16-0 seasons in college football history: Revisiting 1894 Yale team that ran table long before Indiana

16-0 seasons in college football history: Revisiting 1894 Yale team that ran table long before Indiana originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

JUMP TO

• Has a team ever gone 16-0 in college football?

• 1894 Yale football team

• 1894 Yale football schedule

• 1894 Yale football roster

• Why 16-0 became impossible in college football

• Indiana football schedule 2025

Indiana is on the doorstep of history.

Advertisement

Against all odds, the Hoosiers have gone from a Big Ten bottom-feeder to national championship favorites in two short years under coach Curt Cignetti. After reaching the College Football Playoff as a feel-good story last season, Indiana suddenly looks like the most dominant team in the country despite no championship history.

If the Hoosiers win one more game, they would do something that hasn't been done in college football in more than a century.

Here's what you need to know about the history of 16-0 teams in college football.

MORE CFP CHAMPIONSHIP GAME NEWS:

Has a team ever gone 16-0 in college football?

Only one team has gone 16-0 at the highest level of college football: the 1894 Yale Bulldogs.

Advertisement

North Dakota State matched Yale at the FCS level in 2019, when the Bison put together an undefeated 16-0 season with Trey Lance at quarterback.

If Indiana wins the national championship game over Miami, it will be the first team to finish 16-0 at the highest level of college football in 131 years.

Here's a closer look at the dominance of the 1894 Yale Bulldogs.

MORE:Has Indiana ever won a national championship in football?

1894 Yale football team

Yale's record only tells part of the story of the 1894 Bulldogs team, as they outscored opponents 485-13 and recorded 13 shutouts in 16 games.

The Bulldogs were coming off a similarly dominant 10-1 season that began with eight consecutive shutouts, but it ended with a 6-0 loss to Princeton. In 1894, there was simply no slowing down Yale. The Bulldogs had five All-Americans, and they were retroactively named national champions later on despite there being no championship system at the time.

Advertisement

Yale was coached by William Rhodes, who graduated from the school just three years earlier.

MORE:Why Curt Cignetti is SN's back-to-back Coach of the Year

1894 Yale football schedule

Yale outscored opponents 485-13 in 1894 and shut out all opponents but three, never allowing more than five points in a game.

MORE:Inside Fernando Mendoza's family tree

1894 Yale football roster

Here's a partial look at Yale's 1894 roster, with some players' names unknown or only partially known and some positions also unknown due to incomplete record-keeping.

• QB George Adee (All-American)

• HB Bill Armstrong

• C Anson Beard

• E Lyman Bass

• G J.M. Brown

• FB Frank Butterworth (All-American)

• T Charles Chadwick

• C Harry Cross

• Alfred Dafer

• HB Clarence DeWitt

• QB Clarence Fickle

• E John Campbell Greenway

• E George Hatch

• G Bill Hickok (All-American)

• Ross Hickok

• E Louis Hinickey

• E Frank Hinkey (All-American)

• HB Alexander Jerrems

• FB Harold Letton

• G James McCrea

• FB Paul Mills

• QB Charles Morris

• T Fred Murphy

• FB George Redington

• T James Rodgers

• C Phillip Stillman (All-American)

• T Dudley Sutphin

• FB Sam Thorne

MORE:Inside the special moment Curt Cignetti will never forget

Advertisement

Why 16-0 became impossible in college football

Once college football developed more of a national structure and a standard for schedules, 16-0 became impossible because teams were generally only playing 8-12 games each season.

Even when 12 games and potentially a conference championship game bowl became the standard for major college football programs, there was no path to 16 games because there was no playoff system.

In the four-team College Football Playoff era, 15-0 was the realistic best record possible. A team could win 12 regular season games, its conference championship and two playoff games to finish 15-0. Numerous teams have put together undefeated championship seasons, but 16-0 has been out of reach because of schedule constraints.

Advertisement

In the 12-team playoff era, however, a team has to win at least three playoff games to win a national championship. A 12-0 regular season followed by a conference championship game win and three playoff wins would put a team at 16-0, and that's the journey Indiana is trying to complete.

Indiana football schedule 2025