[1] The team captain and quarterback was Edgar Allan Poe, the second cousin of his namesake, the writer Edgar Allan Poe.

[2] There was no contemporaneous system in 1889 for determining a national champion.

However, Princeton was retroactively named as the national champion by the Billingsley Report, Helms Athletic Foundation, Houlgate System, National Championship Foundation, and Parke H.

[4] Five players from the 1889 Princeton team were selected by Caspar Whitney for the first All-America college football team: quarterback Edgar Allan Poe; halfback Roscoe Channing; fullback Knowlton "Snake" Ames; tackle Hector Cowan; and center William George.

[5] Ames and Cowan were later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.