Colgate Red Raiders (1932)

If you've watched any college football this season (and if you haven't, shame on you), then you've probably heard about the plight of James Madison University, a second-year FBS program that is undefeated as of this writing, but won't be allowed to participate in a bowl game because it's in the second year of a two-year transitional status from FCS football, where it was a perennial powerhouse. Pleas to the NCAA have gone unheeded, which gives fans yet another reason to shake their heads (and fists) at the institution. 

Colgate fans can sympathize with JMU's supporters. In 1932, the Red Raiders not just went undefeated, but allowed ZERO points in nine games, making other historical defensive juggernauts like the 1963 UMass team look like a sieve.

The scores, taken from the 1933 Salmagundi yearbook.
"Mississippi" is actually the Mississippi College Choctaws,
a D-II school these days, not Ole Miss.

This was no out-of-the-blue campaign from an obscure school in the Northeast. The 'Gate had been a regional and occasionally national force for the last 15 years or so, and went 47-5-1 from 1929-34 under coach Andy Kerr, according to this great TipTop 25 piece. (TipTop is the source for much of the information here, including this wowza: "Colgate ran a gimmicky rugby-like offense that featured laterals all over the field, like a modern day team trying to score on the last play of the game.") 

Colgate faces Brown in the 1932 season finale.
Both teams have pretty distinctive uniforms here.

The list of opponents don't look overwhelming, and in fact Brown was probably the best team Colgate faced. The teams were undefeated when they faced off in the season finale Thanksgiving Day at Brown Stadium. The Raiders led only 6-0 at halftime but pulled away to win 21-0. The Bears came closest to anyone to scoring against the Raiders all season; Brown drove to the Colgate 1-yard line with time running out in the first half, but quarterback Robert Ramsay Chase's keeper came two inches shy of the end zone.

Colgate battles NYU at Yankee Stadium.
The game attracted 35,000 fans. Ah, the days when
NYC was a college football hotbed ...

With a 9-0 record and a 264-0 scoring margin, Colgate awaited an invitation to be the East's representative in the Rose Bowl, the only major bowl game at that point and which usually pitted an Eastern power against the champions of the West Coast. Legend has it the Raiders literally had their bags packed for Pasadena. Alas, the invite went to 8-1-2 Pittsburgh, which frankly played a tougher schedule against the likes of Ohio State, Penn, Notre Dame, Army, Stanford and Carnegie Tech (a legit power in the '30s). The novelty of an undefeated AND unscored-upon team going to the Rose Bowl probably would have attracted some mainstream attention, though. If only there had been more bowl games, as was the case later in the decade ... 

(BTW, Pitt was wiped out by USC in the Rose Bowl, 35-0.)

The 1932 Raiders.

But while Colgate, like James Madison, had to stay home for the holidays, it became famous as the team of the "four uns," as Kerr wrote on a chalkboard for his players after the season: "Remember the great team of 1932, undefeated, united, unscored upon and uninvited."

Then there are the uniforms. In addition to the maroon jerseys worn the previous year, Colgate debuted new white shirts and maroon pants, which apparently gave birth to the "Red Raiders" nickname used until 2001. White helmets completed the ensemble. The unis definitely stood out in an era when many teams still wore dark helmets and shirts and muddy brown or tan pants.

In 2018, as part of the school's 200th anniversary, Colgate wore these awesome throwback uniforms inspired by the 1932 team.