159 Years Ago Saturday in Rutgers Football History

[Source]

According to the June 30, 1859 Newark Daily Mercury, $2,000 was spent on a new cricket ground for St. George’s Cricket Club that hosted its first match on July 4, 1859. From 1874 through 1906, Rutgers met Stevens and Columbia on the St. George Cricket Club Grounds and accumulated a lifetime record of 9-9-3 there. From 1876-79 the grounds were the setting for the Princeton-Yale games that decided the unofficial intercollegiate football champion. It’s still in use for football today as Veterans Field, home of the Hoboken High School Redwings.

Be well and be safe this 4th of July week upcoming. Enjoy!

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

Color photocopy of print Yale vs. Princeton, 1879 at Hoboken's Saint George's Cricket Grounds.

Original source or date of the print not indicated. The tenor of text would indicate that was published much later than 1879. It discusses the fact that English Rugby rules were observed with the some American changes.

http://hoboken.pastperfectonline.com/archive/C5D3CA76-B4FE-432D-ADC4-962105169269

 

[BeantownKnight]

F Yale

 

[Source]

Interesting find Scarlet_Scourge. Most colleges agreed to incorporate rugby football rules into the evolving American Football play beginning in 1877 and with 15-man teams (down from 20). In 1880, they put in a line of scrimmage and 11-man teams. That drawing seems to have about 11 per side playing. In 1882, they put in down and distance rules. Weirdly, newspapers still kept referring to the American Football sport as "rugby football" for the rest of the 19th century.

 

[beaced]

For those who are inclined to ask if I remember this occasion,the answer is NO.

 

[cubuffsdoug]

For those who are inclined to ask if I remember this occasion,the answer is NO.

Are you in denial?[roll]

 

[beaced]

Are you in denial?[roll]

You got me. So I lied. It doesn't make me a bad person.

 

[motorb54]

For those who are inclined to ask if I remember this occasion,the answer is NO.

Like me, maybe you just don't remember what you don't remember!

 

[RutgersMO]

According to the June 30, 1859 Newark Daily Mercury, $2,000 was spent on a new cricket ground for St. George’s Cricket Club that hosted its first match on July 4, 1859. From 1874 through 1906, Rutgers met Stevens and Columbia on the St. George Cricket Club Grounds and accumulated a lifetime record of 9-9-3 there. From 1876-79 the grounds were the setting for the Princeton-Yale games that decided the unofficial intercollegiate football champion. It’s still in use for football today as Veterans Field, home of the Hoboken High School Redwings.

Be well and be safe this 4th of July week upcoming. Enjoy!

Princeton- Yale: deciding the unofficial football champion. Where was Rutgers in these conversations?

Even then we weren't someone's "dream school"?

Do you realize how depressing it would have been had we LOST to Princeton in the first game?

MO

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

Princeton- Yale: deciding the unofficial football champion. Where was Rutgers in these conversations?

Even then we weren't someone's "dream school"?

Do you realize how depressing it would have been had we LOST to Princeton in the first game?

MO

well the real answer, we were a tiny college for boys with about 100 -200 students. Just like Lehigh and Lafayette. Princeton and Yale were large schools. With football, back then the players were picked from the normal student body. So the bigger the school, the more students to choose from, the better the team. The little schools had very little chance against the bigger ones.

As the Big Three (Princeton, Yale and Harvard) started to get more and more serious about football they began cheating by actually recruiting students that were good at sports to go to those colleges (OUTRAGE!) this is something that the smaller schools never did. Then the was the infamous practice of ringers, were they would recruit professional football players to enroll in college to play on the team and drop out after the season was over.

This is how the Ivies won the national championship every year.

Once football got more popular and other large school across the country started to do the same as them, and those schools started to offer scholarships to students who were good at sports (MORE OUTRAGE!), the Ivies waved the white flag and decided to go straight. They were still pretty good for a awhile but the big powerhouses today basically took their place on the national stage, and they faded from the national spotlight completely after the 1960's.

Rutgers refuse to even do any of the above and actually stop scheduling the larger, "cheating" schools starting in 1938 and basically only played smaller schools like themselves that didn't recruit, offer scholarships and didn't use ringers. Most of these schools decades later went on to form the Patriot League. The only large schools that Rutgers still played were traditional rivals like Princeton (nearly always at Princeton) and NYU (at NYC) (both of which were considered football powerhouses at the time) the money that Rutgers got from those two games paid for the entire year's budget. This was the main reason they were not drop as well, of course.

The 1950's were a time of big change as NYU dropped football, Rutgers replaced them with Columbia for the NYC series. The big three formed the Ivy league. Rutgers went from being a tiny private school to a State U. They got larger and the sports teams adopted the Scarlet Knights name. Even though they did join the Ivy league, Rutgers adopted the Ivy code. Which was no bowl games, no sports scholarships and no spring training. Rutgers keep that up until the 1970's.

 

[50 yd line RR]

well the real answer, we were a tiny college for boys with about 100 -200 students. Just like Lehigh and Lafayette. Princeton and Yale were large schools. With football, back then the players were picked from the normal student body. So the bigger the school, the more students to choose from, the better the team. The little schools had very little chance against the bigger ones.

As the Big Three (Princeton, Yale and Harvard) started to get more and more serious about football they began cheating by actually recruiting students that were good at sports to go to those colleges (OUTRAGE!) this is something that the smaller schools never did. Then the was the infamous practice of ringers, were they would recruit professional football players to enroll in college to play on the team and drop out after the season was over.

This is how the Ivies won the national championship every year.

Once football got more popular and other large school across the country started to do the same as them, and those schools started to offer scholarships to students who were good at sports (MORE OUTRAGE!), the Ivies waved the white flag and decided to go straight. They were still pretty good for a awhile but the big powerhouses today basically took their place on the national stage, and they faded from the national spotlight completely after the 1960's.

Rutgers refuse to even do any of the above and actually stop scheduling the larger, "cheating" schools starting in 1938 and basically only played smaller schools like themselves that didn't recruit, offer scholarships and didn't use ringers. Most of these schools decades later went on to form the Patriot League. The only large schools that Rutgers still played were traditional rivals like Princeton (nearly always at Princeton) and NYU (at NYC) (both of which were considered football powerhouses at the time) the money that Rutgers got from those two games paid for the entire year's budget. This was the main reason they were not drop as well, of course.

The 1950's were a time of big change as NYU dropped football, Rutgers replaced them with Columbia for the NYC series. The big three formed the Ivy league. Rutgers went from being a tiny private school to a State U. They got larger and the sports teams adopted the Scarlet Knights name. Even though they did join the Ivy league, Rutgers adopted the Ivy code. Which was no bowl games, no sports scholarships and no spring training. Rutgers keep that up until the 1970's.

Nice post! That explains a lot. Always found it ironic when we're finally big enough to hold our own against Princeton they dropped us like a bad habit.That series could have gone on for another 20 years before we were totally out of their league.

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

Nice post! That explains a lot. Always found it ironic when we're finally big enough to hold our own against Princeton they dropped us like a bad habit.That series could have gone on for another 20 years before we were totally out of their league.

That being said, what was considered cheating or at least unethical and against the spirit of college sports, is today just standard practice. Besides the ringers part.

Had Princeton not drop the series, Rutgers wanted to keep it going. It could have started the Football season with Army and Navy ending the season every year.

It would have been one of the great CFB traditions, but it was not to be. Colgate was the only one of the original rivals that keep playing us throughout 1980's but that series ended after we joined the Big East.

To give you an idea of how big the Big Three was, Yale's famous Yale Bowl seats 64,246.

That is a lot even by 2018 standards, imagine back then when most games drew a fraction of that.

Here are the number of National Titles each school won:

Princeton - 28 National Championships
Yale - 28 National Championships
Harvard - 13 National Championships


Compared to today's elites:

Bama - 17 National Championships
Michigan - 11 National Championships
UND - 11 National Championships
USC - 11 National Championships
OSU - 8 National Championships

 

[RutgersMO]

well the real answer, we were a tiny college for boys with about 100 -200 students. Just like Lehigh and Lafayette. Princeton and Yale were large schools. With football, back then the players were picked from the normal student body. So the bigger the school, the more students to choose from, the better the team. The little schools had very little chance against the bigger ones.

As the Big Three (Princeton, Yale and Harvard) started to get more and more serious about football they began cheating by actually recruiting students that were good at sports to go to those colleges (OUTRAGE!) this is something that the smaller schools never did. Then the was the infamous practice of ringers, were they would recruit professional football players to enroll in college to play on the team and drop out after the season was over.

This is how the Ivies won the national championship every year.

Once football got more popular and other large school across the country started to do the same as them, and those schools started to offer scholarships to students who were good at sports (MORE OUTRAGE!), the Ivies waved the white flag and decided to go straight. They were still pretty good for a awhile but the big powerhouses today basically took their place on the national stage, and they faded from the national spotlight completely after the 1960's.

Rutgers refuse to even do any of the above and actually stop scheduling the larger, "cheating" schools starting in 1938 and basically only played smaller schools like themselves that didn't recruit, offer scholarships and didn't use ringers. Most of these schools decades later went on to form the Patriot League. The only large schools that Rutgers still played were traditional rivals like Princeton (nearly always at Princeton) and NYU (at NYC) (both of which were considered football powerhouses at the time) the money that Rutgers got from those two games paid for the entire year's budget. This was the main reason they were not drop as well, of course.

The 1950's were a time of big change as NYU dropped football, Rutgers replaced them with Columbia for the NYC series. The big three formed the Ivy league. Rutgers went from being a tiny private school to a State U. They got larger and the sports teams adopted the Scarlet Knights name. Even though they did join the Ivy league, Rutgers adopted the Ivy code. Which was no bowl games, no sports scholarships and no spring training. Rutgers keep that up until the 1970's.

Thanks for the insights. It's still infuriating that we adopted the no bowl games, no sports schlarships …. but not the ringers.

MO

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

Thanks for the insights. It's still infuriating that we adopted the no bowl games, no sports schlarships …. but not the ringers.

MO

LOL, I think they stop doing that long ago, just look at when they stop winning National Championships for an idea when that practice went away. We never did any of that.