The 1931 season
648 games on file. The AP poll didn’t exist yet. USC claims the national title. Share
Scoreboards
Conference champions
Major college
- Big Six
- Nebraska
- Border Conference
- Arizona State
- Missouri Valley Conference
- Drake and Oklahoma State (shared)
- Pacific Coast Conference
- USC
- Rocky Mountain Conference
- Utah
- Southern Conference
- Tulane
- Southwest Conference
- SMU
- Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
- North Texas
- Western Conference
- Michigan, Northwestern and Purdue (shared)
Small college
- Buckeye Conference
- Ohio
- Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association
- Hampton
- Dixie Conference
- Chattanooga
- North Central Conference
- North Dakota
- North State Conference
- App State
- Southwestern Athletic Conference
- Prairie View A&M
- West Virginia Athletic Conference
- Marshall
From each program’s Wikipedia article, with the conference’s name that season. Titles come from the articles of today’s FBS and FCS programs, so a title shared with a school outside them lists only one champion.
Consensus All-Americans
- EJerry Dalrymple, Tulane
- EVernon Smith, Georgia
- OTDallas Marvil, Northwestern
- OTJesse Quatse, Pittsburgh
- OTJack Riley, Northwestern
- OGBiggie Munn, Minnesota
- OGJohnny Baker, USC
- CTommy Yarr, Notre Dame
- QBBarry Wood, Harvard
- RBMarchmont Schwartz, Notre Dame
- RBErnie Rentner, Northwestern
- FBGaius Shaver, USC
Players picked by enough of the major selectors to count as consensus, shown in bold in Wikipedia’s 1931 All-America article. Every selector’s teams, first to last, are on the 1931 All-America teams page.
From the newspapers
Read the text
TROJANS DEFEAT NOTRE DAME IN \ FURIOUS TUSSLE FIRST TIME THE IRISH ELEVEN HAS BEEN BEATEN IN THREE YEARS SOUTH BEND, Nov. 23. (P)-The University of Southern California ended Notre Danes three-year football rule in drastic victory here Saturday before a crowd of 52,000 fans. The Trojans succeeded in snatch ing victory through their frantic scoring efforts in the last period of the game and through their drives and with Johnny Baker kick ing a goal from the 24-yard line as the furious battle was quickly drawing to a close. For almost the first three periods the Trojans were the underdogs but in the last period they passed and slashed their way to win by two touchdowns and the field goal. Notre Dame, at the start of the game, was pushed all over the field but no score was made and the Irish soon came back and scored two tOuchdoWnS. It looked like a defeat for California. However, in a frantic last period of the game the CalifornianS rallied like demons and swept the Irish off their feet. This is the first time Notre Dame has been defeated in 27 starts. The last previous defeat was in 1928 and this was also at the hand of the CalifOrnianS.
Bowls and playoff
Scoreboard| Jan 1, 1932 | USC 21, Tulane 12Rose Bowl |