January 7

On this episode of the Football History Headlines, we discuss The Bert Bell Benefit Bowl a game where teams played for 3rd place in the NFL as well as many more Hall of Fame Legendary stories. 

January 7, 1899 - Walter Camp published his 1st All-American football team in Collier's. Ten of the eleven players named had played for Ivy League schools. The sole exception was Isaac Seneca, a Native American who played at the fullback position for the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Others on the 1898 All American Team include from the Penn Quakers: Truxton Hare, Josiah McCracken, and Peter Overfield made the list. Yale members included Gordon Brown, George Stillman, and Malcolm McBride. For Harvard Charles Daly and David Campbell were joined by Princeton Tigers R T Hillebrand and Arthur Pie. Camp along with Caspar Whitney started publishing the honor in 1889 in a magazine called “The Week’s Sport” and then in Harper’s Weekly per Britannica.com. 1899 was the first year that Collier’s received the honor of publication and Camp and them would carry on the tradition every year until Camp’s untimely death in 1925. The Magazine then asked Grantland Rice the era’s most prominent sportswriter, to continue the annual selection.  

January 7, 1961 - Orange Bowl, Miami, Florida - The 1st NFL Playoff Bowl was played between the Detroit Lions and the Cleveland Browns. According to the AmericanFootball.Fandom.com website this game was officially named the Bert Bell Benefit Bowl  and was created to determine a third place finisher in the NFL as it pitted the two losing teams from the Divisional Playoff games. The game was played ten different times from 1960 through the 1969 season. The name was in honor of the late Bert Bell who was the former NFL commissioner and co-founder of the Philadelphia Eagles and a former co-owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The game was developed to give the NFL more television air time to compete with the AFL. The American Football League had a contract with ABC to air most of its regular season games as well as the postseason. The more established NFL was lagging behind their rival league as very few regular season games were on national television broadcasts at that time and the NFL Championship was the only post season contest shown across the country. This new Playoff Bowl was played the week after the NFL Championship game. In the game itself in 1961 Detroit beat Cleveland in an exciting one 17-16 to claim the third place in the pecking order for the 1960 NFL season.

January 7, 1962 - Balboa Stadium, San Diego - The inaugural AFL All Star Game was played. The contest pitted the best from the AFL’s Western Division against the greats from the AFL’s Eastern Division.  The story of the game is nicely told by RemebertheAFL.com. Players such as Jim Otto, Jack Kemp and Coach Sid Gillman were on the West’s sidelines while the East boasted George Blanda, Billy Cannon and Gino Cappelletti. The outcome was that the Western Division out-shined the Eastern Division 47-27, The MVP of the game was the Dallas Texans Quarterback Cotton Davidson.  

January 7, 1979 - Three Rivers Stadium, Pittsburgh - The AFC Championship game once again came to the home of the Steelers per the Pro-Football-Reference.com website. It was the Houston Oilers, the Steelers AFC Central rivals who came to challenge the team of the 1970’s on this occasion. It was a very sloppy game for being the two best teams in the AFC as 14 turnovers were committed between the two offenses, 9 of them were against the Oilers. The Steel Curtain Defense came to play as they held the Oilers powerful running back Earl Campbell to 62 yards rushing and flustered Houston’s passing attack to less than 100 yards for a grand total of 142 yards of offensive production on the day for the Oilers. Meanwhile Terry Bradshaw and company churned out 379 yards as the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Houston Oilers, 34-5.

January 7, 1979 - LA Memorial Coliseum - The NFC Championship game was extremely one sided as the Dallas Cowboys demolished the Los Angeles Rams, 28-0.

January 7, 2008 - Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans - The game was the Allstate Sugar Bowl to be played for the 2008 BCS National Championship. The Top team in the country, the Ohio State Buckeyes were challenged with the number 2 team in the nation the LSU Tigers per the allstatesugarbowl.com internet page. The game started off strong for Ohio State as they led 10-3 at the end of the first quarter. The Tigers had something else in mind as they rattled off 21 unanswered points in the second quarter to take a lead that they would not once again relinquish. Louisiana State became the national champs as they stunned the Buckeyes 38-24.

January 7, 2010 - Rose Bowl, Pasadena - 12th BCS National Championship took place as the Rose Bowl played its turn to host the big game. The #2 Texas longhorns were out for the title against the #1 Alabama Crimson Tide. The Bama defense got after it early and knocked Texas star QB Colt McCoy out of the game early and then wore the Texas defense down with a strong running game from the tandem of Mark Ingram and Trent Richardson who each went over 100 yards on the game. The Crimson Tide took home the Title as they outlasted Texas 37-21 per ESPN.com.

January 7, 2013  - Sun Life Stadium, Miami Gardens - 15th BCS National Championship was not much of a game at all as the powerful #2 Alabama outmatched the #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 42-14. Sports-Reference.com shows that Tide runners T J Yeldon and Eddie Lacy each went over 100 yards in the romp.

January 7, 2019 - Levi's Stadium, Santa Clara, California - The National Championship pitted the top two teams in the country once again as #2 Clemson took on #1 Alabama. CBSSports.com reports that with strong defense and on the arm of the Tigers sensational freshman Quarterback Trevor Lawrence who tossed for 347 yards and three touchdowns led Clemson to a dominating claim to the title in a 44-16 victory.

January 7, 1884 - Bartlesville, Oklahoma - Carlisle’s fantastic End, Albert Exendine was born. Albert played on the all Native American teams of Carlisle Institute just after the turn of the twentieth century. The National Football Foundation describes how good of an end Exendine truly was, in fact they quote his coach, the legendary Pop Warner as calling Albert "Sheer brilliance" on the football field. Albert may have had his best game of his young career when against the University of Chicago, he repeatedly stuffed legendary halfback Wally Steffen. Walter Camp in 1907 named Exendine to his All-America team and as we just learned a little bit earlier in this edition it was with Collier’s magazine. The NFF voters selected Albert Exendine to enter into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1970.

January 7, 1930 - San Rafeal, California - Quarterback Eddie LeBaron from the College of the Pacific celebrated his day of birth. Eddie’s first year on the gridiron was the last one for the legendary Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg. Le Baron played for three more seasons after that great experience when Stagg retired and used what he learned well. In 1949 according to the NFF’s bio on him, Pacific’s offense with Eddie under center was averaging 52 points per game while allowing opponents to average a measly six points per game. LeBaron wasn’t just good with his Pacific teammates as shown when he was Most Valuable Player in the East-West Shrine game as well as in 1950 when Eddie quarterbacked the College All-Stars to a 17-7 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles. Eddie LeBaron was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1980.

The Photo in today's banner is titled "FOOTBALL. GEORGETOWN-CARLISLE GAME; GLENN WARNER" and comes from the donated collection in the US Library of Congress circa 1912 from photographers Harris & Ewing. Boy are we glad that they shared these so all can enjoy the history of the game we love!