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Brown vs. Rutgers

Brown and Rutgers first met in 1916 and have played 11 times; Rutgers leads the series 6–⁠5. Over the last 10 meetings it’s Rutgers 6–⁠4.

Brown wins
5
Rutgers wins
6
Ties
0
First meeting
1916
Longest streak
3 Brown
Current streak
1 Rutgers
Last 10 meetings
Rutgers 6–⁠4
Most recent
1955

The series at a glance

’0’1’2’3’4’5’6’7’8’9W–L
1910s1–⁠0
1930s2–⁠0
1940s1–⁠2
1950s1–⁠4
Average margin
8.2 points; 7 decided by one score (8 or fewer)
At Brown
2–⁠5 Brown’s record at home
At Rutgers
1–⁠3 Rutgers’s record at home
Shutouts
1

Every meeting on file, as played. Ranks are the AP poll’s going in.

Games that tell the story

  1. Brown’s biggest win1916: Brown 21, Rutgers 3by 18 points
  2. Rutgers’s biggest win1952: Rutgers 19, Brown 7by 12 points
  3. Upset1941: Rutgers 13, Brown 7Rutgers had a 15% chance, by our ratings before kickoff
  4. Upset1953: Brown 27, Rutgers 20Brown had a 20% chance, by our ratings before kickoff
  5. Upset1948: Brown 20, Rutgers 6Brown had a 31% chance, by our ratings before kickoff

Coach against coach

YearsBrownSeriesRutgers
1951–⁠1955Alva Kelley1–⁠3Harvey Harman

Head-coach pairings with three or more meetings on file, the series read from Brown’s side (Kelley 1–⁠3 against Harman). A season split between coaches goes to the one credited with the game.

Both programs through the years

End-of-season Elo ratings of Brown and Rutgers, 1916 on130015001700192019401960198020002020

Our Elo rating at the end of each season, a measure of how strong a team was, not a forecast; 1500 is an average FBS team.

From the newspapers

  • The Evening public ledger's story of the 1916 game: BEFORE AWARDING FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP TO PITT TEAM, DO NOT OVERLOOK BROWN Wonderful New England Aggregation, Still Un- defeated, Has Beaten Rutgers and Meets Yale, Harvard and Syracuse

    1916 · Evening public ledger, Philadelphia [Pa.], Oct 30, 1916

  • The Evening star's story of the 1937 game

    1937 · Evening star, District of Columbia, Nov 26, 1937

  • The Evening star's story of the 1939 game: Football Results

    1939 · Evening star, Dec 1, 1939

  • The The Wilmington morning star's story of the 1947 game: RUTGERS WINS OVER BROWN u, II TO 20

    1947 · The Wilmington morning star, North Carolina, Nov 28, 1947

  • The Evening star's story of the 1948 game: Brown Deals Rutgers First Home Defeat Since rs by N-6

    1948 · Evening star, Washington, D.C., Oct 31, 1948

Public-domain newspapers from the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America, found through the American Stories dataset (Dell and Harvard, CC BY 4.0). The earliest meetings with a story on file; each game’s page has the full text.

Every game

Oct 15, 1955Rutgers 14, Brown 12at Brown
Oct 17, 1953Brown 27, Rutgers 20at Rutgers
Oct 25, 1952Rutgers 19, Brown 7at Brown
Nov 10, 1951Rutgers 28, Brown 21at Brown
Nov 4, 1950Rutgers 15, Brown 12at Rutgers
Oct 30, 1948Brown 20, Rutgers 6at Rutgers
Nov 27, 1947Rutgers 27, Brown 20at Brown
Nov 22, 1941Rutgers 13, Brown 7at Brown
Nov 30, 1939Brown 13, Rutgers 0at Brown
Nov 25, 1937Brown 7, Rutgers 6at Rutgers
Oct 28, 1916Brown 21, Rutgers 3at Brown

Every game is listed as played on the field.