Although there was no clear cut national championship, there were two teams that had won all nine of their games as the 1906 season drew to a close, the Princeton Tigers and the Yale Bulldogs, and on November 17, 1906, they played to a 0–0 tie.

The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, declared retroactively that Princeton had been the best college football team of 1906.

Although his nearsightedness kept him off the Harvard varsity squad, Theodore Roosevelt was a vocal exponent of football's contribution to the “strenuous life,” both on and off the field.

“In life, as in a football game,” he wrote, “the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard; don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line hard!” In 1903, the president told an audience, “I believe in rough games and in rough, manly sports.

I do not feel any particular sympathy for the person who gets battered about a good deal so long as it is not fatal.” He summoned the head coaches and representatives of the premier collegiate powers—Harvard, Yale and Princeton—to the White House on October 9, 1905.

[2] Following the 1905 season, Stanford and California switched to rugby while Columbia, Northwestern and Duke dropped football.

An intercollegiate conference, which would become the forerunner of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), approved radical rule changes for the 1906 season.

They legalized the forward pass, abolished the dangerous flying wedge, created a neutral zone between offense and defense, and doubled the first-down distance to 10 yards, to be gained in three downs.

Finally, in 1906, the Rules Committee, college football's governing body at the time, legalized the forward pass.

The American Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee met at the Murray Hill Hotel in New York City beginning January 12, 1906, to create measures “for squelching brutality and all forms of unnecessary roughness.”[3] Numerous changes were made, the primary one being the legalization of the forward pass.

[5] The passing game in the west (typified by St. Louis University) was closer to today's version than that in the east; the quarterback would fire the ball directly to an open receiver.

The style used by Yale and Harvard, recounted later by a referee of the day, Horatio B. Hackett, was "the ball is thrown high in the air and the runner who is to catch it is protected by several of his teammates forming an interference for him.

"I do not believe the present experiment in American college football can survive," said the President of the University of California, Benjamin Ide Wheeler.

In the West, the Michigan Wolverines, coached by Fielding "Hurry Up" Yost, had shut out their first 12 opponents, before playing the 9–0–0 University of Chicago Maroons.

In its 22–0 win over Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on a Wednesday afternoon, St. Louis University unveiled a new offensive style.

Though the first attempt was incomplete (resulting in a turnover), the next one was successful, as Bradbury Robinson threw to Jack Schneider, who then ran the rest of the way for a touchdown.

[9] The season began in earnest on September 22, with some of the more powerful teams holding their lesser opposition scoreless, and on their home field.

The universities of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts were all shut out by, respectively, Harvard (17–0), Dartmouth (8–0), Brown (12–0) and Williams (5–0).

Penn State, Swarthmore and Dickinson all registered 26–0 wins over, Allegheny, Johns Hopkins and Lebanon Valley, respectively.

In the South, Georgia Tech and Maryville tied 6–6 in Atlanta, and Davidson and North Carolina were scoreless.

In the west, Iowa State's team beat Coe College 36–0 on Friday, then Des Moines 45–0 the next day.

After warming up with small colleges, Iowa State won at Nebraska, 14–2, while Kansas beat visiting Oklahoma 20–4.

With two minutes left, Bigelow of Yale kicked a 35-yard field goal (for 4 points) from a steep angle, and a 10–6 win.

Out West, previously unbeaten Kansas traveled to meet St. Louis to match their rushing game against Eddie Cochem's pass attack.

In the South, Sewanee stayed unbeaten with a 35–0 win in New Orleans over Tulane (followed two days later by a 24–0 in over Ole Miss in Memphis).

A crowd of 32,000 in New Haven saw the Crimson–Blue meeting, described as "a game as has seldom been seen on any field," with both sides relying heavily on the forward pass.

[14] Paul Veeder threw a pass and Clarence Alcott jumped high to catch it at the 3 yard line for a first down.

A Harvard fumble in the closing minutes was recovered by the Bulldogs, who were 12 yards from goal when the whistle blew.

Thanksgiving Day, November 29, 1907, was the next best thing to post-season play, as rivals met on the holiday.

Alabama crushed Tennessee, 51–0, to finish 5–1–0, while the Vols' record was 1–6–2; the win, and one of the ties, was against American College.