View source for Intercollegiate Football Association (1877-1893)

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The '''Intercollegiate Football Association''' was the very first collegiate athletic conference.  The league was born at meetings between [[Columbia]], [[Harvard]], [[Princeton]], and [[Yale]] for the purpose of agreeing on a standard code of rules for the game of football itself; prior to this time, the game was played by the rules preferred by the home team. Yale did not join the league immediately, and Columbia left early on, but in the league's middle years a relatively stable lineup of five teams emerged: Harvard, [[Pennsylvania]], Princeton, [[Wesleyan (CT)]], and Yale. Surprisingly, the league managed to remain in operation for what would prove to be a lengthy existence compared to contemporary conferences, only closing up shop for good a year after Wesleyan departed in 1892. On the field, however, the competition was entirely two-sided; Princeton and Yale either won outright or shared between them the league title in each of the league's seventeen seasons -- and either won or shared a retroactive national championship in all but one of those years.
=='''Membership'''==
===Former Members===
(Charter members in bold)
{| class="wikitable zebra" style="width: 600px;"
|'''School'''
|'''Years'''
|'''Former Conference'''
|'''Succeeding Conference'''
|-
|'''[[Columbia]]''' (I)
|1877
|[[1876 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|[[1878 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|-
|[[Columbia]] (II)
|1880-1883
|[[1879 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|[[1884 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|-
|'''[[Harvard]]''' (I)
|1877-1884
|[[1876 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|program suspended
|-
|[[Harvard]] (II)
|1886-1889
|program suspended
|[[1890 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|-
|[[Pennsylvania]]
|1885-1893
|[[1884 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|[[1894 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|-
|'''[[Princeton]]'''
|1877-1893
|[[1876 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|[[1894 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|-
|[[Wesleyan (CT)]]
|1885-1892
|[[1884 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|[[1893 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|-
|[[Yale]]
|1879-1893
|[[1878 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|[[1894 Football Independents|Pre-NCAA Independents]]
|}
=='''Conference Regular Season Championships'''==
''italics'' indicate tie.
{| class="wikitable zebra" style="width: 600px;"
|'''Team'''
|'''Titles'''
|'''Years'''
|-
|Yale
|9.5 (8+3)
|''[[1880 Intercollegiate Association Football|1880]]'', [[1881 Intercollegiate Association Football|1881]], [[1882 Intercollegiate Association Football|1882]], [[1883 Intercollegiate Association Football|1883]], ''[[1884 Intercollegiate Association Football|1884]]'', ''[[1886 Intercollegiate Association Football|1886]]'', [[1887 Intercollegiate Association Football|1887]], [[1888 Intercollegiate Association Football|1888]], [[1890 Intercollegiate Association Football|1890]], [[1891 Intercollegiate Association Football|1891]], [[1892 Intercollegiate Association Football|1892]]
|-
|Princeton
|7.5 (6+3)
|[[1877 Intercollegiate Association Football|1877]], [[1878 Intercollegiate Association Football|1878]], [[1879 Intercollegiate Association Football|1879]], ''[[1880 Intercollegiate Association Football|1880]]'', ''[[1884 Intercollegiate Association Football|1884]]'', [[1885 Intercollegiate Association Football|1885]], ''[[1886 Intercollegiate Association Football|1886]]'', [[1889 Intercollegiate Association Football|1889]], [[1893 Intercollegiate Association Football|1893]]
|}

=='''Post-Season'''==
The entirety of the conference's history pre-dated the practice of post-season play.

==='''Parke Davis National Championship Selections'''===
{| class="wikitable zebra" style="width: 600px;"
|'''Team'''
|'''Championships'''
|'''Years'''
|-
|Yale
|12
|''1879'', ''1880'', ''1881'', 1882, 1883, ''1884'', ''1886'', 1887, 1888, 1891, 1892, 1893
|-
|Princeton
|9
|1877, 1878, ''1879'', ''1880'', ''1881'', ''1884'', 1885, ''1886'', 1889
|}

=='''National Individual Awards'''==
Much of the conference's history pre-dates the existence of all national awards, but the first All-American selections began in the final years of the league, and IFA teams dominated those selections:
{| class="wikitable zebra" style="width: 600px;"
|[[NCAA Division I FBS Consensus All-Americans|Walter Camp First-Team All-Americans]]<br>(All selections "unanimous" by default)
|1889: Knowlton Ames (B), Princeton<br>1889: Roscoe Channing (B), Princeton<br>1889: Hector Cowan (T), Princeton<br>1889: John Cranston (G), Harvard<br>1889: Arthur Cumnock (E), Harvard<br>1889: William George (C), Princeton<br>1889: Charles Gill (T), Yale<br>1889: Pudge Heffelfinger (G), Yale<br>1889: James Lee (B), Harvard<br>1889: Edgar Allan Poe (B), Princeton<br>1889: Amos Alonzo Stagg (E), Yale<br>1890: Pudge Heffelfinger (G), Yale<br>1890: Sheppard Homans (B), Princeton<br>1890: Thomas McClung (B), Yale<br>1890: William Rhodes (T), Yale<br>1890: Jesse Riggs (G), Princeton<br>1890: Ralph Warren (E), Princeton<br>1891: John Adams (C), Pennsylvania<br>1891: John Hartwell (E), Yale<br>1891: Pudge Heffelfinger (G), Yale<br>1891: Frank Hinkey (E), Yale<br>1891: Philip King (B), Princeton<br>1891: Sheppard Homans (B), Princeton<br>1891: Thomas McClung (B), Yale<br>1891: Jesse Riggs (G), Princeton<br>1891: Wallace Winter (T), Yale<br>1892: A. Hamilton Wallis (T), Yale<br>1892: Frank Hinkey (E), Yale<br>1892: Philip King (B), Princeton<br>1892: Vance McCormick (B), Yale<br>1892: Harry Thayer (B), Pennsylvania<br>1892: Arthur Wheeler (G), Princeton<br>1893: Frank Butterworth (B), Yale<br>1893: William Hickok (G), Yale<br>1893: Frank Hinkey (E), Yale<br>1893: Philip King (B), Princeton<br>1893: Langdon Lea (T), Princeton<br>1893: Franklin Morse (B), Princeton<br>1893: Thomas Trenchard (E), Princeton<br>1893: Arthur Wheeler (G), Princeton
|}
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[[category:Intercollegiate Football Association (1877-1893)| ]]