Football History

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The Wisconsin Badgers football program boasts a rich history and a passionate fanbase. A key element of this identity is the iconic logo, a bold red "W" with a white border. But unlike some teams with logos steeped in lore, the Badgers' visual representation has a surprisingly concise history, reflecting a focus on tradition and simplicity.

Early Days: A Time of Transition (1890s-1940s)

The early years of Wisconsin football (1890s-1940s) lacked a singular, official logo. Teams often used generic designs or variations of the university seal for branding purposes. Live badgers, the program's mascot since 1893, even made occasional appearances at games, proving to be a bit too "spirited" for long-term viability.

The Rise of the 'W' (1940s): A Symbol Emerges[b]

The need for a cohesive visual identity grew in the 1940s with the rise of college football merchandising. In 1940, artist Art Evans designed the now-iconic "W" logo, featuring a bold cardinal red letter with a clean white border. This simple yet powerful design mirrored the "Block W" logo adopted by the university around the same time. The "W" resonated with fans and players alike, offering a clear and recognizable symbol for the Badgers brand.

[b]A Commitment to Consistency (1940s-Present): The Power of Simplicity

The brilliance of the Wisconsin Badgers logo lies in its enduring simplicity. Unlike other programs that have undergone frequent logo revisions, Wisconsin has remained committed to this singular design. This consistency has allowed the logo to become a timeless symbol, instantly recognizable and synonymous with the program's rich tradition.

Beyond the Logo: A Badger's Spirit[b]

The Wisconsin Badgers logo embodies the fighting spirit of the program, the unwavering dedication of its players and coaches, and the passionate loyalty of its fanbase. It's a symbol that unites generations of Badgers under a shared identity, a source of pride that resonates throughout Camp Randall Stadium on game days.

I published a story about a week ago regarding WSUI, the University of Iowa’s radio station, and its coverage of football games in the 1920s. I noted that WSUI only broadcast the first four games of the 1925 season, which led a reader, Bill Claypool, to suggest they might have missed the Wisconsin game due to the game being played in a blizzard. — www.footballarchaeology.com

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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.

-[b]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.

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.

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Timothy P Brown takes Football Archaeology into the thought of one innovative coach to alternate the number of downs teams would have and even eliminate the game clock.