Football Enters the 20th Century

In this edition of the Football History Rewind, we will go through some of the most notable rules changes and events of American football in the 1901 season.

Football Enters the Twentieth Century

Pigskin Dispatch's Part 19 in the Series on American Football History

Football in the late 1890's was a period calmness in as far as changes and transformation of the game. Players and coaches used this period to perfect their systems and even to tweak old schemes to work under the new rules imposed in 1896.

Football in the new century: 1900

Walter Camp once again was thinking of strategy rather than rules revisions to preserve the game he helped to transform from rugby. Camp and a small group of men were exploring a novel idea of the Yale coach to take advantage of a common defensive line strategy of the day. It was common in 1900 for the defensive “rush-line forwards” as they were often called to charge their opposition low at the snap of the ball and to drive them backwards. Camp’s idea was to create a play that could use this forward momentum of the rush-line against them by devising a play that would create an opening quickly that could catch the defense off guard and render the front line ineffective because of being unable to re-establish their balance as a runner would shoot past them and their forward momentum. When a defensive forward shot forward he would have great difficulty in occupying coverage of a hole. The runner could then easily slip through before the defender could regain his position to stop the ball carrier.

What came of this was the re-incarnation of the famous Yale “tackle-back” play but this time it was used with a whole new strategy than it was a few years earlier. While Yale was pummeling opponents with their new offensive strategy in the East, Northwestern University had an effective tandem formation of its own in the Midwest.

Northwestern head coach, C.M. Hollister devised what was known at the time as the “Northwestern tandem.” In this formation there were four men in a direct line behind the center and perpendicular to the line of scrimmage. The first man was the quarterback and directly behind him was a large blocking back that was often referred to as a “heavy forward..” Behind these two men were the half backs. The offensive advantage was gained by not declaring a strong or weak side of the formation, thus keeping a defense honest to playing favoring one side or the other. The offense could then pick on a weak point of a rush-line by pounding two blocking backs through a hole ahead of the runner. The concept and strategy of the “I-formation” was born.

The calm before the storm?

The football rules makers were fairly content in 1900 and 1901 did little to employ new revisions to the game’s rules. Only a few changes took place in this period. One was a very important definition that would be the basis for the declaration of a score. A touchdown was defined as being made when, “any part of the ball is on, above, or across the goal-line.”

Other revisions at the time abolished obsolete play such as a “throw-in” similar to a modern basketball or soccer play to start play when a ball went out of bounds. This type of play had not been used since the early 1880's after the scrimmage was instituted but was still listed in the rules of the game. It is a good example of the complacency of the Rules Committee during this period so that they had time to take care of some of those housekeeping type issues that had been put off in past years due to bigger fish to fry. Football still had enemies though that used this calm period to gather ammunition to once again try and eliminate the sport from existence.  

The plot to get rid of football

There was still that part of the public that wanted the sport abolished due to its closeness of participants to each other which resulted in rough play. The years since 1896 rules reforms had seen a drastic decrease in injury to players but none the less. The football reformers also came to life and some wanted to use the situation to change football back to the wide open style of play it once had.

At the same time a professor at the University of Illinois was quietly keeping a precise record of football injury statistics. Both those pro and con to the current style of play awaited the results of Dr. Edwin G. Dexter’s stats once the rumor of the experiment was exposed to the public. The results were heavily in favor to the side supporting the current style of play and the reformist and abolitionists hopes were squandered for the time being.

The Rules Committee had a victory in this matter but they still recognized that they had to instill some aspect of wide open play to the current game in order to pacify reformists from future uprisings. Their answer was to change the rules to make it legal for the player who directly received the snap to be able advance the ball forward. Up till this time the ball could only be advanced by the second or more player who touched the ball after the snap. They were still cautious though as the forward run of the QB could only occur if he crossed the line of scrimmage five or more yards away from the point where the ball was actually snapped from.

This change resulted in the answer to a question that is very difficult to find. Why is football referred to as the “gridiron?” Go ahead and search online for the answer and I’ll bet your results will be mostly inconclusive. The real answer to this question can be answered in our next segment of “Football History Rewind” so please look back soon for part 20.

The 1901 season again came down to a final game in the East to help shape the championship picture. Harvard and Yale met.

This college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book listing Michigan, Yale, and Harvard as having been selected retrospectively as national champions. The 1934 and 1935 Spalding Football Guides says that Parke H. Davis was once again the lone selector of Yale to the title but others have found this to be an agredious error. Even  the 1995 through 2009 NCAA Division publications lists Davis as selecting Yale as the 1901 Champs. The beleif is that after Davis died in 1934, a man named Walter Okeson took over the position of selecting the football champs of yesteryear for the Spalding Guide. In the 1934 and 1935 editions of the Guide, Okeson allegedly posted the retrospective postings of the selections of top teams that Parke Davis had recorded before his death. Errantly Okeson, recorded that Davis selected Yale as the 1901 National Champions eventhough, rival Harvard pounded them soundly. Other reports show that Davis selected Harvard as the champs of 1901, which makes a whole lot more sense. I think Davis recommendations of prior years may have been erroneously recorded as well when the records show he selected Yale teams that were defeated by a more definitive top team. This is confirmed in a Chicago Tribune article on December 31, 1901 stating that Harvard was the undisputed champions. An article written just a couple of days before an event that would confirm Michigan belonged in the conversation.

31 Dec 1901, Tue Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) Newspapers.com

Any how the selection committees of Helms Athletic Association in 1941, Houlgate System as late as 1926, and the National Championship Foundation in 1980 picked Michigan at 11-0 as the top team and the Billingsley Report chose Harvard with their stellar 12-0 record. Fielding H. Yost was in just his first year at the helm of the U of M program. Yost inaugural Wolverine eleven was the first of the Coach's famed "Point-a-Minute" teams, so named for their high scoring offense. From 1901 to 1905, Yost's Michigan teams compiled a record of 55–1–1 and outscored their opponents by a combined score of 2,821 to 42. The Wolverines gave further confirmation of being the best with the very first collegiate football bowl game was played following the 1901 season. Originally titled the "Tournament East-West football game" what is now known as the Rose Bowl Game was first played on January 1, 1902, in Pasadena, California. Michigan defeated a 3-1 Stanford handily by the score of 49–0. It is too bad that Michigan was not pitted against possibly a more worthy opponent for the first Grand Daddy of the All.  Another consideration that many may have over looked for the top spot, would be the University of California who finished with a great 9-0-1 record. 

On the professional level of the game we had a new contender at the top.  In earlier posts on Pigskin Dispatch we discussed how William Chase Temple took over the Duquesne Country and Athletic Club, becoming the first individual team owner in professional football in 1898. In 1900, most of the Duquesne players were hired by the Homestead Library & Athletic Club, by offering them higher wages than their previous employer would but that was because William Chase Temple, who also had minor ownership the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, took over the payrole of that squad. 

This Homestead team went undefeated in 1901 defeating all opponents including a tough Philadelphia Quakers squad headed by former Penn Star, Blondy Wallace. We covered these very good Homestead Stars teams in our early pro football teams section.

Special thanks to the banner photo above from an unknown photographer and contributor to the public domain of Wikimedia Commons. The Pic is of the Photograph of 1901 Michigan Wolverines football team.