Football 1890

In this edition of the Football's History Rewind we discuss the 1890 football season which included the first time Army and Navy played on the gridiron as well as many more Legendary stories.

1890 Season and the First Army Vs. Navy Game

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons, photograph of the 1890-91 Fordham University Football team taken by an unknown photographer.

Football rapidly changes with each passing year in the late 1800’s. Rules makers were busy trying to tweak the game in an almost trial by error type of methodology. Crafty players and captains were coming up with new and very out of the ordinary strategies on an almost regular basis that changed the landscape of the game as well.

The turmoil of Harvard leaving the league and the rumors that pointed to Yale University being on the brink of leaving, made meetings of association members a very uncomfortable, uneasy experience. Yale had been meeting secretly with Harvard but not to form a dual league but only to continue scheduling football games between the two schools. This is how the young sport would enter the 1890’s, a league that was very exciting but which had its future very much in doubt.

Highlight of the 1890 season

The negative news of football was very abundant in 1890 but there were also some positive aspects as well. Yale had a very good athlete on their team that year named W. W. Heffelfinger. Pudge Heffelfinger was a giant among his fellow players and he possessed agility and quickness to go with his size. Yale used his talents very well in 1890 as they developed a system that hedged on Pudge’s skills. 

Yale 1890 team practice, photo is from Parke H. Davis' 1911 book, Football : The Intercollegiate Game

The Blue positioned Heffelfinger as a lineman and then at the snap would pull him off of his normal blocking assignment to run him around an end and block out in front of the ball carrier. This is the first time in recorded football annals that the technique of a pulling guard was used. Heffelfinger was well known for not only his size but he also was famous for always wearing a white bandage around his head to protect his ears. He was also known as a motivator to his teammates. This uncanny drive in Heffelfinger is very evident in some of the tactics he became famous for. There were many times where Heffelfinger would block an opponent and at the same time reach back and grab his teammate who had the ball and literally pull him through the hole! This is captured in the first photograph attached with this article. If you look closely at this photograph from a Yale practice in 1890 you can find Heffelfinger with his arm outstretched to the right of the big tree in the middle of the picture.

The technique of blocking was not called that per say during this time period of football but rather it was referred to as running interference. Remember the offensive players could not use their hands or arms to run interference for the runner only their bodies. This would be a difficult thing to do and in reality the offensive interference would use their hands and arms because it was also difficult for the two officials to see their illegal activity in the mass of human flesh that occurred on the rush line.

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons, photograph of the 1890 Purdue University Football team taken by an unknown photographer.

Letting their hair down

Another aspect of football in 1890 was the adoption of many players to start growing their hair long. The players stated they did this for protection during games but this was almost a running joke because how much protection could hair four to five inches long give? It was more a fashion statement by the men who played the game to show they belonged to a special group, those that were brave enough to play the rough game of football. The rest of the very conservative world looked on in disbelief as men of the time kept their hair very short and neatly groomed.

Other positives of 1890

This is believed to be a photograph of the first Army-Navy game. Note the military coats of the spectators in the background. U.S. Naval Academy records show that no other military school was played in 1890. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Another football tradition that is still carried on to this day was started in 1890. That was the first year that West Point Academy played Annapolis Naval Academy in a competitive game of football which goes down in history as the original Army Navy game. Our Friends Dan and Andrew Neumann of the "Hello Old Sports" podcast have a great segment on the whole history of the Army Navy Series!

Minnesota and Wisconsin Universities also started traditions in football that year as they each fielded a team and played each other. Could this be the start of the Big Ten Conference minus the other nine teams? One of those other nine, Iowa started a football program in 1890 also but joined a league called the Western Intercollegiate Football Association. Others newcomers to football that year that formed the Western league were Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. This explosion of growth saw many graduates of the eastern schools going west. It was reported that 45 former players of Yale, 35 from Princeton, and 24 from Harvard actively moved west and south to teach the game to others around the country! Is there any wonder why the football fever swept the country so rapidly?

Football was spreading quickly and ingenious minds were working out new concepts and strategies to find advantages over opponents. The challenge was now really on those of the rules makers to keep up with the other aspects of the game. Please look back soon for Part 14 of this series to see how they dealt with the issues. Right here on PigskinDispatch.com, your place for the good news about football.

We are able to give this in depth look from so long ago in history by careful research. Using someone who was contemporary to the period is the best source. So a very special shout out to our main source of reference information for this article is from Parke H. Davis in his 1911 book Football-The American Intercollegiate Game.

The picture in the banner above and throughout the article are from the Wikimedia Commons' collection. Yale 1890 team practice, photo is from Parke H. Davis' 1911 book, Football : The Intercollegiate Game