Football for Player and Spectator/Chapter 5
PRINCETON
Princeton is one of the schools in which football found its origin in the United States, and the game has been played there on a systematic basis ever since 1876, when relations were established with Yale. In the following year a similar agreement was entered into with Harvard and continued until 1897.
Among the football stars developed at Princeton are Cowan, Poe, Ames, Wheeler, King, Trenchard, Lea, Church, Kelly, Cochran, Hillebrand and Edwards.
Most faithfully throughout the history of football has Princeton maintained the strictly regular system of play. All the offensive operations are directed with seven men in the line andh rarely is the ball entrusted to any member of the team not a regular occupant of the backfield. This gives a much less varied style of attack and is a consequent deterrent to success, beyond a doubt, but the wonderful spirit which has been the possession of every Princeton team has assisted its successive elevens to maintain a high place in the athletic world, nevertheless. The Princeton defense places the ends rather wide, the tackles similarly free and the three backs supporting the line.
The Princeton style of game is generally the most freely imitated all over the United States. This is partially on account of its simplicity and partially on account of the large number of Princeton graduates who have taken up football coaching after leaving college.
MICHIGAN
The University of Michigan is one of the oldest western schools in point of football experience. Her most universal rival has been Chicago, although relations have long been maintained with Wisconsin and intermittently with Minnesota.
Such players as Baird, Ferbert, Henninger, Senter, Bloomingston, Bennett, Widman, McLean, Weeks, Snow, McGugin, Herrnstein and Heston have left bright records on the football tablets of the "Wolverines".
Coached in past years by graduates of several styles of play, Michigan has been since 1901 under the tutelage of F. H. Yost, under whom has been developed an offense generally described as shifting, men being drawn back frequently from the line for the purpose of attack. The ends are also frequently drawn into the backfield, their places being taken by the backs. A shifting interference, in which the point of attack is veiled, is also a feature of the Michigan play.
On defense the Michigan teams adapt their tactics to best meet the attack of their opponents, sometimes leaving three men in the secondary line of defense, sometimes two. Generally considered, it might be termed shifting, like the offense.
HARVARD
Football has been played at Harvard University since the earliest days of the game in the United States. Mutual relations with Yale were established in 1876 and have been maintained up to the present. Annual games were played with Princeton from 1877 to 1897. Harvard and Pennsylvania have maintained their mutual rivalry almost continuously since 1881.
The annals of Harvard football redound with the names of such players as Comstock, Dean, Newell, Waters, Lewis, Wrightington, Dibblee and Daly, all of whom are among the greatest players the game has ever known.
In the offensive system of play in vogue at Harvard, the tandem is the most prominent. This formation is usually made up of the three backs, although sometimes one of the linemen is called back for use in the play, the back left out of the formation taking the place of the lineman in the latter's regular position. The tackle-back play has also been a feature of Harvard's attack until very recently.
The Harvard defense is what may be termed regular, although the ends play in close to tackle.
Graduate coaching has been the rule at Harvard and the result has been a maintenance of old football styles and traditions which have been little varied in the passing of the years.
MINNESOTA
The football team of the University of Minnesota has long held a high position among the other western teams, athletic relations of an intermittent character having been maintained with Illinois, Northwestern, Chicago and Michigan, and a regular series having been played with the University of Wisconsin eleven.
Among the players who have been prominent as stars at Minnesota are Harding, Pillsbury, Flynn, Schacht, Rogers, Thorpe, Van Valkenburg, Strathearn, Knowlton and Irsfield.
Coached by Dr. H. L. Williams, the former Yale half back and hurdler, the elevens of Minnesota have developed strongly along the Yale lines of play, to which has been added, however, a series of line shifts and tackle-back plays combined, making an attack frequently after the fashion of a wing shift. As a rule the regular defensive formations are maintained.
While the comparative geographical isolation of Minnesota's location has tended to make the securing of games with the other large western schools a matter of difficulty, there is no institution east or west in which there is a more enthusiastic support offered to its team than is afforded annually at Minnesota.
YALE
Football has been played at Yale since 1876, when mutual relations were established with Harvard and Princeton which have continued practically without interruption ever since. Yale also played a game with the University of Pennsylvania team in each season from 1879 to 1894 inclusive.
Prominent places in Yale football history are held by such men as Heffelfinger, McClung, Hinkey, Butterworth, Thorn, Chamberlain, Brown, McBride and Glass.
Yale has long relied on the tackle-back play to gain the ground for the team on offense. The tackle is called back and his place is taken by one of the half backs, as a rule. Straight football of the regular character has always formed the basic principle of the Yale attack.
On defense, Yale preserves strictly regular formation. The ends play out wide, the tackles are also at considerable distance out and the three backs are used to support the line.
Yale teams have always maintained positions of prominence in the football world, and Yale graduates have inculcated the football principles in vogue at New Haven in other colleges all over the country.
WISCONSIN
One of the first of the great western universities to successfully develop football was the University of Wisconsin. Games have been played with all the leading western teams during the history of football at Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Chicago being the most prominent rivals which the Badgers have known.
Among the stars of Wisconsin's many good teams were Larson, Driver, Curtis, Cochems, Lerum, Fogg, Abbott and Bush.
Wisconsin early appreciated the necessity for adequate coaching and, in the comparatively early days of the game in the west, invited Phil King, one of Princeton's most famous players, to journey west to take up the work of developing her team. Mr. King's acceptance was followed by many football successes.
As was logically expected, the Princeton system of play was introduced at Wisconsin by King and has ever since been the general style both on offense and defense, King's work being kept up by his own pupils who returned as coaches in later years.
On offense the ends play well out and the backs are relied on to bear the large share of the attack. On defense a strictly regular formation is employed.
PENNSYLVANIA
The University of Pennsylvania has long been one of the foremost schools of the football world and, in the early days of the game, has, with Harvard, Yale and Princeton, been one of the "Big Four" institutions in its position of prominence. Football relations have been maintained with Harvard practically since 1881; with Yale from 1879 to 1894, and with Princeton from 1876 to 1894. The game has been played at Pennsylvania every year since it became known in any systematized form in the United States. For years the season has closed at Pennsylvania with the annual Thanksgiving Day game with Cornell.
Among the players who have made the elevens of Pennsylvania famous are such men as Gelbert, Knipe, Osgood, Brooke, Woodruff, Hare, Minds, Overfield and McCracken.
Woodruff, who for many years coached the Pennsylvania teams, brought out the famous guards-back play as a method of attack, and for this play and its variations Pennsylvania's teams were long famous. Later it has developed into the tackle-back play, which is a refinement of the Woodruff idea.
On offense and defense alike is the Pennsylvania play distinctively original, for, when the opponents have the ball, the Penn eleven plays in compact order, the ends drawn in and the tackles close to the guards. The ends of Penn are invariably sent into a play with the idea of breaking it up before it has well started, reliance being placed on the backs and tackles to get the runners. The tackles themselves play close and charge forward and toward the center on defensive.
CHICAGO
The elevens from the University of Chicago have always been prominent contenders for honors on the western gridirons. While Chicago's universal rival has always been Michigan, and these schools have maintained football relations ever since the founding of Chicago, the teams from the latter institution have always taken part in thie sectional rivalry which exists with Illinois and Northwestern, besides keeping up an intermittent alliance with Wisconsin and the University of Minnesota.
Chicago alumni recount with pride the deeds of such football heroes as Herschberger, Kennedy, Hammill, Slaker, Sheldon, Henry and Speik.
Coached throughout Chicago's entire athletic history by Alonzo A. Stagg, her elevens have developed a versatility on attack which has always been remarkable. The famous "whoa back" play is a portion of the offense and a general shifting formation in the various plays is always in evidence.
No particular form of defense characterizes Chicago, judged from a basis of the method of play of its various elevens, but the defense generally includes a combination of three men back of the line, shifting to two as the style of attack of the opponents shows to be necessary. Chicago's teams have also been famous almost every year for the possession of some member with remarkable ability at punting and securing goals from the field.
THE ARMY AND NAVY
For many years the annual games between the elevens representing the United States government's military and naval schools have created great interest in football circles. Both at West Point and Annapolis teams have been maintained since the early history of the game and the annual contest, which is played on the Saturday following Thanksgiving, is always one of the athletic events of the year. In spite of the relatively small number of men in attendance at each of the government schools, the high class of their students permits of the gathering of a very formidable eleven in each institution and the games annually compare very favorably in skill with any played by the larger university teams. Both teams regularly play preliminary contests with many of the larger schools and the West Point schedule has long been considered the most formidable of any eleven in the country.
Generally speaking, West Point plays the Yale style of game and Annapolis the Princeton system. Most of the coaches of the respective teams have been drawn from these two institutions, Yale men having had charge almost invariably at West Point, while such Princeton stars of former years as Cochran and Edwards have had charge of the Annapolis teams.
STANFORD AND CALIFORNIA
What Yale and Princeton are to the Atlantic states, Stanford and California are to the Pacific slope. The sectional isolation of these two large universities has bound them close together in athletitics and the annual game between the two elevens representing these institutions is the athletic event of the year west of the Rockies.
Stanford has been coached largely by graduates of the Yale school of play, while California has received her instruction in football very largely from Princeton men. Very naturally, such coaches as Walter Camp, "Pop" Bliss, Harry Cross, Chamberlain and others have developed a distinctively Yale style at Stanford. while "King" Kelly and Cochran of Princeton have promulgated the Nassau doctrine on the gridiron of California. Yost and Brooke have also coached at Stanford, while such well known stars in their day as Heffelfinger, Gill, Butterworth and Brown have coached California teams.
Athletic relations on the gridiron have been maintained between Stanford and California ever since 1891, and games have also been played between the Pacific coast teams and elevens from institutions farther east who have made a post-season tour to the Pacific slope. In all of these games the Californians from both institutions have shown their ability to play the game well.
Football in the south, like football in the west, was taken direct from the game as it originated in the eastern colleges. As early as 1888 a number of schools in the south had football teams, and there has been a general increase of interest in the game until now it is universally recognized in colleges, high schools and preparatory schools south of the Mason and Dixon line. Public interest has been excited in the game until now the south, in all her festivity, gathers around the gridiron to witness the contest between two well known colleges. And as the colleges grow older and as their crowds grow more numerous the time will come when football games will draw as large attendance as is being drawn in similar cities in the north and east.
After the entrance of the game into the southern colleges, the schools depended, like the schools of the west, upon eastern men for coaches. At present a great many of the schools have engaged coaches who have played during their course upon the teams of the well known western institutions. The game as it is now played in the east has markedly different characteristics from the game as it is played in the west. There is more so-called open play in the west, less of compact formations and of the slow pull-together game. Another characteristic of the western game, as distinguished from the eastern, consists of faster consecutive execution of the plays. Therefore much interest is evidenced in the south when teams representing the eastern and western systems meet in contest. It was thought by many that football would not be popular in the south, the warmth of the climate being assigned as the cause. This has not proved to be true.