College Football

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Ever seen a penalty flag thrown and wondered, "Wait, why'd they move the ball THAT far?" Well, friends, get ready to dive into the strange world of "half-the-distance" penalties in American football!

These penalties, often triggered by infractions inside a team's own territory, can result in some truly eye-opening yardage assessments. Today, we'll be tackling some of the longest half-the-distance penalties in NFL history. We'll be dissecting the plays, the penalties, and the impact they had on the game. Were they backbreakers for the offending team? Did they create crazy scoring opportunities for the defense?

So, buckle up, football fans! Let's get ready to analyze some of the most unusual and potentially game-changing penalties the NFL has ever seen!

Let's listen to some of the most extended half-the-distance penalties in Football History by Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on the Longest Half-Distance Penalties

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. We also have another great episode where we get to talk to Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com. Talk about one of his most recent tidbits. Some of those unique aspects of football history.

Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Thank you, Darin. I Look forward to talking about the penalty situation in football.

Yeah, this is a very fascinating tidbit you had back in late May. It was titled football's longest half the distance penalty. Now we're we're sitting there, you know, in our modern times, we think of a half a distance penalty.

You know, somebody gets penalized and gets the penalty, gets walked back towards their own goal line. And usually, maybe they're at the nine-yard line, and it's, you know, a holding call, and they got to walk back to the four and a half or whatever. That's what we're doing.

But you're talking about something entirely different here as far as yardage. It's not a four-and-a-half-yard walk-off. These are some of the massive jaunts for the teams to travel.

So please do tell. You know, I mean, so early football didn't necessarily have distance penalties as we think of them today. Typically, the penalty for the fouls that were called was the loss of the ball.

You know, it was a turnover. But then they, you know, kind of recognized those were too severe. So then they started, you know, especially after the field got marked with yard lines, and they started doing distance penalties.

And so in 1889, there were they created that was the first half the distance penalties, and that was for, you know, intentionally tackling below the knees because you couldn't tackle below the knees, then budding, tripping and throttling, which was choking. And so that penalty was 25 yards or half the distance. And then, you know, later on, they started doing some things where it was.

Like in 1908, they kind of bundled all the unsportsmanship penalties together, and they made it if you committed an unsportsmanlike penalty, then you were disqualified and your team was penalized half the distance. And that that stayed in place till like 1947. And then then they limited the half distance to to 15 yards.

Right. So you couldn't be more than it was, whichever was 15 yards or half the distance, but Max was 15 yards. And so that's, you know, like you said in the open, it was, we think of a half a distance, half the distance penalty is applying when you're inside your own 30.

Right. If you're at the 45, either either 45, it doesn't matter. It's just whatever the normal penalty is.

And, you know, we cap them at 15 yards nowadays, but 25-yard penalties used to be pretty common. So, you know, before we kept them, there was the opportunity in a half-the-distance world for some really long penalties. And now, I mean.

I'm kind of limited by the way I can search in these newspaper databases, so I'm searching for keywords and strings of words. So I can't say that I found the longest. It's what I found that was the longest that I found, but it's still pretty long.

So the longest one that I came across was in a 1901 game Northwestern against Minnesota. Northwestern was in the red zone. They were on Minnesota's eight yard line.

A Northwestern player jumped off the side and slugged a Minnesota player. So they called the penalty. So they were on the eight.

This was in the days of the 110-yard field. So that meant that you know, 110 minus eight was 104 or no, I'm sorry, 102. And so they walked off a 51-yard penalty against Northwestern, which took the ball, as it turned out, it took the ball all the way back to Northwestern's 51-yard line.

Right. And then, in 1906, I found Vanderbilt got nailed for a 32-yard penalty in the same year Penn State got hit with a 30-yard penalty. And then, at that point, I stopped looking.

You know, I mean, I found a couple of instances, and then, in 1912, they reduced the length of the field to 100 yards. So there's no way you were going to have a 50 another 51 yard penalty. So anyway, it's possible that there was a 52, 53, or 54-yard penalty at some point out there.

I didn't find it. But if somebody else wants to go look at it and let me know if you find it. But, you know, it's still it's just kind of, you know, really fun.

And that that these existed. And then, but even after the field was reduced, you know, the thirty-three Pittsburgh Pirates running back was heading into the head, headed towards the end zone. Stiff arms the opponent but stiff arms him in the face.

And he gets called for an unsportsmanlike penalty at the two-yard line. So, there is a forty-nine-yard penalty as they walk off half the distance. Right.

So that's likely the longest or at least ties for the longest. So in the hundred yard NFL officials have been against the Steelers even before they were the Steelers back in the Pirates days in the first year. Yeah.

Thirty-three. I'm not going to play your game there with the officials who do not understand your Steelers. But the other thing that's just kind of funny is, OK, so now this half-the-distance thing is capped, you know, at 15 yards.

But you mentioned your favorite Steelers and now I grew up a Packer fan, but I've lived in Detroit long enough that there is a certain amount of lioness that has become part of my body. So I can appreciate, given the Lions history, that in 2015, a cornerback to the Lions incurred a 66 yard pass interference penalty. Because, you know, in the NFL, pass interference is a spot foul, right? Right.

So 66 yards downfield, he committed a little P.I. And so it was the Packers, which was OK by my standards. So, you know, 66 yards on a penalty. Yeah, those are astounding facts.

I did an article last year. I did some of the NFL's longest fourth and yardage to go penalties. It was it was fascinating.

I mean, we had a fourth and twenty nine that was converted by Ray Rice in 2012. The Oakland Raiders had a third and forty eight against Kansas City that I think they end up getting first down back in 2013. But in 1971, the Patriots had fourth and sixty three against the Cowboys.

And the biggest one, though, was my Steelers had fourth and seventy four against the Raiders in 1970. And they punted and the punt only traveled fifty five yards. So they were still 20 yards behind the sticks after the fun.

There were no half-the-distance penalties. I was going through that earlier to see if I could find something in there that helps your story, but that's just part of the thing. Like before, like in college football, you really don't have much in the way of there are no consistent statistics until thirty-six or thirty-eight, which it is.

But even then, it was just a subset of all the major colleges. So so, you know, the things so looking for like the longest half the distance penalty, there's no source. You know, there's no database that has that.

You know, you can only search for it using like newspaper databases and, you know, those kinds of things. But the other thing that it brings up and I wanted to ask you about it as a former official. Is, you know, one of the one of the problems football had over the years was.

The lengthier the penalty, the more reluctant officials often were to call the penalty. Because, you know, they you know, they didn't want to be the ones deciding the game. I mean, they would if need be.

But on things like, you know, a lot of the early clipping calls, they weren't, and they didn't want to call clipping. You know, it's kind of just the nature of the game. People accepted it.

So things like that, you know, that. So, that was one of the reasons they got rid of those 25-yard penalties. You know, it just was too much of they felt like it put too much power in the hands of an official who often were overworked back then, especially, you know, they you had three or four men, four-man crews trying to figure out what, you know, watching everybody on the field.

You know, it just wasn't possible. Yeah, I think it's a lot of human nature. I mean, most people, and I will put most before that, don't want to inflict the ultimate sentence upon their fellow man.

So, I mean, it's just human nature. You don't want to do it. I mean, one of the things I guess we could compare in modern times is somebody getting a little loose with their arms against another player.

It's taking a swing at them. And, you know, in high school football, even a swing and a miss is an automatic ejection. And most states have it where you will not play the next game after if you're ejected in a game, you're disqualified not only for that game but for the following game.

So you're really punishing him. So so that goes to the back of officials minds. I mean, it's got to be something very blatant to to get ejected from a game for the most part, especially when you know you're going to get dequeued for the following contest.

But I think that has some merit to what you're saying. A 25-yard penalty. That's that's pretty substantial.

You know, that's a quarter of the field. And could definitely change a game in a heartbeat. Well, you know, but if you think about, you know, back to the origins of penalties, penalties were turnovers or fouls, you know, were turnovers.

The penalty was the loss of the ball. So, you know, forward passes until 1906 forward passes the turnover, you know, on sportsmanship on sportsmen like, you know, conduct until 1889 was a turnover. So, you know, and then dequeues were, you know, much more common.

I mean, people should get up in arms about targeting disqualifications now. But, you know, hey, to me, if, you know, if you if you're going to endanger, you know, if you're going to endanger another player, then that's not good. And I personally love what college football does with the targeting.

And, you know, it's called on the field, and they really take a great look at it to make sure that the official on the field was calling it on the spot to get it right, says it is going to be an impactful thing. It might be the star linebacker getting ejected or staying in the game. You know, it's so many times you see that happen in the last couple of years since they've been doing that and enforcing it and even getting rid of the penalty.

Sometimes I think it's a great thing for football. And I'm glad that they do that. Yeah.

And I mean, people go, and people make a lot of arguments against it. And, you know, hey, you know, when I played, I was aggressive with Bob about, you know, whatever, go ahead and tell your story. But it's like.

You know, you just have to learn not to hit that way in that situation. You know, they all know where the sideline is. They all know, you know, things like when the ball's coming and you can't hit the pass receiver until he gets a ball, all those things.

They're aware. And so, to me, I don't buy the argument that, you know, it can't be controlled. Right.

Go lower. Go higher. Don't hit the guy in the head.

A good legal tackle has just as much impact, I think, as somebody crushing somebody in the head or whatever. And the guy's probably not going to be hurt, you know, by a good tackle on the midsection. You know, just a good wrap-up.

So, yeah, I think that goes a lot to teach the teaching technique of modern coaches. You know, just teach them to hit and wrap up and take a guy down instead of trying to take him down with a blow. Yeah.

You don't need to decapitate. Right. Right.

Well, Tim, great stuff. Great discussion. You know, I know we got a little bit off-topic with the half-distance penalties, but it brings up so many great elements of football, of the game of yesteryear and today.

And you do that each and every day with some of these tidbits, just like this one, where you bring up something that's maybe not the mainstream talk of football history or even modern-day football, but you bring it into a new light and a story of its own. And we'd love for you to share with the listeners how they, too, can enjoy these on a daily basis. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, I just try to find things that I think are interesting every day and that shed light on past practices and hopefully illuminate something about the current game, at least something that we can compare ourselves to. And so, you know, if you're interested in following, just go to footballarchaeology.com and subscribe.

You'll get an email every day in your inbox at 7 o'clock Eastern that has that story. And otherwise, you can follow me on Twitter at football archaeology. Either way, if you're interested, consume it however it is that makes you happy.

Well, Tim, we thank you for once again joining us here. And I'm going to throw this out here, Tim, and hopefully you won't get angry with me. But these are such interesting things.

And I'm sure there are a lot of listeners who may have questions about where something started in football. And maybe we could get them in contact with you. And maybe on a future show, we could answer some of those questions.

So either you go on to Tim's website, footballarchaeology.com, or you can email me at pigskin-dispatch at gmail.com. And send in your questions about where something started. And maybe Tim has it in one of his multiple books or on one of his tidbits. And if not, he loves to put on that research hat and hit the library hard and the newspaper archives.

And we'll try to find something for you. So, Tim, thanks again. And we will talk to you again next week.

Very good. Darin, thank you very much, as always.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Football Archaeology's Timothy Brown shares the story of an interesting field equipment predicament that occurred in a 1974 college football game.

It is an odd case of game management versus fandom and how the outcome of a game was at stake.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on the Missing Goal Post

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal for positive football history, and welcome to another Tuesday where we get to go to footballarchaeology.com's Timothy P. Brown, pick his brain a little bit, and talk about one of his recent tidbits. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, thanks, Darin. Looking forward to talking again and talking about something that goes missing. Yeah, and we've been missing you since last week, but that's not the missing that we're going to be talking about today.

You're going to talk about a recent tidbit you titled, The Case of the Missing Goalposts.

It sounds like a Sherlock Holmes theater here for footballarchaeology.com. I can get that in my mouth, right?

Well, I was a Hardy Boys guy as a kid, so everything was The Case of the Treasure Chest. I think Nancy drew, too, but I wasn't into Nancy. Yeah, so this one, The Case of the Missing Goalposts, goes back to the old, I should say, Princeton and Rutgers.

They played the first intercollegiate soccer games in 1869. Note, I did say soccer there, but then eventually they started playing football, gridiron football. They're very close together geographically, and so they played 60-some times, whatever it was, over the years.

Princeton totally dominated the match or the matchups, but starting in the 60s, Rutgers started winning a lot. Then, they became the dominant team. It's somewhere along the lines in the 60s that, back then, there were a lot of... Nowadays, hardly anybody tears down the goalposts because they used to... Number one, they used to be constructed of primary wood, so they're easier to tear down.

We didn't have the same level of security, and there were a lot of those. The other thing was that a little bit later on, when goalposts got torn down, a couple of people got injured, and then they sued the universities and so on. Anyway, it's easier to get into Fort Knox now than it is to tear down some goalposts.

They just made it nearly impossible to tear down a goalpost. Back in the 60s, it was very common, 50s as well. People just tore them down all the time.

What happened in the Princeton and Rutgers series was that no matter where the game was being played, the winning team and their fans tore down the goalposts. Then, there were a couple of occasions where they tore them down before the game was over. That happened in 1974 when Rutgers scored a touchdown earlier in the game.

They didn't make the extra points. They were leading six nothing with three and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter. Princeton gets the ball and they start driving.

They drive all the way down. Partly during the time that they're driving, the Rutgers fans come onto the field and tear down the goalposts at both ends. Now the field doesn't have goalposts.

With 22 seconds left, Princeton scores. It's 6-6. They've got an opportunity to go for the extra point or the two-point conversion.

They want to go for the extra point, but there's no goalposts to kick towards. The officiating crew gets together, and then they bring the coaches in, and they're having a conversation. The Princeton AD tells the referee that they've got a spare goalpost sitting on the stands, and they can have it up in five minutes.

Somehow, that got lost in the translation, and the referee didn't hear that. He basically thought they could start building a new goalpost in five minutes. They start looking at whether they should go over to a practice facility outside the stadium. The referee didn't want to go there because they were already having control issues.

He's like, I don't even know how far away this practice facility is. Then, Princeton volunteered their cheerleaders, had one cheerleader mount and stand on the shoulders of another cheerleader, and held the crossbar in place. Then they'd attempt to kick.

I'm just imagining an errant kick, like the double doink, and taking a cheerleader out. Yeah, it's a risk to the profession. Ultimately, the ref just knows, Princeton, it's on your home field.

You're responsible for field security. It doesn't matter who tore the things down. No goalposts, you have to go for two.

So Princeton goes for two. They don't make it. So the game ends in a 6-6 tie.

But basically, after that, that game is 74. In 75, the NCAA had a requirement that facilities had to have a spare set of goalposts that could be put up rapidly if they fell down during the game. But again, it was this kind of stuff that kind of encouraged the adoption of the, some people call it the fork of a slingshot style, single post goalpost and then fortified with depleted uranium or something.

They make those things, titanium, whatever it is. Those things do not come down. Except for that Fanville commercial and Dr. Pepper commercial a couple of years ago, where Brian Bosworth is the cop, and he's looking for the missing goalposts.

One guy has a satellite dish up on it, and the other one across the street is a swing set, and he can't find the slingshot goalpost. Well, I know that a lot of people are fans of the Dr. Pepper commercials. I don't count in that group.

I just said it because I had the reference of the missing goalpost. That's actually pretty funny when you watch it. Kind of clever.

Yeah. Actually, some of them are pretty good. Yeah.

But that's just something that sounds so foreign. It sounds like something maybe would happen in 1911, but in 1974, this is modern-era football and a goalpost for two major colleges playing each other. That's just crazy.

It's unbelievable that within 50 years ago. Yeah. It's like anything else.

Until something happens, you don't make the rules, or you don't make the investment. It's just easier. Back then it was kind of like, well, yeah, the kids are going to tear them down.

So let's make them cheap because they're going to tear them down anyway. And then somebody went the other direction and said, I'm going to build me a fine goalpost. So that's what we have today.

Yeah. The next thing you know, we're going to have bands out on the field before the game's over. Oh wait, that did happen, too.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh boy.

Tim, that is some great stuff. And we always enjoy your tidbits each and every day for stories just like this and learn something new from 50 years ago or a hundred and some years ago. And we really appreciate that.

And there are folks out there who would like to get in on the action, too, and read your tidbits each and every day. Maybe you could give them some information to share. Sure.

The best way to get to the tidbits is to go to www.footballarchaeology.com and subscribe. You can subscribe for free, and then you'll get an email every day with that day's story. You can also get the Substack app or follow Football Archaeology.

You can also follow me on threads or on Twitter. And I post on both of those locations every day. All right.

Well, Timothy P. Brown, footballarchaeology.com. We really appreciate you. And we will talk to you again next Tuesday.

Very good.Thank you, sir.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Have you ever wondered how American football evolved from its rugby roots into the juggernaut sport it is today? The answer might surprise you, and it involves a surprising organization – the YMCA.

Today, we're thrilled to welcome Timothy P. Brown, the mastermind behind the fascinating website footballarchaeology.com. Mr. Brown has dedicated his research to uncovering the forgotten stories and hidden origins of the game we love.

In this special post, we'll delve into the often-overlooked role the YMCA played in shaping American football. Through a conversation with Mr. Brown, we'll explore how this organization fostered the development of the sport, nurtured its early pioneers, and ultimately helped lay the groundwork for the gridiron giants we witness today.

So, buckle up and get ready to embark on a journey through the fascinating history of American football, where we'll unearth the surprising influence of the YMCA!

Here is the full transcript of the conversation with Timothy Brown on the YMCA's influence on football

Darin Hayes
Welcome again to the pig pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to Tuesday football, archeology .com day. Timothy P. Brown, the host of that website, is here to visit again, as he does every Tuesday. Tim, welcome back to the pig pen.

Timothy Brown
Hey, thank you, Darin. I'm looking forward to talking about a song. Well, it's not; it's about a subject related to a song that we can't talk about and that we can't sing or play because of copyright restrictions.

Darin Hayes
But, audience, we can share with you that Tim is dressed like an Indian chief, and I am dressed like a construction worker as we are talking about the subject, but we're just kidding. But of course, we are talking about the great organization of the YMCA. We have probably heard of that before or attended or taken some swimming classes like I did; I have one not too far from me. And we have some great ties in football history with the YMCA history that Tim had in a recent tidbit. So Tim, why don't you take it away and share this great story with us?

Timothy Brown
Yeah, so, you know, this is one of these. One of the things that fascinates me about football is that it is a different type of organization that supported and helped football grow, especially in the early years. And so we tend to think of football as this thing that's run through schools, and then obviously, it became professionalized. And so the NFL and AFL and AFC and, you know, various semi-pro teams, whatever they're, you know, but there were, you know, back in the day, there were organizations like the American Legion after World War One, there were all kinds of industrial leagues, some of which are where the basis of the NFL, right. So, different kinds of organizations have influenced football's growth and one that is vastly underestimated, I think, by many is the YMCA. And so it came about in a couple of different ways. One is that, back in, you know, one of the arguments for playing football and justification for football was the Muscular Christianity Movement that came out of England. And so it's just kind of this, this belief in the mind and the body and the spirit and that, you know, football was a way to meld, you know, that all three of them came together in football and provided good training for young men who needed to be hardy, you know, da da da. And so, that philosophy matched very well with the YMCA, which also had, I believe, come out of England, but in any event, the YMCA had a school that is now Springfield College in Massachusetts, that was was a school to train people to go out into the world and be YMCA directors. So I mean, it was kind of like a seminary, or you can think about it however you want. But you know, this is when there weren't physical education majors anywhere, and if you wanted to become somebody who would go out and teach, you know, physical fitness. You know, you also bought into some of the, you know, the religious side of it, then the YMCA training school was the place to be. And so, you know, right after he graduated from, from Yale in 1890, Amos Alonzo Stagg shows up, but, you know, he becomes the football coach and, well, basketball wasn't invented yet, but he was a football coach and baseball coach at YMCA training school. Now, in those days, he also played for them. So he was, you know, a player-coach. And, you know, they played typically a bit of a, you know, and, you know, they kept playing, you know, for years, they're still playing today in Springfield, but, you know, they would like a lot of schools in the Northeast States to step up and play, you know, Harvard and Yale here and there. Most of them played, you know, a smaller college schedule, but they played; they were very competitive and had a lot of good players. And one of the guys on Stagg's teams, the two years that he coached there before he went to UChicago, one of the guys was John Naismith, who ended up inventing basketball while at Springfield. And another guy who's a little bit later was William Morgan, who invented volleyball. So, these schools were pretty influential and certainly created those two sports. And, and then, you know, playing football. And so, but, you know, their impact came from World War One. And the YMCA and its role is kind of underappreciated, you know, in training camp, any American training camp around the world, and then even those, like rest camps and stuff, you know, once and once they're in Belgium and France, and in England, had a YMCA hut. And so these were typically fairly simple structures. But, you know, they, they had stationery for the guys to write home, they had, you know, a library, just they taught classes, especially, you know, there was a lot of, you know, they weren't GIs yet, but they were, you know, the doughboys, a lot of them couldn't speak English, so they teach English classes. But another big emphasis was that they supplied, you know, what would be the equivalent now of $80 million worth of athletic equipment to soldiers. Now that was basketballs and tennis rackets, etc. But football was a big one. And so, if there were athletic events at a military camp in World War One, it was likely very much, you know, YMCA involvement in it. And so, you know, these are especially like the interregimental games rather than the all-star teams for a camp. So, you know, that was an opportunity, you know, this is a time when I think it was less than 5% of Americans went to college. And so they, you know, they might have played for some rinky-dink little high school team in the little farm town that they grew up in. This became an opportunity for them to experience, you know, well-coached, you know, and more sophisticated football. And so it was, you know, it really kind of democratized football, you know, the World War One camps. Because, I mean, the vast majority of guys of that age range, you know, served in some form or capacity or their brother did or, you know, so it, you know, really spurred interest in football. And, you know, there's many, you know, folks that had made the case that, you know, that military football in World War One was a key to spurring the development of the NFL, you know, because it just demonstrated that people would come and attend games played by these former collegians, these college all-stars that, you know, nobody had said that they would do that before, you know, the NFL before that, you know, the pro leagues before that were mostly like kind of steel town folks and guys who, yeah, some of them went to college, and some of them didn't. Still, it was, you know, more of a semi-pro field than what came in the 20s, you know, and then obviously really took off in the 50s and 60s. So anyways, it's just, you know, the YMCA is one of those organizations you don't think of as being influential in the development of football, but it was. And there was, you know, physical instruction for the Navy anyway. Was this guy named Walter Camp? So, I mean, they were connected, right?

Darin Hayes
Yeah, another interesting story comes out of that with Nay Smith and a connection to football innovation. And I wrote an article about three years ago about who was the first to wear a helmet was the question and nay, smith's name is thrown in there because he, he, I wouldn't say that he wore a helmet. He had a; it was described as his, uh, he was getting cauliflower ear from getting knocked around playing the line, you know, in 1891 game against Amherst is what I sort of narrowed down to going through some of the descriptions of it. I think that's a game on October 17th, 1891. His girlfriend at the time helped sew some flannel together and tie it around his ears so he wouldn't get boxed and be irritated with his ears. It was one of the first head coverings in football that was publicized. Uh, they were not like a rag tied around your head or something, you know, but something for protection on your head. So, it's just odd that, here, the inventor of basketball who gets credited, played at this small college and has had so many great sports sprout out of it and so many great sports stories that connect to football. I think that's just amazing. Yeah.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, he, well, he, I've used that image of Naismith with that headgear, I think, in one of my books, but you know, definitely in some of the writing. And I know I got that I got, you know, Naismith was Canadian. So I got that image from their equivalent of the National Archives; whatever, I can't think of the name right now. But yeah, it's a great image. He's playing center; he's snapping the ball with his hands. And, he's got that, the thing wrapped around his head. Yeah, I, you never know, you never know where stories will come from. And, and the, you know, what I enjoy is, you know, the links of one thing to another. Yeah, so that's fun.

Darin Hayes
And I think it's interesting, too, if you can; you made me think about it in this context. So here you have Amos Alonzo Stagg, who, I assume, graduated from Yale. I think he graduated from there. Yeah. So he graduates from Yale and gets his master's in a phys ed degree at YMCA school. Just today, we look at him like, Hey, what the hell was that? You know, you went to Yale, you know, and are going to get a phys ed degree, you know, but

Timothy Brown
Well, you know, he was. I think he was a divinity student at Yale, but I'm not positive.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, I think you're right.

Timothy Brown
But he was definitely, I mean, his whole upbringing, a very religious man. And, and so, yeah, it made sense. Right. And, and some of his, you know, the guy who became president at U Chicago, knew him at Yale because he'd been, you know, faculty there. And just, you know, so he knew the character of Stagg. And, you know, he's an excellent athlete, one of the best baseball pitchers of his time. And so, that's part of why he said, hey, I want you to come out here.

Darin Hayes
I'm just putting in today's context. If my kid graduates from Ivy League after paying that and says, hey, I'm going to go to community college to get a phys ed degree too, because that's what I want to do. You're like, what do you mean you'll do that? You know, let me choke you first. But yeah, great stuff. That is a very interesting story. And it has so many webs and tentacles coming off, and it's just awesome. And I'm sure, you know, that connects to a bunch of your other tidbits. And you have these tidbits to come out every day, about 7 pm. They're very enjoyable. And, you know, talk about some great parts of football history that aren't mainstream but are very interesting. Indeed, maybe if you could share how folks could get their hands on those every day, too, that would be some enjoyment for them.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, so, you know, my site is footballarchaeology.com. You just go out there and subscribe, and once you're subscribed, you'll get an email with that day's story every day. And then, you know, kind of read them at your leisure. Alternatively, I'm under the same name, Football Archaeology; I'm on Twitter threads and on the sub-stack application. So, however, it works for you, if you want to read it, that's how you get to me.

Darin Hayes
Well, that's very good, Tim. We appreciate you preserving that football history each and every day, coming on each week, and sharing with us. And, uh, we want to talk to you again next week, and we appreciate you.

Timothy Brown
Thank you. That's very good. I look forward to it.

---

We have games in recent times where punters have seldom taken the field. These are generally either high-scoring affairs or games with a bunch of turnovers, or both.

Times have changed. it used to be that punting was one of the most successful weapons of an offense. A team may even doi it on first down to try and flip the field.

Timothy Brown explores this with us in a conversation about one of his Tidbits on football archaeology.com but also tells of a game with a crazy amount of punts.

-Transcribed Conversation of Punting 67 Times with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. Welcome to another edition, where we will visit with our friend Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Good to see you again. Looking forward to having a little chat about football history. Yeah, this is a really interesting and unique point in football history.

I don't know if I've ever heard of this before until I was reading your tidbit recently, and you titled it, when it rains, it punts 65 times. Now, tell us, somebody punted in a game, or two teams punted a game 65 times. Can that actually be? Yes, it's even worse than that.

In another game, they punted 77 times. Oh, my goodness. So this is, I mean, I think a lot of times with people are kind of football history geeks, they're aware of the 1939 Texas Tech Centenary game.

And that was played in Shreveport. So Centenary was the home team. And it was just, I don't know if there was a hurricane that had come through or whatever, but it was raining.

And just, you know, so you just think about it. It was raining a lot in Louisiana that weekend. And so they, you know, play their game on a Saturday afternoon.

And it was just such a mess. I mean, back then teams punted a lot anyways. But it was just at the Centenary game, it was just, it's like a quagmire, just a muddy field, just puddles of water, you know, a couple of inches of water standing on the field.

These teams, basically, couldn't move the ball very well. You know, the balls were just like waterlogged. You certainly couldn't pass it.

So they just resorted to pretty much punting on almost every down. You know, they get the ball, and they just turn around and punt it, hoping that the other team is going to fumble it. And there were a lot of fumbles in the game.

But, you know, so they were basically playing the field position thing. And so, in the Texas Tech Centenary game, they literally punted 77 times in the game. So that was the all-time record.

There were 12 NCAA records set in that game, the record for most punts, most punt yardage, most punt returns, most punt return yardage, and then like individual records for most punts, most punt returns, most punt yardage, yada, yada, yada. And so actually this game also holds the NCAA record where most records set in the game. So it's just one of those really bizarre games and it ends in a 0-0 tie.

So I'd been aware of this game for some time. And then, one way or another, while researching something else, I came across a game that was played the same day and two hours north by interstate today. Now there weren't interstates then, but you know, so somewhere not that far north.

And it was a game between Wichita Baptist and Arkansas Teachers College, now Central Arkansas. And so, like the Centenary Texas Tech game, it was tied 0-0 at the half. You know, same kind of thing; they're punting all the time.

So then six minutes into the third quarter, Wachita punts for the 46th time or between the two teams, you know, they executed the 46th punt of the game, and it goes out of bounds at the yard line of Arkansas teachers. So, what do Arkansas teachers do? They say, okay, we're going to punt. So on first down, they try to punt, but the ball's blocked, or the punt is blocked, rolls into the end zone, and the punter falls on it for a safety.

And then, you know, so now it's 2-0. And basically, the rest of the game is the same stuff. It's one punt after another or nearly so.

And so, you know, they ended up this in that game, they ended up 65 times they punted from scrimmage. There was also the punt following the safety. So, you know, they really had 66 punts in the game.

So, but at least, you know, the game ended in a 2-0 score. So, at least, they did that. They punted all those times, and at least they came out with a winner.

Whereas the other game was a tie game. So it was like, yeah, nothing even happened, right? So anyway, it's just absolutely crazy to think about, you know, in the days before effective drainage systems on a lot of these fields, and you get enough water, and there's just not a whole lot we can do. Yeah.

Okay. Now I've got a question. All right.

Now, I understand the concept of punting. The rules, you know, were somewhat different back and back even before this. White teams punted when they got in trouble deep in their own end, but in an era where you're not throwing a forward pass as much as we do today. And we know, you know, like the old saying, there are only three things that can happen when you throw a pass, and two of them are bad.

Well, snapping a punt, which is, you know, a long backward pass, somebody going between their legs to something they're not really seeing really well, they're snapping somebody standing back there. That seems like a pretty dangerous operation. And why would you do that so often on a muddy field? I understand if you're deep in your own territory. Wouldn't it be safer to try to run and maybe get some yardage and punt on fourth down? Yeah.

And I suspect that they weren't long snapping the way we do today. You know, so you know, back then, a lot of times, even, you know, a lot of times, teams punted in much more of a, a quick kick kind of style. So they might snap back to the tailback and a wing, single-wing formation.

And, you know, just the nature of it was that people had such trouble. The players had so much trouble getting footing that they couldn't, you know, typically they weren't able to rush the punter very effectively. Now, you know, obviously, they did once, once in the game, because they blocked that punt, you know, and it ended up, you know, in safety, but there, there weren't a bunch of punt blocks, you know, despite all the punts.

So, and, you know, just like you see it every once in a while with kids in like youth football, if you don't have a decent long snapper, you know, what people used to do, and even before really long snapping developed, they'd, they'd snap the ball to the quarterback and then he'd it back to the, to the punter or to the fullback at the time. So, you know, they may have had to resort to that too, but yeah, I mean, I just, they just were having so much trouble moving the ball at all, you know, run, you know, they were just, they were more scared of fumbling the ball, mishandling it, fumbling it in their own backfield. So they were just trying to get any kind of field position they could because they'd pump the thing, and it would just plop and stay there.

It's not like it rolled just wherever it landed. I can imagine. Wow.

That is something. And I guess that's something to really think about, you know, 77 times you had a couple of really tired punters. I'm sure they had to soak their legs in ice or something that evening after the game.

Wow. Well, Tim, great stuff, as always. And, you know, we really appreciate these tidbits that you do each and every evening.

Maybe you could share it with the folks so they can enjoy your tidbits. So they're getting the action every single night at seven. Yeah.

You can just go to footballarchaeology.com. You can subscribe there. And if you subscribe, you get an email in your inbox every night at seven o'clock Eastern. And then, you know, read them at your leisure, or you can follow me on Twitter, on threads, or on the Substack app.

But basically the way Twitter is working nowadays, at least for me, you know, even if you follow me on Twitter, you're probably not going to see it. So if you want to see this stuff, you're better off subscribing. All right.

Well, Tim Brown, we thank you very much for sharing with us again. And we will talk to you again next Tuesday about another great historical football attribute. Very good.

Look forward to it. Thanks, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

When I was researching information for my book World's Greatest Pro Gridiron Team, I kept seeing games where the time of the first half was much different from he second half.

It occurred almost every game, and though the first half was almost always the same time from game to game, the second stanza was all over the place. There had to be a reason.

Tim Brown over at Football Archaeology had the answer and he also shared it in a post he wrote and in a conversation on our podcast.

-Transcribed Conversation of Timothy Brown on the House of the Setting Sun

Tcf Bank College Football Stadium Minnesota Golden Gophers Sunset Panorama Panoramio is courtesy of mjdemay via Wikimedia Commons

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to Tuesday, FootballArcheology.com day. We have Timothy P. Brown, the founder of FootballArcheology.com, joining us as he does each and every week to talk about one of his famous tidbits.

Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen. Darren, good to see you, see your smiling face. It is about time.
About time. Yeah, great segue. Your segue-isms are getting better and better each and every time.
I am upping segue game. The dad jokes are a-flying, that's for sure. But Tim, now that you set it up, you have an interesting article from back in September that maybe back in September didn't mean as much as it does this time of year as we're getting closer to the winter season.

The sun going down affected the timing of games. I'll let you take it from there and tell us all about your tidbit. Yeah, so actually, the interesting thing is there is an unidentified reader.
I can't say who that is unless the reader gives permission. The reader gives you permission, Tim. Go ahead.
Oh, OK. So, one time, Darin asked me. Why is it always me? So, yeah, so just, you know, it's like anything else.

You know, you question, you go like, how did this work? So, as he was doing his own research on some things, he kept on seeing in the old newspapers. You know, 1800s and early, you know, 1900s. Oftentimes, the box score would have a little thing right at the bottom of the box, and it would say, you know, time of halves or time of quarters.

It would say 15 minutes, 15 and 10, or something like that. And so, and then typically, if there was a short quarter or a short half, it was the second half. So, you know, the question is basically, well, why the heck did they do that? Why did they shorten games? And so sometimes that happened because one team was getting blown out, but that was not generally the reason, you know, so even in tight games, it wasn't unusual to shorten, shorten a quarter or a half.

And so, you know, when I wrote it, I kind of used the, you know, the old terminology of de jure versus de facto. So de jure means, you know, by the rule or by the law, whereas de facto is in practice. Right.
And so when football first started, when we first brought it in, you know, when we were playing rugby. Football was just one of those stew of games that came out of, you know, 18th-century England and the norm was to play 45-minute halves. And so soccer still plays 45-minute halves, and rugby still plays 45-minute halves.

And when football got started here, we were playing 45-minute halves even though there was nothing in the rules that said that's how long it was. You know, the original football rules don't mention how long a game is supposed to last, but everybody knew it was 45 minutes. So that's what you did.
When football kind of, you know, as partly safety measures, you know, they were trying to give people rest and just reduce the amount of time that they're on the field. You know, football started, it went to 45 minutes and then 35 and then 30. And it's perhaps so.

Now, another tradition that was quite common was that, a lot of times, games started at about 2 o'clock or 2:30 in the afternoon. And so part of that was, you know, you had a lot of people, you know, fans who, you know, if they were factory people, they and, you know, clerks and whatnot, they work six days a week, as did their bosses. And if they were rural folks, well, farm chores have to be done.

You know, if you got a dairy herd, well, guess what you're doing every day. You know, so just from a lifestyle standpoint, a lot of people had things to do in the morning. On top of that, a lot of teams didn't have the budget to send their team to an away game and stay overnight.

So, you know, they would want to be able to take the train in the morning of the game, show up, play the game, turn around, and get home. And so not only did that mean they had to schedule a game a little bit later, but then there were times where they needed to, you know, the only way they would get home and make their connections that night was to be at the train station at, you know, 430 and or, you know, five o'clock or whatever it was. So, you know, for a combination of reasons, they ended up needing to cut games short.
And eventually, the rule makers, you know, it was kind of an understood thing. It wasn't. Again, it's one of those traditions.

It was, you know, in fact, people cut games short, even though the rules didn't say, you know, didn't allow it. But everybody did it. Right.

So, then we end up in a situation where, you know, during World War One, the government instituted light savings time, daylight saving, no S on that, daylight saving time. And so that came into effect in 1918. And so that was the first time that anybody had experienced that, at least, you know, in the US.
So you just kind of put yourself. I mean, we know what happens when daylight saving kicks in. But they just didn't anticipate it.

So there were teams that showed up at practice on Monday afternoon, right after daylight saving kicked in for the first time. And it was dark, you know. And so it's just one of those things where, you know, and then obviously that applied on Saturdays, too, because, you know, it gets dark on game day just as much as it does on practice.

But, you know, and in the tidbit, there's a discussion of like. And the USC and somebody, you know, playing in a game, and it's just like nobody could see by the end of the game; it was just so dark. And it's it's one of those things, you know, we take for granted that everybody's going to have lights.
Well, guess what? Very few places had lights. And if they did, it was jerry-rigged like the Navy used naval searchlights to light up the field for practice, you know. And, you know, so you have examples like that.
And that's that's one. I mean, some people had used them earlier, but they were painted white balls and yellow balls that came in right around. Yeah, that really became popular around that time.
That's when you start seeing them showing up in sporting goods catalogs. And it's really, you know, like. I know it's one of these things depending on where you have lived in the US; if you have not moved around a fair amount, you don't realize how much where you are in the time zone from an east, west, and north-south standpoint.

You don't realize how much impact that can have on how dark it gets early. So like Chicago is right on the east side of the central island. So it's like it's getting dark where it's like I'm in Detroit.
So, you know, still across the state, but if you're on the west side of Michigan, you know, it's light in the summer. It's like until.

You know, 10, 10 o'clock, you know, and, you know, beyond where it's like it's the same thing in Chicago, but it's nine o'clock. Right. So anyway, I mean, it's just one of those things you just and if you're northern, you know, then it's great in the summer, but then it gets darker early if you're further up north, because that whole sun, you know, the earth rotates and it tilts and not enough.

So anyway, it's just one of those things you don't think about, but like. Daylight saving was a big story in 1918. So then, because of that, in 1922, they formalized the rule that said at halftime, the referee could approach the the two team captains and ask if they wanted to shorten the halves.
And then then they they'll do so as needed. And whether that's because of the lighting or the one team getting blown out. Basically, they had they had the chance to do that.
Yeah, it's just thank God that the football didn't adopt what soccer does now with, you know, you have the two 45-minute halves, and then we're going to just kind of arbitrarily throw some time on at the end, you know, just and not tell anybody, you know, how much time is left. Just, you know, whatever that drives me crazy. Drives me nuts, you know, that they don't have that public with how much time is going on there.
But yeah, very interesting stuff, Tim. And I'm glad you mean you really cleared up mine because I kept seeing this, you know, you'd have like a 25-minute first half and, you know, something like 10 minutes for the second half. I'm like, why are they doing that? You know, you have a 13-to-nothing game.

You know, it's still still a ball game. You know, it's just driving me crazy. So, I'm glad you could clear that up for me and the listener.

So that's that's great. So, yeah, again, it's just one of those things you just don't even think about because, you know, basically, there are very few people living today if there's anybody, you know, that that's that, you know when Daylight Savings first showed up. So.
Yeah, crazy. And there are probably more people who see live games under the lights, you know, at your local high school than you do in the daytime anyway nowadays. So we're so used to the lights.

It's taken for granted, I guess. Yeah, but Tim, you have interesting items like this each and every day on your tidbits and people really love reading them. And maybe there's some listeners out there that aren't familiar with how to reach you and get ahold of your tidbits.

So maybe you could help them out with some information. Yeah, so easiest and best thing is just hit my website, footballarchaeology.com in order to find it, you got to put the WWW in front of it. And then, you know, you can every, you know, every story gives you the opportunity to subscribe.
You can subscribe for free. And then, as a result, you'll get an email every night in your inbox. And, you know, some people let them pile up, and they'll send it to you.

I know every Monday morning, I get a bunch of hits on my site because people who send them to their work address, you know, don't look at them until Monday morning. So anyways, and then you can also you can follow me on Twitter, on threads or simply, you know, or follow me within the within the Substack app. And so kind of whichever flavor works for you, have at it.

All right. Well, he is Timothy P. Brown, footballarchaeology.com. The links to Tim's site and to the tidbit are in the podcast show notes. You want to enjoy that, you know, the images and some of the great writing that Tim does there and some of those other tidbits.

You have links to get to it that way, too. So, Tim, thanks a lot for joining us again and sharing. And we will talk to you again next week.

Very good. Thank you, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

The Big Ten Conference Football Championship game is a must-see on many fans of college football's annual watch lists. The schools' traditions and football programs are almost as old as the game itself. These title games had to start somewhere, and in this edition, we peek back into a post our guest Tim Brown wrote a while back on the inaugural Big 10 Championship game titled The Big Ten's First Conference Championship Game (in 1931) .

-1931 Big Ten season, I can share some interesting facts:

-There were no true "champions" that year, as three teams, Minnesota, Michigan, and Northwestern, shared the title after ending with identical conference records (5-1).

-Purdue boasted the best overall record (9-1), but their lone conference loss, to Wisconsin, prevented them from claiming a share of the crown.

-The season also saw the first-ever Big Ten Conference Championship game, a three-way match between Ohio State, Michigan, and Purdue. Ohio State prevailed in that one with a 19-17 score.

-Some notable individual players included Clarence Munn (Minnesota), who was awarded the conference's MVP title, and Paul Moss (Purdue) and Ookie Miller (Purdue), who were recognized as All-Americans.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on the Big 10's 1st Championship Game

Hello, my football friends; it's Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to another Tuesday with FootballArcheology.com's Timothy P. Brown. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Thank you, sir. Looking forward to talking about old-time football and sometimes what's old is new again.
And I think this is one of those instances.

I think you're absolutely correct because, of course, our topic tonight is a tidbit you put out in December of 2022 called The Big Tens First Conference Championship Game. And we're just coming out of these championship games and getting ready for the bowl season as this is airing. And so, what an appropriate time of the year to talk about the Big Ten Championship.

-Story of the First Big 10 Conference Championship Game

So what do you get on this? Yes, this is one. So this occurred in 1931. And, you know, I've written a couple of things about 1931.

Recently, I wrote a story not too far back about Wisconsin and Minnesota, and they were playing a game, you know, at the end of the season game in 1931. And I mentioned that that was a season where a couple of Big Ten teams, including Wisconsin and Minnesota, started the season playing doubleheaders. And I've got another tidbit written on that so people can find it.

But, you know, back in the mid-20s to mid-30s, there was this whole slew of people, you know, teams playing doubleheader football games. And, you know, what they do is they kind of had one game set up against a lesser opponent that their second team would play. And then they play the varsity against, you know, also a lesser team.

So it's like basically two bye games for the price of one is what it came down to. So it's just, I mean, that really doesn't have anything to do with the story other than to just set the stage that scheduling and, you know, the game was just different back then. You know, they did some things that we would never think about doing today.

No one would schedule a doubleheader. But that 1931, you know, still, you know, depths of the depression. So there were a fair number of college teams, and pro teams did this as well.

They play exhibition games to try to, you know, raise money and they donate all the proceeds to charity. And so the Big Ten that year decided, and I think they decided real close to the end of the season, they just, they decided that they were going to extend the season by one game and play, every team would play another game. And so they took against 10 opponents.

And so, you know, those were the days where teams didn't, you know, they didn't play round-robin schedules or anything approaching that. Everybody scheduled themselves independently. And so the regular season ended with Purdue at 4-1 and losing to Wisconsin.

At least in conference, Michigan was 4-1, having lost to Ohio State. Then, they tied Michigan State in the non-conference because Michigan State wasn't in the conference. And there we had, and finally, we had the Northwestern Wildcats at 5-0.

They had tied Notre Dame, not a Big Ten team. So the regular season ended with Northwestern as the undisputed champs, you know because they just based it on win percentage at the time. But when they decided to play, you know, they collectively, yeah, we're going to play another game.
And at the, they also decided what we're going to do is these games are going to count. We want them to be meaningful. So they're going to count as a regular season game, at least, you know, in terms of determining the conference championship.

So they scheduled, you know, with ten teams, they set up Ohio State at Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Northwestern and Purdue at Soldier Field. And then the other four teams played that Saturday at Chicago's Ag Field, but they only played a half a game. So, you know, it's one of those kind of goofy things, you know, today, you know, preparing, you know, for this, I went back and looked at the official conference results, like, you know, just to see like the all-time results, Michigan just won their 1000th game, right? First college team to do that.

And so I was just looking at things like, wait, did the game after the season count or not? These doubleheader games always counted, but in those half-games, none of the teams that played the half-games counted towards their all-time record. But the 14 or the six teams that played the full games that last, you know, that extra week. So Michigan technically might have like 1000, one and a half wins to their credit or something.

Well, no, because they played one of the full games. Oh, okay. They played a full game.
Okay. All right. Yeah.

So some other teams could have half a game, but others would have lost half a game. And then there were ties. One of those games was a tie.
So it was a tied half-game. It was a tie-half game. Oh boy.

Good thing it's not like hockey. How would you score that in hockey? Because you wouldn't get half a point for that winner in the tie. So anyways, you know, they play these games, and it turns out that Purdue beat Northwestern seven to nothing.

So Purdue enters the game undefeated. They lose. So then they end up in a three-way tie.
Northwestern, Purdue, and Michigan all are five and one at the end of the season. And so it's still kind of one of those things where, you know, you never know how a season is going to end up until all the pads are put away one last time. Right.

You know, you never know if a team's going to come back if they're going to win a bowl game unexpectedly, you know, upset, you know, somebody who should have beaten them. You never know. So, Northwestern thought they were Big 10 champs, and it turned out that they weren't.

Well, you started off by saying the more things change, the more they stay the same. And I think that, going into next year, the Big 10 will become the Wild West again, of, you know, teams from coast to coast in a conference. I think we should start a petition right now that we want the end-of-year exhibition half-games brought back to the Big 10.

So it's just like it was, you know, 90 years ago. Yeah. The half games.
I mean, I'm not sure exactly why they decided to go that route. I'll actually have to go back and reread some of that stuff. But you know, to play a half-game, you know, for most of them at a neutral site, makes it even more amusing.

I wonder if tickets were half-priced to get into those half-games. Well, you know, they, so they, they still fans saw a full game because they saw two half-games. But maybe what they did was they played them early enough.

Like you, Chicago's Stagg Field is a, if you really wanted to, you could walk to Soldier Field from there. So maybe they played those games early in the morning on Saturday so that everybody could run over to catch the, to court, to catch Northwestern and Purdue at Soldier Field. Wow.

That is, that is quite the story. There's a lot going on in that one. That's for sure.
Yeah. I've got even more here on this sheet of paper that I'm looking at, but I didn't raise those issues.

It's great stuff, Tim.

And you have these fascinating stories from, from yesteryear in football that you're really enjoyable and fun to read. And, you know, some like this, so you can sit back and laugh at it and say, you know, what were they thinking type of things? But it's kind of interesting. I'd be, if, if somebody advertised that right now that, Hey, we're going to have a couple of half games that done at the local stadium, I'd, I'd buy a ticket and go see four football teams.

So, so that'd be good stuff. But you do this every day on your tidbits and it's just so fascinating and sometimes makes you think and scratch your head all at the same time. Maybe you could share with the rest of the world here how they, too, can get involved with the tidbits and read these on a daily basis.
Yeah. So, you know, the simplest thing is just go to footballarchaeology.com, hit subscribe, it's free. And if you do that from then on, you'll get a, get an email every night at seven o'clock Eastern with that day's story.

And, you know, otherwise, you can follow me on Twitter, Substack, or Threads, or, like I've said before, just bookmark it and come and visit whenever you're of a mind. All right. Well, his name is Timothy Brown, and his website is footballarchaeology.com. Tim, we thank you once again for sharing with us this Tuesday, and we look forward to next Tuesday to talk to you once again about football's antiquity.

Very good. Thank you, sir.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

---

The winter wonderland gridiron clash of 1925 between the Wisconsin Badgers and the Iowa Hawkeyes as told by FootballArchaeology.com.

On a crisp November day in 1925, the battle lines were drawn at Iowa Field in Iowa City. The Iowa Hawkeyes, seeking revenge for a narrow loss to Wisconsin the previous year, clashed with the Badgers, hungry to solidify their position in the newly formed Big Ten Conference.

Wisconsin, under the guidance of first-year Head Coach George Little, entered the game boasting a 5-0 record against non-conference opponents. Iowa, coached by Burt Ingwersen, sported a respectable 3-2 record, eager to prove their mettle against their Big Ten rivals.

The game unfolded as a defensive stalemate, with both teams struggling to move the ball consistently. Neither offense could find the end zone in the first half, leaving the halftime score locked at a scoreless tie. The tension crackled in the crisp Iowa air as fans of both teams held their breath.

The second half brought a glimmer of hope for the Hawkeyes. A sustained drive fueled by the running of Howard Baxter culminated in a field goal by Harold Swanson, giving Iowa a precarious 3-0 lead. The crowd erupted, but the celebration was short-lived.

Wisconsin responded with a punishing ground attack of their own. Doyle Harmon, the Badgers' star halfback, weaved through the Hawkeye defense, finally breaking free for a 15-yard touchdown run. With the extra point, Wisconsin snatched the lead 7-3, sending a wave of elation through their supporters.

The remaining minutes ticked away with agonizing slowness. Iowa made desperate attempts to equalize, but the Badger defense held firm. The final whistle blew, sealing Wisconsin's 7-3 victory.

Despite the defeat, the 1925 Hawkeye-Badger matchup remains a noteworthy chapter in both teams' histories. It marked the first competitive Big Ten game for both programs, setting the stage for a long and storied rivalry. It also showcased the defensive prowess of both teams, with strong performances from players like Doyle Harmon and Harold Swanson.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on the 33 Fumble Snow Game

Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to another Tuesday of football archaeology nature, where we get to visit with the founder of that website, footballarchaeology.com, Timothy P. Brown.

Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen. Darin, I look forward to chatting once again. Let's see on this hot summer evening, we can talk about a winter.

Well, I guess it would have been a late fall day with a tad of snow. Yeah, the headline of this tidbit jumps right out to anybody looking at it. And the word 33 fumbles is what caught my eye.

And the title, listeners, is the 1925 Iowa Wisconsin Snow Games 33 fumbles that Tim posted back in April. And boy, Tim, this is an interesting one, and it is all of our attention right now. Yeah, so this is one that, you know, I. I really suggest that listeners try to get out to the site and take a look at it because it's got like eight pictures that I grabbed off of, you know, University of Iowa's, you know, library or photo archive.

So folks get to a rest stop or something, pull the car over, stop running on the treadmill, pull over. We got a link to Tim's site in the show notes. Click on it and get to these photographs, because these images are outstanding, like he says.

So, yeah, so, you know, this is obviously a big rivalry game, and they tend to be. Probably all the way back then, they probably had fairly stagnant offenses and really tough defenses, but it's kind of the history of both teams. But, you know, this was a day where, you know, it's a November game, but they had an unexpected or not unexpected, but an unseasonal, seasonable blizzard.

So, you know, the game starts, and there are already four inches of snow on the ground. 30-mile-an-hour winds coming from the north. And since football fields are oriented north-south, that meant you had a real advantage if you were heading south and not so much if you were heading north.

And so, you know, basically, a game played in blizzard conditions. Both teams came out there without gloves, you know, in the first half. I don't know about the people sitting on the bench, but those on the side, you know, playing, didn't have gloves.

And so, you know, the first quarter especially was a mess. There were 17 fumbles between the two teams during the first quarter. Wisconsin, so Iowa had the wind in the first quarter.

So at one point, Wisconsin was punting into the wind. And, you know, sounds like the punter got the ball up in the air a little bit. But he was, they had the ball on their own 49.

So he was probably on the 39 or something along those lines. But he gets a snap, punts the ball, and it gets caught in the wind and starts flying backwards. And ended up landing on the 35 yard line, plopped down in the snow.

And an Iowa player comes over and either grabbed it, you know, picked it up or touched it and then fumbled it. And so Wisconsin got the ball back. So that's kind of the game right there in a nutshell.

You know, if one play captured it. Another one that I really liked was, you know, the newspaper articles described an Iowa player who had a breakaway run in the second quarter. And he starts chugging along.

He's 17 yards downfield, and he just drops the ball. The ball slips out of his hands. And then Wisconsin recovered.

So 33 fumbles, you know, the whole game. It was they had, as you can imagine, had trouble keeping the sidelines and the goal lines cleared and how they determined whether anybody got a first down or not. I'm not entirely sure because they, you know, didn't have yard lines for most of the game.

But, and there were only, you know, as it turns out, there were only six first downs between the two teams all game. It was just a mess. I can sympathize with them because when I started officiating, there were no turf fields in our area.

We were all grass fields and were right by one of the great lakes. We get a lot of lake effect snow, especially in, you know, late October and November, and we had a lot of games, playoff games that were pretty, pretty important. You know, more, a little bit more important than a, not a regular season, the games are unimportant, but you know, a little bit more high profile and you have white lines on a field with white snow and that whatever the substances they use to align the fields and it would like to dissolve.

So the line would be spread out. You'd have these yard lines instead of being four or five inches wide, which might be eight or nine inches wide. You use those lines to mark your chains to measure for the first down.

Do you have a clip on it and you measure first down? So that was a disaster. Then I worked a game where the team, they knew it was going to snow. And so as it snowed, they would run out in between quarters and right before the game, they would put yellow lines on top of the snow where the yard lines were.

And that was a mess too. Cause then you start trudging through the snow and these yellow lines are getting kicked all over places. Seen it all yet.

And then you come home and we were wearing white knickers at the time. You have yellow all over your, your pants and you know, you get home and the wife's ready to kill you for trying to clean these white knickers anyway. But, uh, yeah, I can sympathize with them with the snow and, uh, you know, football game.

Yeah. Yeah. I, um, well, I don't recall.

I probably did cause, you know, I, I grew up in Wisconsin, and you, you know, played, played there and then coached in upstate New York. And then I went down to St. Louis. So I've, I've been in, you know, snowy weather conditions.

Right. Um, I don't remember playing in the snow or coaching the star. I've sat in the stands many times, you know, during snowy games or, you know, when the turf was filled with snow.

Um, I don't remember being in a blizzard situation though, like this, you know, cause this game, it was like, um, Wisconsin. They lost their yardage from scrimmage, and their penalties exceeded the yards they gained from scrimmage. You know, and I, Iowa had, uh, lost more, lost 95 yards on fumbles, which was more than a game from scrimmage.

So no, just a crazy game. Um, Wisconsin ended up winning cause in the fourth quarter, they had the ball on, I was one and then they lost it on a fumble. Uh, Iowa had to punt.

They punt out of the end zone. Wisconsin gets the ball on the 11th. Uh, you know, then they ended up scoring.

So they went like six, nothing. They couldn't convert. So just, you know, crazy, crazy game.

Um, and then just the last one is just that there was a, uh, there was only one pass attempt and that was Iowa on the last play of the game. Uh, you know, they, they attempted a pass, but didn't complete it. So I wonder, I wonder why when you have cold hands, a cold football and no points of reference on the field.

Yeah. You know, and that would have been still in the days when they used one ball the whole game. Right.

So that thing was, I weighed 150 pounds by the end. There were no long snaps in the second half. But, oh, but wow.

Well, I guess the only good news is that there was a, is in an era before there was game film. So the coaches didn't have to beat the snot out of their players for all the errors and everything in the game. They could do it by memory, but, uh, you'd have to witness it time and time again on film day.

So that's. Yeah. Well, you know, I came across this, this game because I'd written an article about Iowa's early, uh, uh, games on radio.

Uh, so this game, you know, they did end up broadcasting this thing on radio. Uh, so I can imagine, you know, just, just, you know, these guys had to somehow keep the tubes warm and, you know, that was, that was early radio, so how did they manage to do it? I don't know.

Especially, uh, with all the, uh, you know, because back then games were much quicker cause there's more running plays. So you're running the clock. Can you imagine that with all the turnovers stopping the clock 33 to extra times, that's probably like a three-and-a-half, four-hour game?

These people were probably going nuts trying to sit there through that. Well, and press boxes were open back then too. So it wasn't like you weren't sitting in some nice comfy heated, uh, location.

It was either down on the sidelines or up in a little shack on top of the stands. Uh, well, there are some things that we can greatly appreciate in the modern era of football compared to what our forefathers did on the football field. So, Tim, great stuff is always, uh, you know, you always have something interesting to talk about, and you do this daily in your tidbits and some of the other posts that you do both on social media and on your site.

And maybe, uh, you could share with the listeners how they too could share in this experience of having these daily items from football's past. Yeah, sure. It's really simple.

Um, you can follow me on Twitter just to, you know, find me at football archeology, um, or, and you know, my preference is that you subscribe on the, on the site, um, football archeology.com, uh, every, every post, every page gives you the option to subscribe. And so real simply enter your email and then every night you'll get it, get an email with the story at, uh, seven o'clock Easter. And as I always say, let them stack up if you want, or read them, you know, two minutes later, whichever you prefer.

And, uh, but just a way to get, get, uh, you know, most of them are one- or two-minute reads that are pretty quick stuff. Uh, but tells a little story of some silly element of football or, you know, something that has changed over time. And, uh, so hopefully, it's fun.

Yeah. Then, the reads might be one or two minutes, but if you're like me, uh, some of the interesting images you have on there that you talk about, I find myself studying the, the, the pictures after I read it and I glanced at the pictures or read it and I'm like, Oh, let me go back and look what he's pointing out here. And then you find all kinds of crazy things in there and, you know, blowing it up.

And it's good times. It's great stuff because of the imagery and the wording, and the stories that you tell are very interesting. Well, good.

Well, Tim, we greatly appreciate you coming on and sharing this story about this great game from 1925 and this, uh, blizzard, uh, turnover battle that was played between the Hawkeyes and the Badgers. And, uh, we thank you. And we will talk to you again next Tuesday.

Okay. Very good. Thanks, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Football Archaeology takes a look back at the history of the helmet logo in some unique places, uncommon to the conventional ones we are used to.

The evolution of logos on football helmets has been a fascinating journey reflecting both aesthetic and functional considerations. Traditionally, football helmet designs featured team logos prominently displayed on the sides, serving as iconic identifiers visible to players and spectators alike. However, as the sport evolved and branding became increasingly significant, teams and equipment manufacturers began exploring alternative placements for logos to maximize visibility and impact.

One notable shift occurred with the emergence of logos on the fronts and backs of helmets. This departure from the conventional side placements allowed for larger and more eye-catching designs, enhancing team identity and marketability. The strategic placement on the front provided a focal point during televised broadcasts and close-up shots, while the back placement ensured visibility from multiple angles on the field.

The transition to front and back logos also mirrored broader trends in sports marketing and fan engagement. Teams sought to leverage helmet space not just for aesthetic appeal but also as a platform for sponsorships, charity initiatives, and commemorative decals. This evolution underscored the symbiotic relationship between sports teams and corporate partnerships, where helmet logos became potent symbols of both team pride and commercial endorsement.

Moreover, the strategic placement of logos on the fronts and backs of helmets has contributed to the evolving aesthetics of football equipment. It has allowed teams to experiment with design elements, color schemes, and typography, further enhancing their visual appeal and reinforcing their brand identity in the competitive landscape of sports.

In summary, the history of logos transitioning from traditional side placements to front and back positions on football helmets reflects a dynamic interplay between tradition, innovation, and commercialization. As teams continue to adapt to changing trends and technological advancements, the placement of logos remains a key element in defining the visual identity and market presence of football teams worldwide.

-Frequently Asked Questions

-Who was the first to paint a logo on a helmet? The answer in the pro game is Fred Gehrke of the Rams in 1948, check out more about it in the story: First Helmet Logo.

-Who was the first player to wear a football helmet? We have your answer in our in-depth study ofthe first to wear a helmet.

-What is the history of each college team and their helmet designs? Check out many of them with our series College Football helmet history of schools.

-How come some teams have player numbers on their helmets? We asked this question too and had a college football expert historian help divulge helmet numbers history.

-Why do some teams like Michigan and Delaware look so odd and similar? It's really uncanny isn't it that the Wolverines and Blue Hens look the same, check this out for a reason when helmets had wings.

-What do stickers on college football helmets mean? Some of them look really crazy but there is some goos reason for the extra adornments and we have the scoop Why all the stickers on some football helmets?.

-When did football helmets change from leather to plastic? Just after World War II saw the most abrupt changes, we have more in this in our chat with an expert:When helmets changed from leather to plastic.

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The Football Archaeology website has a powerful look at this 1922 game that featured the University of Floridaand an American Legion Post team from Tampa.

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Timothy Brown takes his Football Archaeology focus towards some player protective gear evolution our way, was he studies early face guards.