Wrapping up the Spring

Sal Interdonato has a ton of stuff, from coverage of the Black Knights' final 2010 spring practice, to Spring Game when and where, to a spotlight piece - this one on WR Davyd Brooks.

Brooks is making the most of his chance. He's no longer a raw athlete. He's a football player. Brooks' flashes of brilliance are more frequent.

"Consistency," said the soft-spoken Brooks. "Consistency. That's my No. 1 word. Consistency with everything I do."

I don't know why, but I love that consistency quote.
A nice piece on a serious physical specimen. As a soph. this is his first chance to make an impact, and with the run game's tendency to get a bit stuffy - for lack of a better word- a big, athletic true WR will offer some chances to make plays down the field.

The Lewiston Morning Tribune has an in depth spotlight piece featuring Lewiston, Idaho native Emerson Follett. This one calls cadets' commitment to West Point "a free education, with strings", and highlights some of the rigors of West Point underclassmen.

Freshmen, or plebes, get one pass off the campus each semester, plus Christmas. That eases somewhat with time, until seniors are allowed cars and passes every weekend.

"Life gets better when you're not a freshman. I really think it's worth it, the education, especially becoming an officer in the Army. That's my ultimate goal: becoming an officer in the Army. Putting up with some of the stuff is definitely worth it."

So do you still call that "free"?


USA Today has had a Spring Prospectus up for a little while. Recruiting notes, personnel notes and expectations are addressed in this one.

2010 LOOK AHEAD: There is no question Army made strides in 2009, coming within 30 minutes of the program's first bowl game since 1997. The Black Knights led Navy at the half and couldn't finish the job, finishing 5-7. QB Trent Steelman was a full-time starter as a freshman and should continue to grow, and RB Pat Mealy could at least approach 1,000 yards in his senior season. The Black Knights had seven seniors on the 22-man depth chart for the Navy game, and they continue to grow.

Also the Big East's new Yankee Stadium bowl game has a new name and sponsor. The New Era Pinstripe Bowl will air on ESPN and pit the Big East's 3rd bowl eligible team against the 6th team from the Big 12.

Year by Year 1874

Another day, another year. Now comes time to review the year 1874 and we've seen that prior to 1874 football looked nothing like the football we know today. Well 1874 brin good news and and also some bad news. The good news... football in 1874 is taking a big stride toward becoming American football - the bad news... the brand of football played in 1874 was far from what we can call modern football, and merely moving toward the style of football played in English rugby.

Which is fine - we're examining the history of American football and there's no secret that the American game evolved from Rugby. I find it a little troublesome that in the search to find the "birthplace" of college football, partisan researchers have the tendency to credit the invention of football at one singular place (@ historical correction) or at one singular time, when if we want to look at one place in time, all evidence regarding the start of American intercollegiate football points to Princeton/Rutgers in 1869. Any fact-glossing beyond that ignores the steps taken by earlier teams to organize the sport. And in the case of the Harvard article point more to the innovations of the Canadian game than it does to the Harvard style of play.

1874 college football was played under three different sets of rules: 1) the F.A. rules set forth in 1873 by Rutgers, Princeton, Columbia and Yale 2) rules implemented by Harvard's "Boston game" and 3) the English Rugby rules introduced by Montreal's McGill Univ.

In 1874 Harvard and McGill played a had scheduled a 2 game series in Cambridge, Mass where the first game, on May 14, was played using Harvard rules and a game the next day was played using McGill's rugby rules. The first game ended in a 3-0 Harvard win and the rugby game ended up tied 0-0, but by all accounts the rugby tie was more exciting, more entertaining and more enjoyable for the players. There was no score to this game, but McGill's rules counted touchdowns as well as goals - where in English rugby a touchdown only allowed for a try for goal.

I take notice of things like this, but in several places it is noted that the second, tied, game was thrilling and exciting. I don't know what is lost on football fans of today that we can't see the value of a tie, but I'll take this opportunity to illustrate that ties are a big part of college football, from the first season when Princeton/Rutgers split 1-1 records to the Harvard/McGill tie that changed the nature of the game. Ties have always been there.

The game played the next day, May 15, was the first rugby game on U.S. soil. Harvard acquitted itself very well and struggled to a scoreless tie. More importantly, they fell head over heels in love with rugby and all thoughts of the once-cherished Boston Game disappeared.

A third Harvard/McGill game was scheduled that year and in October the Harvard team travelled to Montreal to play McGill at rugby. This time Harvard won 3 touchdowns to 0 and while these international games weren't the start of college football they certainly were major steps in the game's evolution.


There were also association football games played by Columbia, Princeton, Rutgers, Stevens Tech and Yale. These games cannot be diminished as those teams soon became involved in the handling game of American football. I believe I'm through with highlighting every game and every score, and now I will focus these posts on the changes in the game and honoringthe best teams of a given year. For now I'll state that between 1874 and 1875 the most important ingredient to the evolution of college football was the natural rivalry of Harvard and Yale. In the next post, Harvard introduces Yale to rugby, a young Walter Camp watches on, and Yale's great teams were tempered under the fire of Harvard's new rugby game.


As for champions, 1874 gives us a unique result with two undefeated soccer teams plus Harvard as the champion of the McGill rugby series.

Yale 3-0
Princeton 2-0

Harvard 2-0-1

So accolades again go to Yale and Princeton as well as to Harvard with their newfangled handyball rules.

News and Notes

Army played their spring scrimmage #2 and GoArmySports has a recap.

The player quotes at the end of the article have some timely updates.

Senior LB Stephen Anderson
(Ref.: his rehabilitation from offseason knee surgery)
“It’s going well. It’s a slow process. I have to remind myself every day that it’s a slow process, but the little victories help every day .I might run a little harder in the pool or walk a little faster on the treadmill. I’m not running yet. There’s no need for me to be better by March or April. I just want to be better for August, and I have to keep reminding myself of that. It’s a pretty legit surgery. I just need to take it day by day and listen to my trainers and doctors, and just take it as it comes.”

Sal Interdonato writes about new personnel at the slotback position.

Army’s search for speed at the slotback position has given junior Emerson Follett a new football life.

Follett played defensive back and was punt returner for Army’s sprint (lightweight football) team.

Follett hasn’t lined up against the big boys since he was a wide receiver at Lewiston (Idaho) High.

ESPN's Graham Watson takes note of the interchangeable athletes at West Point.

“Obviously, that was an extreme situation,” Ellerson said of Villanueva’s position change. “Guys have to love to play the game more than they love to play a particular position. I tell guys at the beginning of the recruiting process that if they can only be happy playing left end or right tackle or whatever it is, don’t come here because I don’t care. If a guy can only play one position, that’s a bad recruit.”

A very interesting perspective. Dave Wannstedt is another guy who likes to move guys around from year to year. The way Pitt plays under Wannstedt's doesn't usually produce the most high scoring team - but they keep games close and play very well with the game on the line. With the run game that Ellerson brings to the table I can only hope that switching players around on either side of the ball finds Army the speed to keep Army in some more games with chances to win games late. But with that said, the players have to be just as comfortable playing in close games as they are at picking up new positions in the spring.

Actual Army Football Notes

Spring practice is in full swing and while the early start leaves me disoriented and short of breath, for Sal Interdonato it's game on.

Sal gives us personnel notes galore as the Army Football Insider blog gives us our first look at the 2010 Army team. Another recent spring ball breakdown from GoArmySports. Some good quotes from Coach Ellerson there, make sure to0 check it out.

Phil Steele has a D1-A spring practice schedule and he encapsulates Army's spring in what might fit in a Twitter post

INDEPENDENTS • Army returns 18 starters from last year’s team that won 5 games which was the most since 1996. Army welcomes back 8 starters on offense that will have to improve upon last years 275 ypg and 15 ppg performance.

I should reserve my criticism on how long people's Army posts are, since I'm really not adding very much these days.

Lastly I get the pun in this headline, but I don't see the humor at all in making light of head injuries. Richard King doesn't need me to look after his health, so I'll just offer him a welcome back to the team and a healthy season.

Year by Year 1873

In 1873 we see the continued expansion of American football, and the makeshift rules that had been used to this point became a point of contention with the introduction of more teams to intercollegiate play.

The game that stands out in this year was the end of season game between Yale and Eton. This game is particularly interesting as it was the first international intercollegiate football game played as well as the first American game to have 11 man teams.

This game against Eton also brings up our familiar theme of rule changes and the laws of the game... this game was played under Football Association rules - the with the Association rules being the original carnation of England's F.A. soccer code. Eton traveled from England and only traveled 11 men to New Haven to face the Elis. The move to 11 man teams in American football didn't officially happen until 1880. Until 1872 teams would simply agree on a set of rules and play ball - now with the English F.A. producing a set of uniform rules (1861) and introducing the F.A. Cup tournament (1872) the idea was put forth in America to come to a consensus on rule changes for the good of the game.

Yale, Columbia, Rutgers and Princeton met on Oct 16th and agreed on a short set of rules adapted from F.A. soccer. Their agreed upon rules can be seen at a site called the-game.org

That site is complete with a further historical time line straight through the 1880's and it also lists the 1872 football code:

1. The ground shall be 400 feet long and 250 feet broad.

2. The distance between the posts of each goal shall be 25 feet.

3. The number for match games shall be 20 to a side.

4. To win a game 6 goals are necessary, but that side shall be considered victorious which, when the game is called, shall have scored the greatest number of goals, provided that number be 2 or more. To secure a goal the ball must pass between the posts.

5. No player shall throw or carry the ball. Any violation of this regulation shall constitute a foul, and the player so offending shall throw the ball perpendicularly into the air to a height of at least 12 feet and the ball shall not be in play until it has touched the ground.

6. When the ball passes out of bounds it is a foul, and the player causing it shall advance at right angles to the boundary line, 15 paces from the point where the ball went, and shall proceed as in rule 5.

7. No tripping shall be allowed, nor shall any player use his hands to hold or push an adversary.

8. The winner of the toss shall have the choice of the first goal, and the sides shall change goals after every successive inning. In starting the ball it shall be fairly kicked, not "babied", from a point 150 feet in front of the starter's goal.

9. Until the ball is kicked no player on either side shall be in advance of a line parallel to the line of his goal and distant from it 150 feet.

10. There shall be two judges, one from each of the contesting colleges, and one referee; all to be chosen by the captains.

11. No player shall wear spikes or iron plates upon his shoes.

12. In all matches a No. 6 ball shall be used, furnished by the challenging side and to become the property of the victor.

So the rules provide that by this point American football was unquestionably soccer and that teams were now affiliated through this new, uniform set of rules.

One college that didn't take part in the modified Association rules was Harvard as they had their own game which permitted handling and running with the ball. Harvard, though invited, didn't attend the soccer meeting and opted instead to seek other running teams to play their brand of football against.

Harvard agreed to play McGill, a Canadian college in 1874 and the other American schools agreed to follow the association style rules, but in the next few years we will see that even amidst all this agreement... to date very little had been settled regarding American football.

The five games in 1873 played out like this:

10/25/1873 Rutgers 1 - 3 Yale
11/1/1873 Columbia 2 - 1 Stevens Tech
11/8/1873 Columbia 4 - 5 Rutgers
11/15/1873 Princeton 3 - 0 Yale
11/15/1873 Rutgers 3 - 4 Columbia
12/6/1873 Eton 1 - 2 Yale

...producing the records:

Princeton 1-0
Yale 1-1
Columbia 1-1
Rutgers 1-2
Stevens 0-1
Eton* 0-1

Princeton again playing to an undefeated 1-0 record. As I hesitantly give accolades to Princeton for another 1-0 title season I will remind you that Harvard was also playing ball among themselves and testing themselves for their scheduled series against McGill in 1874. Next up is the 1874 Harvard/McGill game that would change the game of football in America

Year by Year 1872

1872 was a notable year for several reasons, football continued its steady growth with Yale playing Columbia on Nov. 16, 1872 in the first American football game between future Ivy League foes and Stevens Tech included in a late season game against Columbia. Interestingly, football's first tie occurred in the first game of the year when Columbia tied Rutgers 0-0 on Nov. 2, 1872.

The expansion of football and its popularity will be a continuing theme for these year by year entries, and soon the Ivy league teams - particularly Yale and Princeton - will begin their period of dominance, but another theme - the parity of teams and the necessity of ties is one aspect of the early game I would like to shed some light on.

1872 was the year of the first football tie, and while the game still looked less like modern football and more like the soccer/ultimate frisbee amalgamation that I tried to depict in earlier posts, these early football games, with their physical play and their ability to captivate both school partisans and regional supporters are the ancestors of football of today.

So the rules were very different and the games were presented on a much smaller scale... but the games were hard fought, physical and generally close in score. I believe this is what attracted new colleges to football as opposed to other collegiate sports. The 1865 Rutgers/Princeton 40-2 base-ball blowout has been cited as a main reason why Rutgers students sought another sport to compete in against Princeton. In 1869 the teams split that first series of college football games - which is also why I wanted to term these early winners as "national champions", the game of football will eventually become a national game and as it does it becomes harder and harder to find one team that can be called the best. I believe the nature of the sport and spirit of competition in college football in a way begs for that parity that is so evident in football's salad days.

Today, we have essentially meaningless early season exhibitions against D1-AA opponents while three and four teams finish the season undefeated and play in a bowl system that is unequipped to objectively sort out so many undefeated teams. I don't want to fill these year by year writeups with stuff that doesn't apply directly to that year, but I think the first college football tie is a notable achievement for the sport and I find it troubling that we've moved to overtime at the expense of ties while top teams are still allowed to schedule patsies through October. That institutional shift toward winning at the expense of the game routinely undermines the essence (and rules) of the game and strikes me as artificial and completely against the original nature of the sport.


With that said, 1872 gave us five games:

Rutgers 0 0 Columbia
Columbia 5 7 Rutgers
Columbia 0 3 Yale
Rutgers 1 4 Princeton
Stevens Tech 0 6 Columbia

leaving:

Yale 1-0
Princeton1-0
Rutgers 1-1-1
Columbia 1-2-1
Stevens Tech 0-1

For what I can only term as another split title between Yale and Princeton... two future Ivy football rivals. This year with only one game each the titles were barely earned... in years to come these two teams will make up for their 1-0 seasons by achieving success in football that was not even fathomable at this early stage.

Year by Year 1870

In 1870 Columbia joined Princeton and Rutgers in intercollegiate football and while this expansion of the game shows that the sport itself was growing, American football didn't yet have enough teams to create a modern day sports league. Fielding the third intercollegiate football team is about the most noteworthy thing Columbia has ever done on the gridiron as their record in the 1870's stood at 11-18-4 and they really haven't done a lot to draw positive attention to themselves since then.

Looking at 1870 -with so few teams playing the game and with those teams clustered in New Jersey and New York it's clear football was not yet a national game, and I realize it's sort of a silly at this point to call a team a "national champion" - but that's exactly what I'm going to do.

1870 featured just two games with Columbia playing against Rutgers on November 5th and Princeton playing Rutgers one week later on the 11th. These two games produced our first undefeated team with Columbia losing to Rutgers (3-6) and then Rutgers losing to Princeton (2-6).Considering those results I'll offer that Princeton was the 1870 college football champion. Princeton goes in my book as our first undefeated champion. Does the 1-0 record qualify Princeton as an undefeated champion?.. in 1870, yes. Was Princeton a tested champion this year?.. no.

1871 remains as the only year since the beginning of intercollegiate play began that there were no games. No games, no champion, but in 1871 the game continued its natural expansion and when we return to look at the 1872 season two more teams will join the fray.

Spring has Sprung

While it's 33° in West Point with the prospect of flurries, the Black Knights kick off their 2010 campaign today as the Black knights begin spring football.

Sal Interdonato again has the scoop.

Why is Army practicing so early?

Army usually starts spring practice in March, but Ellerson wants to give some of his players a chance to compete in other sports at West Point.

"The idea is to take advantage of the fact that we have the Foley Center," Ellerson said. "Most of spring ball will be done before spring break. Then we will have our spring game (March 26) when we come back. By that time, we'll have more than a handful of guys over time that will be doing track and field.

"Right now it's just a handful, but we are going to recruit that way. We will have a couple of guys doing baseball. That's kind of a new adventure for us. We have not done that before. I think it makes a lot of sense at West Point. Guys are going to be competing and keeping score. We value that at every turn. By going early like that, guys won't get pulled in too many directions."

Freshmen Kyler Martin (hurdles), cornerback Brian Cobbs (sprints), receiver Brian Austin (sprints) and linebacker Nick Snoad (throws) are on the track team. Kicker Matt Campbell is a reserve second baseman for Army.

Also mentioned is the 2010 Army football schedule with its notable 4 neutral site games.

Army's 2010 schedule
(all game times TBA)

Sept. 4 at Eastern Michigan

Sept. 11 vs. Hawaii

Sept. 18 vs. North Texas

Sept. 25 at Duke

Oct. 2 vs. Temple

Oct. 9 at Tulane*

Oct. 16 at Rutgers#

Oct. 30 vs. VMI

Nov. 6 vs. Air Force

Nov. 13 at Kent State

Nov. 20 vs. Notre Dame^

Dec. 11 vs. Navy@

* - Louisiana Superdome; # - new Meadowlands Stadium; ^ - Yankee Stadium; @ - Philadelphia's Lincoln Financial Field

Scout appropriately asks three questions (six with subscription) which Army needs to address in spring ball. For those who forgot or were trying to forget, one of the needs mentioned was the need for a quick slotback.

"A" backs make plays and at Army last year’s slot back starters simply lacked the athleticism and speed needed to generate big plays. Ellerson and his staff are working hard to address this in recruiting.

Of the returning starters Pat Mealy is the best. He is a hard worker, good blocker, runs hard in traffic and lacks only a second gear .He was the only slot back to average over five yards a carry (6.1). Pencil him in as a starter.

The other slot back position is wide open. Jameson Carter's long stride would seem to be a better fit at wide receiver but his inconsistent hands can make him a liability in the passing game. He blocks well and was a big reason for Mealy's 136-yard game against VMI.

Malcolm Brown (5-11 180) is the most talented of the plebes that saw action at slot back last year. However, when put in the starting lineup last year he struggled mightily with the speed of the college game. This spring will give Brown a chance to show he has learned his assignments and just play. Lonnie Liggins is a Pat Mealy clone who also lacks a second gear but should contribute with more practice reps.

The exciting dark horse candidates to emerge as potential playmakers are Greg Cotton and returning slot back Alfred Mc Daniel. Cotton, a 6-0, 195 plebe, was a defensive back that was moved to slot back last year and saw no time from scrimmage. Cotton is one of the fastest players on the team and will get a chance to show this spring if he can translate his speed into production.

Alfred McDaniel had given fans hope that he might be the answer after fall practice before being hurt. The Army track star, who is the two time Patriot League 100 meters champion who had beaten Shun White on the track, showed his rust after not playing since high school and was injured early in year. McDaniel is too small to be an every down back but with his speed he could develop into a change of pace home run threat.

Count on Sal to cover the bases at spring practice and he has done some pieces on Army football recruiting that are worth reading if you're interested in that.

Year by Year: 1869 Season

Man, I've been dragging my feet on this thing. 1869 is arguably the easiest season to examine being that there were only two teams and the rules were fairly simplistic.

Princeton and Rutgers played two games in 1869 and split the series. On Nov. 6, 1869 Rutgers won the first game (at home) and one week later on Nov 13th, Princeton won the return game at their campus. So it's easy to say that the first college football "national title" is a split title with both Princeton and Rutgers sharing the honors.

More difficult is to try to understand just how different the game itself was from modern football. The game resembled soccer to a great degree with soccer style goal posts set up and rules allowing the use of the hands for batting the ball forward or backward. Players couldn't run with the ball but could advance the ball on the dribble as in basketball. The one element that made this game uniquely American was the fact that even at this early stage the game was a contact (and even a collision) sport.
With that said, even these two early contests had diverging rules with the noted difference in the Princeton game being that players who caught a kicked ball on the fly earned a free kick.

It's hard to imagine what the game might have looked like. Rutgers' athletic site does a good job describing the first contest, but the one common element from all of these very early American football games was that they weren't widely reported on. Last November represented the 140th anniversary of that first game and the Rutgers blog Beat Visitor went back and transcribed one of the most detailed accounts of the first game. The New York Times in 1916 ran a little blurb revisiting that first college football game:

NYT published: Nov 26, 1916

The second game, which Princeton won 8-0, was recounted in 1949 by Henry Green Duffield, the son of a Princeton Professor and in 1869 - then just a 10 year old boy. The following passage is an excerpt from an interview of Henry Green Duffield conducted by Princeton partisan Dan Coyle.

The game was played on Conover's Field at the foot of Chambers Street, about a block north of Nassau Street. It wasn't much more than a cow pasture but the hay had been mowed, goal lines drawn and posts erected. It was about a quarter-mile from where Palmer Stadium now stands.

Under the rules of 1869 you could catch the ball, but you couldn't run with it. If you did, it was a foul and the ball had to be thrown free up in the air. It could be advanced by batting it with your fist, by kicking it as in soccer or even by dribbling it as in basketball today.

The ball was not an oval but was supposed to be completely round. It never was though- it was too hard to blow up right. The game was stopped several times that day while the teams called for a little key from the sidelines. They used it to unlock the small nozzle tucked into the ball and then took turns blowing it up. The last man generally got tired and they put it back into play somewhat lopsided.

Beyond that there isn't very much... one thing we know for sure are the results, so with those results - the first official intercollegiate football season went into the books:


Princeton 1-1
Rutgers 1-1