Football 1904

In this edition of the Football History Rewind, we discuss the 1904 season with its new rules, and top teams of the college and professional levels.

In 1904 the game of football was at a point where changes were occurring on and off of the field. Bad press on how brutal the game was were mounting and the games detractors were popping up almost everywhere. Rules makers and administrators were still scratching their heads on what to do to help the sport survive the onslaught of negativity.

Rules Revisions of 1904

Perhaps the biggest change to the rules in 1904 was the award for a successful field goal. In previous years a kick between the pipes was worth 5 points, the same as a touchdown at that point. A TD was increased from four to five points in 1898 as you remember and crossing the goal line with the ball would not take the final jump to being a 6-pointer until 1912.

Another rule revision adopted in 1904 stemmed out of compormise to a 1903 rule according to Timothy Brown's book How Football Became Football. The 1903 rule allowed the player receiving the snap to run with the ball provided that they stayed with in five yards right or left of the center but only outside each 25-yard line. To aid officials in the task of determining the distance the home team was required to mark a five yard grid-pattern from one 25 stripe all the way to the other 25 at the opposite end of the field. The 1904 revision expanded this checkerboard grid marking pattern from goal line to goal line. Timothy Brown points out that some schools to save a couple buck on chalk only partially marked the five yard grids at the intersections with other lines, thus the fisrt sembelance of our modern hash marks were set upon a football field.

Tops in Collegiate ball in 1904

University of Pennsylvania football team in action, 1904 Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, donated by Fielding Yost.

The debate on who the National Champions of College football yet again had multiple entries set forth years later by experts. The National Championship Foundation named Michigan at 10-0 and Penn at 12-0 as the co-champs for 1904. Parke H. Davis and the Helms groups decided that the Penn Quakers solely earned the right to the title. The website TipTop25.com has some intresting twists to throw out there for who should claim the title. They pit Minnesota with a 14-0 record and Yale at 10-1 as having claims to the national Championship as well.

Yale's only set back was a 6-11 loss to Army, but a loss is a loss and I think in my mind they are out of the contention for the top spot.

The University of Pittsburgh in 1904 was known as the Western University of Pennsylvania, and they were considered by many experts to be a sibling school to Penn. Western would adopt their current name of Pitt until 1908. WUP ended up 10-0 on the 1904 season, but their qualiity of opponents was not anywhere near the other three schools in contention. Vanderbilt, also had a 10-0 record that year but again they played weaker teams than Michigan, Penn and Minnesota.

TipTop25 went through a really nice selection process of engaging a mock AP ranking for the opponents of each team and they have selected the Penn Quakers as the outright winners of the 1904 National Championship.

On the 1904 Pro Circuit

At the end of the 1903 season a siesmic shift in where the professional level of the gridiron was centered occurred. Pro football sprung up in western Pennsylvania in 1892 as you remember and the top teams from the late 1890s through 1903 when Franklin, PA claimed the title were pretty much a Pennsylvania dominated thing. This changed though at the tail end of the 1903 season when professional football was glamourized in Ohio when the Massillon Tigers, a strong amateur team, hired four Pittsburgh Stars paid roster members to play in the season-ending game against local rival Akron.  We know from our friend author Gregg Ficery, that his great-Grandfather, Bob Shiring was one of these four Pittsburgh players on  the Massillon roster in 1904.  Other Pittsburgh Stars former players that migrated West to massillon were; Jack Lang and Harry McChesney. The ProFootballHOF.com says this about the pro football locational shift:

"At the same time, pro football declined in the Pittsburgh area, and the emphasis on the pro game moved west from Pennsylvania to Ohio."

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons public domain collection of the 1905 team photo of the Massillon Tigers, taken by an unknown photographer.

The State of Ohio in 1904 had at least 7 or 8 teams considered to be paid and professional according to the American Football Database.  The Massillon Tigers, Columbus Panhandles, Canton Bulldogs, Akron East Ends, Toledo Maroons, Franklin Athletic Club of Cleveland, Shelby Blues, and the Shelby Athletic Club. Speaking of the Shelby A.C. they made history in 1904 by signing halfback Charles Follis to a contract, making him the first known black pro football player.

Massillon won the Ohio Independent Championship, and that was basically national pro title of 1904. Rumors surfaced about forming an Ohio state-wide league to control the out of control paleyer salaries brought about by constant bidding for players and to write universal rules for the game. A proposal to add teams from outside Ohio, such as the Latrobe Athletic Association, to form a formal league known as the "Football Association" fell through prior to the 1904 season. However this very weak attempt to start league failed and thus the mythical Ohio League kept the course as the main quasi-organized professional football in the land.

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 is from the the Wikimedia Commons public domain collection of the 1905 team photo of the Massillon Tigers.