1924 college football season The 1924 college football season was the year of the Four Horsemen as the Notre Dame team , coached by Knute Rockne , won all of its games , including the Rose Bowl , to be acclaimed as the best team in the nation . Notre Dame and Stanford were both unbeaten at season ' s end , and the Fighting Irish won 27 - 10 . Major conferences that existed in 1924 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 27 California with a 13 - 7 win over Santa Clara . Dartmouth beat Norwich College 40 - 0 . Southern Methodist University ( SMU ) beat North Texas 7 - 0 , and Alabama opened with a 55 - 0 win over Union College of Tennessee . October . October 4 Missouri opened its season with a 3 - 0 win at Chicago , the Maroons ' only loss of the season . Notre Dame opened its season with a 40 - 0 win over Lombard College . Stanford beat Occidental College 20 - 6 , and California beat St . Mary ' s 17 - 7 . Army beat St . Louis 17 - 0 , Yale beat North Carolina 27 - 0 , and Dartmouth beat Montreal ' s McGill University 52 - 0 . Alabama won at Furman 20 - 0 . SMU beat Trinity College 14 - 3 October 11 Notre Dame beat Wabash 34 - 0 . Stanford beat the Olympic Club 7 - 0 and California defeated Pomona College , 28 - 0 . Army beat Detroit ' s Mercy College , 20 - 0 and Dartmouth beat Vermont 38 - 0 . In a battle of Bulldogs , Yale beat Georgia 7 - 6 . Missouri defeated Missouri Wesleyan College 14 - 0 ( MWC was closed in 1930 ) . Chicago beat visiting Brown , 19 - 7 . Alabama beat Mississippi College 51 - 0 . In a Friday game , SMU beat Austin College 7 - 0 October 18 At the Polo Grounds in New York , Notre Dame beat Army 23 - 7 , the Cadets ' only loss for the season . In his column the next day , sportswriter Grantland Rice dubbed the Notre Dame backfield ( Harry Stuhldreher , Don Miller , Jim Crowley , and Elmer Layden ) in his column of October 20 , writing " Outlined against a blue - gray October sky , the Four Horsemen rode again . In dramatic lore they are known as famine , pestilence , destruction and death . These are only aliases . Their real names are : Stuhldreher , Miller , Crowley and Layden . They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55 , 000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below . " In other games , Yale and Dartmouth played to a 14 - 14 tie . Stanford defeated Oregon 28 - 13 , while California beat the Olympic Club 9 - 3 . In Birmingham , Alabama beat Sewanee 14 - 0 . SMU beat Texas 10 - 6 . Missouri won at Iowa State 7 - 0 , and Chicago defeated Indiana 23 - 0 . October 25 Notre Dame beat Princeton 12 - 0 . In Columbus , Chicago and Ohio State played to a 3 - 3 tie . At Portland , Oregon , Stanford had a more difficult time than expected in defeating Idaho , 3 - 0 , while California beat Washington State 20 - 7 . Army beat Boston University 20 - 0 , Dartmouth beat Harvard 6 - 0 , and Yale defeated Brown 13 - 3 . At Atlanta , Alabama recorded another shutout , beating Georgia Tech 14 - 0 . SMU and Texas A & M played to a 7 - 7 tie in Dallas . Missouri beat Kansas State 14 - 7 . November . November 1 California and USC , both unbeaten and untied with records of 5 - 0 - 0 , met at Berkeley , with California handing the Trojans their first defeat , 7 - 0 . Notre Dame beat visiting Georgia Tech 34 - 3 Stanford beat Santa Clara 20 - 0 and California beat visiting USC 7 - 0 Army and Yale played to a 7 - 7 tie . Dartmouth defeated Brown 10 - 3 . SMU stayed unbeaten with a 6 - 0 win at TCU . Missouri suffered its first defeat , a 14 - 6 loss at Nebraska . Chicago beat Purdue 19 - 6 . Alabama registered its 8th shutout in a 61 - 0 win over Ole Miss at Montgomery . To that point , the Crimson Tide had outscored its opposition 215 - 0 . November 8 Notre Dame won at Wisconsin 38 - 3 In a game at Berkeley , Stanford beat Utah 30 - 0 , while in Seattle , California was tied by Washington . Army beat visiting Florida 14 - 7 , Dartmouth beat Boston University 38 - 0 , and Yale beat Maryland 47 - 0 SMU was tied at Arkansas 14 - 14 . Alabama gave up its first points in a 42 - 7 win over visiting Kentucky . Missouri won at Oklahoma 10 - 0 . Chicago and Illinois played to a 21 - 21 tie . November 15 Notre Dame beat Nebraska 34 - 6 Stanford beat Montana 41 - 3 and California beat Nevada 27 - 0 Army and Columbia played to a 14 - 14 tie , and Yale beat Princeton 10 - 0 . In New York , Dartmouth closed its season unbeaten with a 27 - 14 win over Cornell . Alabama was defeated by Centre College , 17 - 0 , in a game at Birmingham . SMU and Baylor played to a 7 - 7 tie in Dallas . Missouri beat Washington University ( of St . Louis ) 35 - 0 . Chicago beat Northwestern 3 - 0 . November 22 In Chicago , Notre Dame beat Northwestern 13 - 6 Stanford ( 7 - 0 - 0 ) and California ( 7 - 0 - 1 ) were both unbeaten going into the final game of the season , played at Berkeley . The teams played to a 20 - 20 tie , with Stanford getting the bid to the Rose Bowl ; California hosted a postseason game against Penn for New Year ' s Day Yale closed its season unbeaten with a 19 - 6 win over Harvard . Chicago and Wisconsin played to a scoreless tie . On Thanksgiving Day , November 27 Alabama beat Georgia 33 - 0 in Birmingham . Missouri beat Kansas 14 - 0 , and received an invitation to play USC at the Los Angeles Christmas Festival ( where it would lose , 20 - 7 ) Notre Dame closed its season in Pittsburgh on Friday , November 28 , with a 40 - 19 win over Carnegie Tech . In the Army – Navy Game , held in Baltimore , Army won 12 - 0 On November 29 SMU and Oklahoma State played to a 13 - 13 tie , giving the Mustangs a season record of 5 wins , no losses and four ties . Conference standings . The following is an incomplete list of conference standings : 1925 Rose Bowl . Notre Dame had the Four Horsemen ; Stanford had Ernie Nevers . Neither team had lost a game in 1924 and they met in Pasadena before a crowd of 52 , 000 . The Stanford Indians took a 3 - 0 lead in the first quarter after Murray Cuddeback ' s field goal . In the second quarter , Elmer Layden ran for one touchdown , then scored another after picking off an Ernie Nevers pass and returning the interception to give the Irish a 13 - 3 lead at halftime . Stanford closed the gap to 13 - 10 in the third quarter with a pass from Ed Walker to Ted Shipkey , but Jim Crowley ' s run gave Notre Dame its third touchdown . In the last quarter , Stanford was stopped eight inches from the goal line . Layden picked off another Nevers pass and returned it 65 yards for the final score , with Notre Dame winning 27 - 10 . Other postseason games took place at Berkeley , where California beat Penn , 14 - 0 , before a crowd of 50 , 000 ; in Dallas , where SMU lost to West Virginia Wesleyan , 9 - 7 , at the Dixie Classic ; and in Honolulu , where Hawaii defeated Colorado 13 - 0 . In the Los Angeles Christmas Festival played a week earlier , USC had beaten Missouri 20 - 7 .