1923 college football season The 1923 college football season saw several teams finish their seasons unbeaten and untied . Illinois ( coached by Bob Zuppke ) and Michigan ( coached by " Hurry - Up " Yost , both members of what is now the Big Ten Conference , finished with records of 8 - 0 - 0 as did future Ivy League teams Yale and Cornell . Southern Methodist University ( SMU ) had a record of 9 - 0 - 0 . Teams that had no defeats , but had been tied , were California ( 9 - 0 - 1 ) , Texas ( 8 - 0 - 1 ) , and Kansas ( 5 - 0 - 3 ) . Major conferences that existed in 1923 were the Western Conference ( today ' s Big Ten ) , the Pacific Coast Conference ( now the Pac - 10 ) , the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association ( MVIAA , forerunner of the Big 12 ) , the Southwest Conference , and the Southern Conference ( whose members later formed the SEC and the ACC ) . September . September 29 Notre Dame opened its season with a 74 - 0 win over visiting Kalamazoo College . After a warmup game against a team of Cal alumni , California beat St . Mary ' s 49 - 0 . Cornell beat St . Bonaventure 41 - 6 , Dartmouth beat Norwich 13 - 0 , and Syracuse beat Hobart 33 - 0 . October . October 6 Illinois beat Nebraska 24 - 7 and Michigan defeated Case 36 - 0 . Syracuse beat William & Mary 61 - 3 . Notre Dame beat Lombard College 14 - 0 . Kansas defeated Creighton 6 - 0 . California defeated Santa Clara 48 - 0 . Following wins over the crews of the USS Mississippi ( 33 - 0 ) and the USS New York ( 42 - 7 ) , Washington beat Willamette 54 - 0 . Dartmouth beat Maine 6 - 0 , Yale beat North Carolina 53 - 0 , and Cornell beat Susquehanna 84 - 0 October 13 Notre Dame beat Army 13 - 0 Dartmouth beat Boston University 24 - 0 , and Yale beat Georgia 40 - 0 . Michigan beat Vanderbilt 3 - 0 , and Illinois beat Butler 21 - 7 California beat the Olympic Club 16 - 0 and Washington beat Whitman College 19 - 0 . Kansas beat Oklahoma State 9 - 0 . October 20 Cornell beat Williams 28 - 6 , Yale beat Bucknell 29 - 14 and Dartmouth beat Vermont 27 - 2 . Notre Dame won at Princeton 25 - 2 . Illinois won at Iowa 9 - 6 and Michigan beat Ohio State 23 - 0 At Lincoln , Kansas and Nebraska played to a 0 - 0 tie . California beat Oregon State 26 - 0 and Washington beat visiting USC 22 - 0 . October 27 Cornell defeated Colgate 34 - 7 Yale beat Brown 21 - 0 and Dartmouth beat Harvard 16 - 0 Notre Dame beat Georgia Tech 35 - 7 . In Chicago , Illinois beat Northwestern 29 - 0 . Michigan beat Michigan State 37 - 0 . Kansas and Kansas State played to a scoreless tie ( 0 - 0 ) . At Portland , Oregon , California continued its streak of shutouts with a 9 - 0 win over Washington State . Washington beat Puget Sound 24 - 0 . November . November 3 Yale beat Army 31 - 10 Notre Dame beat Purdue 34 - 7 Dartmouth ( 5 - 0 - 0 ) hosted Cornell ( 4 - 0 - 0 ) and in a triumph of Big Red over Big Green , Cornell won won 32 - 7 . Illinois and Chicago , both unbeaten ( 4 - 0 - 0 ) met at Champaign , with the Illini winning 7 - 0 . Michigan won at Iowa 9 - 3 . Kansas won at Oklahoma 7 - 3 . California held visiting Nevada scoreless for its seventh straight shutout , but could not score either , suffering a 0 - 0 tie . Washington stayed unbeaten and untied with a 14 - 0 win at Oregon State . November 10 At Boston ' s Fenway Park , Dartmouth beat Brown 16 - 14 , while at New York ' s Polo Grounds , Cornell beat Columbia 35 - 0 . Yale beat Maryland 16 - 14 . Notre Dame suffered its first loss , at Nebraska , 14 - 7 . Meanwhile , Illinois beat Wisconsin 10 - 0 . Michigan defeated the Quantico Marines football team 29 - 6 . In Los Angeles , California beat USC 13 - 7 . Washington beat Montana 26 - 14 . Kansas beat Washington University ( of St . Louis ) 83 - 0 . November 17 California ( 7 - 0 - 1 ) hosted Washington ( 8 - 0 - 0 ) and won 9 - 0 . Illinois beat Mississippi State 27 - 0 , and Michigan won at Wisconsin 6 - 3 , as both teams stayed unbeaten . Notre Dame beat Butler 34 - 7 . Yale defeated Princeton 27 - 0 . Kansas beat Drake 17 - 0 . November 24 In Pittsburgh , Notre Dame defeated Carnegie Tech 26 - 0 . Dartmouth beat Colby College 62 - 0 , and Cornell defeated Johns Hopkins 52 - 0 . Yale closed a perfect season with a 13 - 0 win over Harvard . Illinois closed its season at 8 - 0 - 0 with a 9 - 0 win at Ohio State , while Michigan closed a perfect season with a 10 - 0 win over Minnesota . California closed its season with a 9 - 0 win over Stanford . Washington beat Washington State 24 - 7 , and though it was second to Cal in the Pacific Coast Conference , received the invitation to the Rose Bowl to face ( 5 - 1 - 2 ) Navy . On Thanksgiving Day , which was held on November 29 in 1923 , Furman , which had won its first ten games , lost its final game to visiting Clemson , 7 - 6 . In Philadelphia , Cornell closed a perfect season with a 14 - 7 win over Pennsylvania . Dartmouth finished with a 31 - 6 win over Columbia at New York . Kansas and Missouri played to a 3 - 3 tie , giving the Jayhawks an unbeaten , if not untied ( 5 - 0 - 3 ) finish . Notre Dame won at St . Louis 13 - 0 December 1 Washington beat Oregon 26 - 7 . Conference standings . The following is an incomplete list of conference standings : Conference Champions . The Helms Athletic Foundation , founded in 1936 , declared retroactively that Illinois had been the best college football team of 1923 . 1924 Rose Bowl . A crowd of 48 , 000 turned out to watch Navy and Washington play an exciting game . Ira McKee ' s passing put Navy ahead 14 - 7 at halftime , after Washington ' s George Wilson had tied the game at 7 - 7 . In the fourth quarter , Washington ' s Roy Petrie picked off a pass at Navy ' s 10 yard line , setting up the Huskies ' tying touchdown for a 14 to 14 finish . Later , it turned out that Washington halfback Les Sherman , whose two extra point attempts had tied the game , had played with a broken toe , while fullback Elmer Tesreau had played with a fractured leg