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Accounts of this game are rather hazy, as might be expected. The best is from the Rutgers Targum, the student paper, and it speaks, somewhat dramatically, of "grim men, silently stripping" before the kickoff. What they stripped to it doesn’t say, but it wasn’t much. The players simply took off their hats, coats and vests and they were ready. No uniforms. The only color was provided by scarlet turbans the Rutgers boys wore on their heads. (Account by Len Elliott, sports editor of the Newark News from 1939-1968 as printed in One Hundred Years of Princeton Football 1869-1969, William C. Stryker ’50 editor) Early Pioneer That first Princeton-Rutgers game wasn’t exactly college football as we know it today. The rules of that game were agreed to beforehand by both teams, and it actually was more like soccer. Football in varying looks had been played on many college campuses informally since the early 19th century. There was obviously no uniformity in the rules in those days, and the game was radically different from school to school. Even the first Princeton-Rutgers game wasn’t played with any sort of standardized rules. The earliest games of college football, including the beginning of the Princeton-Yale rivalry in 1870, were played under whatever rules the teams chose. By 1876 the rules had begun to take form, and some terms of modern football began to emerge. The game now included a system of scoring that differentiated between touchdowns and goals (two points for a touchdown, four points for a goal following a touchdown and five points for a goal from the field). Positions also had emerged, and the team sizes were reduced to 20. The positions varied somewhat, though there was a certain degree of uniformity to them. They included: 11 rushers, two halfbacks, one three-quarter back, two fullbacks and four goaltends. The middle rusher also was known as the snapper-back. The goaltends were to prevent the "enemy" ball from going over the bar between the posts, but were not concerned with preventing touchdowns. They stayed at their post to stop both field goals and goals after touchdowns, both of which had to clear the bar cleanly. It was a foul if the ball touched the bar, even if it passed over it after that. The term "fair catch" also was adopted into the rules. The kickoff could be by a drop-kick, punt or place-kick. If a ball was caught cleanly in the air by an opponent and he called a fair catch by grinding his heel in the turf, all rushing and active play stopped. The kicking team then had to drop back 30 feet, and the player who made the fair catch was permitted a free kick in any style he chose. The kicking team did have the opportunity to knock the ball away before the receiver called his fair catch. The scrummage (now scrimmage) was also added. In scrummage after a foul, the ball is snapped back by the snapper-back with a "deft turn of his foot" to a half, three-quarter or fullback, any of whom could restart the ball toward the goal. The evolution continued throughout the end of the century. It wasn’t until 1906, when President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the leaders of college football to make their game safer, that the most modern rules actually began to come into play (that also marked the birth of the National Collegiate Athletic Association). By 1912 the forward pass was legal, teams were awarded six points for a touchdown and had four downs to gain 10 yards and the field was 100 yards long. In the 129 years since that first football game, Princeton has played more than 1,000 gridiron games and posted a total of 724 victories and a winning percentage of .701. In fact, only three schools have accumulated more all-time wins than the Tigers — Yale, Michigan and Notre Dame. Heroes and Champions Along the way, 28 Tiger elevens have battled their way to undefeated seasons, while no less than 118 players have earned All-America recognition. In addition 16 players and five coaches have gained a niche in the National Football Hall of Fame, including Princeton’s 1951 Heisman Trophy recipient, Dick Kazmaier ’52. Since the beginning of formal Ivy League play in 1956, Princeton has won or shared the league title eight times and has taken the Big Three Championship (Harvard, Princeton, Yale) in nine of those seasons. The Bushnell Cup, given to the Ivy League player of the year, has gone to a Tiger five times. Walt Snickenberger ’75 was the first Princeton winner (in 1974), and brothers Jason Garrett ’89 and Judd Garrett ’90 also won. Keith Elias ’94 took his Bushnell Cup to the New York Giants of the NFL, and linebacker Dave Patterson became the first Princeton defensive player ever honored when he won the cup in 1995. Overall 118 Princeton players have earned first-team All-Ivy League honors, including wide receiver Derek Graham ’84, who accomplished the feat a record three times. |
It all started on a cold day.
There was, in fact, a threat of snow in the air that
November 6, 1869, when a team of 25 and some faithful
followers boarded a train in Princeton for New Brunswick.
There, starting at 3 o’clock after a leisurely
dinner, some billiards and some girl-watching, Rutgers
and Princeton played the first game of intercollegiate
football. It was at that point that the history of
Princeton football began.