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Georgetown football, 1874–1889

1874–1889 history of the Georgetown Hoyas football program

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ124475094 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Georgetown Hoyas football program represents Georgetown University, based in Washington, D.C., in the sport of American football. This article covers the team's history through 1889, when it was known simply as Georgetown football. The team was founded in 1874, but did not play any games that year. They scheduled their first game in 1881 against a local high school, but the latter failed to show up for the game and it was considered a Georgetown forfeit win. In 1883, they played two games against Gallaudet University. They reportedly played a game in 1884, played no games from 1885 to 1886, and then played regularly in the final three years of the decade, including their first intercollegiate match in 1889 against the Virginia Cavaliers. Modern-day Georgetown records do not consider any games prior to 1887 official, although their media guides prior to 1950 did.

Formation

Georgetown University's football team traces its history to 1874. The sport had first been played five years earlier, and it was growing in popularity. Baseball was the first sport to begin at the school in 1870, and students wanted to have a sport to play in the winter as well.

Editorial summary

“Georgetown football, 1874–1889” enters the record as 1874–1889 history of the Georgetown Hoyas football program. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Georgetown, football and history can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1889, 1874, 1881, 1883—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Georgetown, football and history.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Georgetown football, 1874–1889” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Georgetown, football and history provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q124475094. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1874, 1881 and 1883.

Critical limits

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Georgetown football, 1874–1889” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.