1908 college football season
1908 college football season | ||
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Regular season | September 19–November 28 | |
Champion(s) | Pennsylvania | |
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The 1908 college football season ran from Saturday, September 19, to November 28.[1] The Penn Quakers and the Harvard Crimson each finished the season unbeaten but with one tied. The LSU Tigers went unbeaten and untied against a weaker opposition. All three teams were named national champions retroactively by various organizations. Only Pennsylvania officially claims a national championship for the 1908 season.
Although there was no provision for a national championship, major teams played their regular schedules before facing their most difficult matches late in the season. "The real championship contests are ushered in with the month of November," The New York Times reported on September 6, "and on the seventh day of that month the final try-outs will be witnessed." The most eagerly anticipated games were Yale at Princeton (November 14) and Harvard at Yale (November 21). In addition, "intersectional games" were of special interest, with Cornell at Chicago, and Penn at Michigan.
Rules
"With the modernized plays that are being brought into the game," noted one writer, "football is, in its present state, the national game in the fall the same as baseball in the summer.".[2] Rules for the forward pass, which had been legalized only two years earlier, were modified, and passing was still a risky play. "If the ball on the forward pass is touched and then freed, and is touched by another player on the passer's side, it will be given to the opponents at the point where the ball was illegally touched," and it was noted that the rule change was to stop the practice of a passer throwing the ball high "with the hopes that some one of his teammates would get the ball in the general scramble that followed,".[3] In addition, halftime was extended from ten minutes to fifteen [3]
The rules for American football in 1908 were significantly different from whose of a century later, as many of the present rules (100 yard field, four downs to gain ten yards, 6-point touchdown and the 3-point field goal) were not adopted until 1912.[4] The rules in 1908 were:
- Field 110 yards in length
- Kickoff made from midfield
- Three downs to gain ten yards
- Touchdown worth 5 points
- Field goal worth 4 points
- Forward pass legal, but subject to penalties
Conference and program changes
School | 1907 Conference | 1908 Conference |
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Drake Bulldogs | Independent | MVIAA |
Indiana State Sycamores | Independent | football banned by faculty |
Iowa State Cyclones | Independent | MVIAA |
September
On September 19,
September 30 In Wednesday afternoon games, Harvard struggled as it opened the season with a 5-0 win over Bowdoin, scoring on a touchdown in the second half. "Harvard tried the forward pass, line plunges and end runs, but showed poor team work," a dispatch from Cambridge noted. Dartmouth defeated Vermont, 11-0, Yale defeated Wesleyan 16-0, Brown beat Bates, 35-4, and Penn defeated Ursinus, 30-0.[6]
October
October 3,
Further west,
At the end of the first Saturday in October, seven schools remained unbeaten, untied and unscored upon against college opponents: Harvard and Penn, both at 3-0-0; Yale, Annapolis (Navy) and Cornell, at 2-0-0; the University of Chicago, Auburn, and Tennessee.
October 10 Following a Wednesday (Oct. 7) afternoon win over Villanova (11-0), Penn beat State College (Penn State) 6-0. Harvard defeated Williams, 10-0. Annapolis won 22-0 over Dickinson, and West Point beat Tufts, 33-0. Cornell dropped from the ranks of the unscored upon, but defeated Oberlin, 23-10. Yale beat Holy Cross, 18-0.
Further west,
In Wednesday afternoon games (October 14), Annapolis won at Maryland, 57-0. Penn stayed unbeaten, but was scored upon for the first time, when Gettysburg College managed a field goal; the final score was 23-4.
October 17 In New Haven,
Further west,
On Wednesday afternoon, October 21, Princeton defeated Fordham, 17-0, to extend its record to 4-0-1.
October 24 saw several big matchups between college football's unbeaten teams. In Philadelphia,
Yale stayed unbeaten, untied, and unscored on against visiting Washington and Jefferson, taking a 21-0 lead in the first half and winning
38-0.
In the West,
In a Wednesday afternoon game on October 28, Navy handed George Washington University its first loss, 17-0.
October 31 saw the first major intersectional games of the season. The
Unbeaten and once-tied,
Yale stayed unscored upon, with a 49-0 win over Massachusetts, with Ted Koy scoring four of the Elis' nine touchdowns. Including 4 points after, the score would have been 58-0 under modern rules.[13] Cornell defeated Penn State 10-4. Pennsylvania beat Carnegie Tech 25-10 in Pittsburgh. Harvard defeated Brown 6-2. At West Point, Princeton and Army played to a 0-0 tie in the snow; Princeton drove to within six yards on three occasions, and Army held each time.[14]
November
November 7
At New York's Polo Grounds, a crowd of 10,000 watched unbeaten
In intersectional games,
In a game on Wednesday, November 10, LSU defeated Baylor, 89-0 [18]
November 14 In a major intersectional game between two unbeaten and untied teams, Cornell (6-0-0) visited Chicago (4-0-0). Playing in a snowstorm, Cornell took the lead before the Maroons, coached by Amos Alonzo Stagg tied the game with five minutes left on a triple pass play, finishing with a 6-6 store.[19] Pennsylvania (9-0-1) visited Michigan (5-0-1) and won 29-0. Ohio State handed visiting Vanderbilt its second loss, 17-6.
The previously unbeaten and untied (6-0-0)
Harvard (7-0-1) hosted Dartmouth (6-0-1) and won, 6-0. Yale (6-0-1) visited 5-1-3 Princeton before a crowd of 30,000 and won 11-6.[20] Both Harvard and Yale stayed unbeaten, a week away from their November 21 meeting in New Haven.
November 21 The biggest game of the season was in New Haven, Connecticut, as
In intersectional games,
On
In the South, LSU finished its season unbeaten with a 36-4 win over Arkansas at Little Rock. Vanderbilt and Sewanee played to a 6-6 tie. In Montgomery, Alabama, Auburn beat Georgia, 23-0. Two days later, at their annual game, Army beat Navy, 6-4.
On September 19, 1908, Washington & Jefferson College became the college football first team to wear numbered uniforms. The occasion was a game against Denison University.[23][24][n 1]
Conference standings
Major conference standings
For this article, major conferences defined as those including multiple state flagship public universities.
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Independents
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Minor conferences
Conference | Champion(s) | Record |
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Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference | Fairmount | 5–0 |
Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association | Albion
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3–0–2 |
Ohio Athletic Conference | Western Reserve | 6–1 |
Minor conference standings
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Awards and honors
All-Americans
The consensus All-America team included:
Position | Name | Height | Weight (lbs.) | Class | Hometown | Team |
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QB | Walter Steffen | 5'9" | 158 | Sr. | Chicago, Illinois
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Chicago |
QB | Ed Lange | Sr. | Navy | |||
HB | Hamilton Corbett | So. | Portland, Oregon | Harvard | ||
HB | Bill Hollenback | 6'2" | 184 | Sr. | Blue Bell, Pennsylvania | Penn |
HB | Frederick Tibbott | Sr. | Indianapolis, Indiana
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Princeton | ||
FB
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Ted Coy | 6'0" | 195 | Jr. | Andover, Massachusetts | Yale |
E
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Hunter Scarlett | 5'10" | 168 | Sr. | Erie, Pennsylvania | Penn |
T
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Hamilton Fish | 6'4" | 200 | Jr. | Southboro, Massachusetts
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Harvard |
T
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Percy Northcroft | Sr. | Navy | |||
G
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Hamlin Andrus | Jr. | Yonkers, New York | Yale | ||
G
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Bernard O'Rourke | Jr. | Syracuse, New York | Cornell | ||
C
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Charles Nourse | 6'0" | 197 | Jr. | Concord, New Hampshire | Harvard |
G
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William Goebel | Jr. | Cincinnati, Ohio
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Yale | ||
G
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Clark Tobin | So. | South Boston, Massachusetts
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Dartmouth | ||
T
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Bill Horr | Sr. | Munnsville, New York | Syracuse | ||
E
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George Schildmiller | Sr. | Brattleboro, Vermont | Dartmouth |
Statistical leaders
- Player scoring most points: Doc Fenton, LSU, 132
- Total offense leader, Jim Thorpe, Carlisle, 993
Notes
- University of Pittsburgh claims the first use of numbered uniforms, citing to a December 5, 1908, game versus Washington & Jefferson.[25][26][27][28] However, the NCAA does not recognize that claim, instead crediting Washington & Jefferson for being the first to wear numbered uniforms in a game several months earlier.[23]
References
- ^ "Football Season Offers Good Sport," The New York Times, Sept. 6, 1908, pB-3
- ^ "'Big Five' Football Teams Begin Practice Next Week," The Atlanta Constitution, Sep. 14 '08, p7
- ^ a b Id.
- ^ Danzig, Allison (1956). The History of American Football: Its Great Teams, Players, and Coaches. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. pp. 70–71.
- ^ "Pennsy Barely Wins First Game," The New York Times, Sep. 27, 1908 V:1;
- ^ "The Football Season Opens With Good Games," Daily Kennebec (Me.) Journal, Oct. 1, 1908, p4
- ^ "Saturday Football Scores," Trenton (N.J.) Evening Times, Oct. 5, 1908, p11
- ^ "Indians Tie Old Pennsy's Eleven," The New York Times, Oct. 25, 1908, pIV-1
- ^ "Navy Ties the Crimson," The New York Times, Oct. 25, 1908, pIV-1
- ^ "Yale Hangs Up 38 Points on W. and J.," The New York Times, Oct. 25, 1908, pIV-1
- ^ "Football Scores," The New York Times, Oct. 25, 1908, pIV-1
- ^ "Little Indian's Boot Downs Navy Eleven," NYT 11/01/08, pV-1
- ^ "Farmer Boys Only Toys For Yale Team," The New York Times, Nov. 1, 1908, pV-2
- ^ "Army Repulses Tiger Attack," NYT 11/01/08, pV-1
- ^ "Yale-Brown Game Ends in Wrangle," NYT 11/8/08, pV-1
- ^ "Dartmouth's Sensational Victory Over Princeton on the Polo Grounds," The New York Times, Nov. 8, 1908, pV-1
- ^ "Harvard Crushes Carlisle's Line," NYT 11/8/08, pV-2
- ^ "Baylor Beaten By the L.S.U.," The Atlanta Constitution, Nov. 11, 1908, p10
- ^ "Cornell in Even Battle at Chicago," The New York Times, Nov. 15, 1908, pIV-1
- ^ "Princeton Ends Her Season Beaten By Yale," The New York Times, Nov. 15, 1908, pIV-1
- ^ "Harvard Wins By Field Goal," The New York Times, Nov. 22, 1908, pI-1
- ^ "Pennsy Triumphs Over Cornell Team," The New York Times, Nov. 27, 1908, p10
- ^ a b "College Football Rules Changes - Equipment" (PDF). Football Bowl Subdivision Records. National Collegiate Athletic Association. 2009. p. 122. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 15, 2010. Retrieved June 9, 2010.
1908—First documented jersey numbers used by Washington & Jefferson.
- ^ "W&J Football History". Washington & Jefferson College. Archived from the original on May 29, 2010. Retrieved June 11, 2010.
- ^ Joseph Nathan Kane, Famous First Facts, 4th ed., (Ace Books, 1974), p264
- ISBN 0-916114-08-2.
- ISBN 0-7613-1557-8.
- ^ Murphy, Arthur (September 28, 1959), "Memo From The Publisher", Sports Illustrated, Time, Inc.: 15, archived from the original on December 6, 2012