Notre Dame and Stanford were both unbeaten at season's end, with the Fighting Irish winning the Rose Bowl contest 27–10.

Centre claimed a southern title in its last season of national relevance, upsetting Wallace Wade's first SoCon champion Alabama team.

Southern Methodist University (SMU) beat North Texas 7–0, and Alabama opened with a 55–0 win over Union College of Tennessee.

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.

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."

At Portland, Oregon, Stanford had a more difficult time than expected in defeating Idaho, 3–0, while California beat Washington State 20–7.

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.

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.

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.

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 lineman Ed Hunsinger scooped up a fumble from an attempted Stanford punt return to give Notre Dame its third touchdown.

Layden picked off another Nevers pass and returned it 70 yards for the final score, with Notre Dame winning 27–10.

[4] Rankings listed below under the Dickinson System were not made during the 1924 season, but retroactively on October 16, 1925 when Frank G. Dickinson ranked 11 teams according to his mathematical formula, with Notre Dame having the best score, followed by California, Yale, Illinois and Stanford in the top five teams.