago beat visiting Illinois, 11-6. St. Louis University advanced its record to 4-0-0 with a 24-0 win over visiting Arkansas. In the South, Tennessee defeated Kentucky, 7-0; Auburn won at Mercer, 23-0; Vanderbilt beat Clemson 41-0. Georgia Tech beat Mississippi State, 23-0, and LSU beat Texas A&M, 26-0.

On Wednesday afternoon, October 21, Princeton defeated Fordham, 17-0, to extend its record to 4-0-1.

October 24 saw several big matchups between college football's unbeaten teams. In Philadelphia, Penn (7-0-0) hosted Carlisle (5-0-0), while Harvard and Navy, both unbeaten, untied and unscored upon in five games, met at Annapolis. A crowd of 20,000 turned packed Franklin Field to watch the Penn game, with the Quakers taking an early 6-0 lead. The Indians tied the game in the second half on a touchdown and extra point by Jim Thorpe. Thorpe missed on three field goal tries, and the game ended in a 6-6 tie. In Annapolis, Navy scored a touchdown five minutes into the game, but in the second half, Richardson fumbled and Nourse ran the ball back for a score, and the game ended as a 6-6 tie.

Yale stayed unbeaten, untied, and unscored on against visiting Washington and Jefferson, taking a 21-0 lead in the first half and winning 38-0. Pitt defeated Bucknell, 22-0 Princeton was tied again, in a 0-0 game against visiting Syracuse. Cornell beat Vermont 9-0.

In the West, Michigan won at Ohio State, 10-6, while Chicago was idle. St. Louis University won at Wabash College on a field goal, 4-0. Down south, Tennessee defeated Georgia 10-0, Georgia School of Technology (Georgia Tech) beat Alabama 11-6, Vanderbilt beat Ole Miss 29-0, and in Birrmingham, Auburn beat Sewanee 6-0, and LSU beat Rhodes, 55-0

In a Wednesday afternoon game on October 28, Navy handed George Washington University its first loss, 17-0.

October 31 saw the first major intersectional games of the season. The Pittsburgh Panthers and the St. Louis Billikens, both unbeaten at 5-0-0, met at St. Louis, with Pitt winning 13-0. Vanderbilt (5-0-0) traveled to Michigan (3-0-1), with the home team winning 24-6.

Unbeaten and once-tied, Carlisle (5-0-1) and Navy (7-0-1) met at Annapolis, with the Indians handing the Midshipmen their first loss, 16-6, as Mike Balenti kicked four field goals, which at that time were worth 4 points apiece

Yale stayed unscored upon, with a 49-0 win over Massachusetts, with Ted Koy scroing four of the Elis' nine touchdowns. Including 4 points after, the score would have been 58-0 under modern rules. Cornell defeated Penn State 10-4. Pennsylvania beat Carnegie Tech 25-10 in Pittsburgh. Harvard defeated Brown 6-2. At West Point, Princeton and Army played to a 0-0 tie in the snow; Princeton drove to within six yards on three occasions, and Army held each time.

Auburn and Louisiana State, both unbeaten at 4-0-0, met at Auburn, Alabama, and LSU won 10-2. It would prove to be Auburn's only loss of 1908, and LSU's biggest win en route to a 10-0-0 finish. Another meeting of unbeatens happened in Atlanta, as Tennessee and Georgia Tech, both 4-0-0, faced off. Both scored touchdowns, but Tennessee's extra point gave it a 6-5 win. The loss would be the first of three for Tech. Chicago beat Minnesota 29-0.