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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton football, a 20th century review
October 20, 1999 | Football
Oct. 20, 1999
Princeton Football 1901-1920
Best team - 1903 (11-0, undefeated national champion, 10 shutouts, outscored opponents 259-6) Best players – 1. John DeWitt (two-time consensus All-America guard), 2. Harold Ballin (two-time consensus All-America tackle), 3. Hobey Baker (1913 captain, member of Hall of Fame) Best game – Princeton defeated Yale 11-6 to win the 1903 national championship when Ralph Davis blocked a punt and John DeWitt returned it 75 yards for a touchdown. Biggest achievement - Palmer Stadium, a 45,750-seat stadium, was built in four months of 1914. Did you know? … In 1901 teams had three downs to gain five yards, the forward pass was illegal, a touchdown was worth five points and there was no line of scrimmage.
Princeton has been playing college football for 130 years, and it has never seen a metamorphosis in the game such as what occurred in the first two decades of the 20th century. It was during that time that football went from a fragmented game with no central governing body to the game that is basically the same as today. As for the Tigers, they went from playing on a makeshift field to a glimmering football palace that would stand for nine decades. The key year in football was 1906. It was then that President Theodore Roosevelt, concerned with the growing number of fatalities in college football while at the same time enamored of the excitement and huge crowds the game generated, summoned representatives from the three major powers (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) to the White House. Out of Roosevelt's meeting came an initiative to make the game safer, the result was a complete modernization of the rules. Football had become a game of 11 players on a side in the last decade of the 1800s, but that was about all that made the game common to what is played today. There was no neutral zone, so players lined up nose-to-nose. There was no requirement that a specific number of players line up on the line of scrimmage, so V-formations such as the Flying Wedge were popular. Teams had three downs to gain five yards to maintain possession, so the game was a plodding one. Finally, the forward pass was illegal, so defensive teams were able to play all 11 men up front. Within two years of the convention at the White House, all of those rules had been updated and an organization known as the Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee was formed to oversee this. The governing body's responsibilities were soon broadened, and its name was changed to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA . As for the rules, the line of scrimmage was established, with a neutral zone between offense and defense and the requirement that seven men be on the line. Teams were now required to gain 10 yards on three downs to maintain possession, with a fourth down added in 1908. Most importantly, the forward pass was legalized, with interesting restrictions at first. The pass had to be thrown from at least five yards behind the line of scrimmage, and it had to be thrown at least five yards to either side of the center. Lines, called hash marks, were put on the field to mark that five-yard zone. No pass could be thrown more than 20 yards downfield, and any incomplete pass thrown out of bounds resulted in a change of possession at that spot. These rules did not last, and the modern forward pass rules were decided upon by 1912. In 1912 scoring was changed to give six points instead of five for a touchdown and the field was shortened from 110 yards to 100 yards. Princeton thrived both before and after 1906, as the Tigers won four national championships between 1901 and 1920. The 1903 team was the best, as it began the season with 10 shutouts before finishing its perfect season with an 11-6 win over Yale. The Tigers would add national titles in 1906, 1911 and 1920. It was an era of great dominance, as Princeton went 130-24-12 in the 20 seasons between 1901 and 1920 and never lost more than two games in any season. Princeton's success did not go unnoticed, and demand to see the Tigers play began to outgrow supply for seats. Princeton began the century playing on Brokaw Field, below what is now Dillon Gymnasium. The Tigers then moved to University Field, where the Engineering Quad now stands. This wood structure was soon too small, and Edgar Palmer '03 donated a replacement that proved to be more than adequate. The stadium that would bear his name, Palmer Stadium, was built in four months of 1914. The concrete facility opened in October of 1914, and it would stand until the end of the 1996 football season. Princeton had 26 consensus All-Americas in the 20 years, and eight Tigers during that era are in the Hall of Fame.
Princeton Football 1921-1940
Best team - 1922 (8-0, undefeated national champion, five shutouts, "Team of Destiny") Best players - 1. John A.C. (Jac) Weller (consensus All-America guard in 1935, member of College Football Hall of Fame), 2. James Keck (two-time consensus All-America tackle in early '20s, member of College Football Hall of Fame), 3. Art Lane (captain of 1933 national champion) Best game – Princeton defeated Chicago 21-18 in 1922, rallying from an 18-7 fourth quarter deficit and then holding off the Maroons on a fourth-and-goal from the one with one second left Biggest achievement – Fritz Crisler, Princeton coach from 1932-37, introduced the winged-helmet to college football in 1935. He took it with him when he left Princeton for Michigan, where it became the most recognizable helmet in the sport. Did you know? … The 1922 Princeton-Chicago game was the first football game ever broadcast on radio.
It was, the New York Times said the next day, "the most sensational intersectional battle in the history of football." On a somewhat more provincial scale, it was also perhaps the most legendary game in Princeton football history. Don't worry if you couldn't be there. You could have listened to it on the radio. That alone made it historic. The year was 1922, and no football game had ever been broadcast on radio before Princeton traveled to the Midwest to play Amos Alonzo Stagg's powerhouse University of Chicago team. "Demand for tickets to the game has reached unprecedented proportions," the New York Times wrote. "Bank presidents, brokers, society leaders, captains of industry have all sent their messengers our with instructions to buy seats at any price." With the 32,000 seats at Stagg Field long gone before any Easterners had a chance at them, radio station WAEF in New York City hit upon the idea of sending broadcaster Gus Falzer to Chicago to provide descriptions over the air. Falzer couldn't have had a better game to work with. The Tigers trailed the heavily favored Maroons 18-7 in the fourth quarter before rallying to take a 21-18 lead with less than two minutes remaining. Chicago then came back down the field and had first-and-goal at the six with 30 seconds to play, the final play was a fourth-and-goal from the one with one second to go. "It looked like the Chicago man was going to break the goal," one account read. "Then he just disappeared into a pack of Orange and Black." Princeton's 21-18 win was the biggest of the 1922 season, which ended at 8-0 with a national championship. That team became known as the "Team of Destiny," which coach Bill Roper drove with the motto that of "a team that won't be beaten can't be beaten." That 1922 team remains the most romanticized in Princeton history, but it was not the only successful team during the era. Princeton also had undefeated national champions in 1933 (captained by Art Lane) and 1935 (captained by Pepper Constable). Roper began his third and final stint as Tiger coach in 1919, and he would win 60 games in 10 years from 1919-1928 despite playing only seven or eight per season. In 1929, however, Princeton introduced something not experienced in the first 60 years of Tiger football, the losing season. Princeton went 2-4-1 in 1929 for its first-ever non-winning season, and that was followed by a 1-5-1 1930 season that was Roper's last. Al Wittmer replaced Roper for one year, going 1-7 before he was replaced by Fritz Crisler. Under their new coach, the Tigers took the express route back to the top, going 2-2-3 in 1932 and then 25-1 in the next three years combined. Crisler also introduced the winged helmet to college football in 1935, when he dressed his Tigers with a helmet styled to represent a Tiger with its ears flared back and three symbolic orange stripes running from front to back to match the striping on the jersey. Crisler would take this helmet with him to Michigan three years later, where in maize and blue the helmet became a college football icon.
Princeton Football 1941-1960
Best team - 1950 (9-0 record, Lambert Cup as top team in East, three All-Americas, national coach of the year) Best players – 1. Dick Kazmaier (1951 Heisman Trophy winner, All-America, member of Hall of Fame), 2. Hollie Donan (consensus All-America tackle in 1949 and 1950, member of Hall of Fame), 3. Frank McPhee (1951 and 1952 consensus All-America) Best game – Princeton defeated Dartmouth 13-7 as a hurricane raced through Palmer Stadium Biggest achievement – Dick Kazmaier won the 1951 Heisman Trophy Did you know? … Princeton set a school record that still stands today by winning 24 straight games between 1949 and 1952
The bronze statue sits in Steve Tosches' office, rather unobtrusively placed on top of a cabinet behind the head coach's desk. It is the 1951 Heisman Trophy, and it serves as a daily reminder of the most glorious era of Princeton Tiger football. Dick Kazmaier won one of the top individual honors in all of sports after the 1951 season, when he was honored for his all-around ability as a passer and a runner. Considered a little too small when he came to Princeton from Maumee, Ohio, Kazmaier instead carved out a career that is unrivaled in Tiger history. Kazmaier and the Heisman Trophy was not only the highlight of the era but also the entire century. Still, there was more to the decade of 1950s than Kazmaier. Tad Wieman coached Princeton to 2-6 and 3-5-1 records in 1941 and 1942, and Princeton then turned to Harry Mahnken for the war-shortened seasons of 1943 and 1944. The 1944 season consisted of but three games, none of which was against an Ivy League opponent, and remains the last time that Princeton did not play Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, Penn or Yale. Princeton did not play Harvard or Brown in 1945 either, when the schedule went back to seven games in the first post-war season. The 1945 season marked more than the return to a basically normal schedule, it also was the first of 12 seasons at Princeton for new head coach Charlie Caldwell. A member of the Class of 1923 and a player on the 1922 national championship Team of Destiny, Caldwell led the Tigers to a 70-30-3 record from 1945-1956. Caldwell's first two season were sub-.500, and his first four years saw the Tigers go 14-15-2. The turnaround began in 1949, when Princeton went 6-3 and won its final four games by defeating Rutgers, Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth. Those four wins began a streak that would continue with back-to-back 9-0 seasons in 1950 and 1951 and wins in the first two games of 1952. A 13-7 loss at Penn ended the winning streak at 24 games, which is still the school record. Still, Princeton went 8-1 in 1952, led by Homer Smith and Frank McPhee the year after Kazmaier graduated. The 1950 and 1951 teams each won the Lambert Cup as the top team in the East, and debate rages today among the veterans as to which team was better. The 1950 team featured not only Kazmaier and All-America Frank McPhee but also All-Americas Red Finney and Hollie Donan, as well as captain George Chandler. Consider that between the 18 games of those two years, Princeton scored at least 50 points six times and held its opponent to fewer than 10 points 10 times, with six shutouts mixed in. Perhaps the top individual performance came in the 1951 game against Cornell, when Kazmaier completed 15 of 17 passes for 236 yards and rushed for 124 yards in the 53-15 win. Caldwell's final four years at Princeton saw the Tigers go 24-11-1, and his final season of 1956 was the first of the formalized Ivy League. The Tigers went 6-1 in the league that first year and then won their first league title in 1957 under the direction of new coach Dick Colman, who replaced Caldwell and went 75-33-0 in his 12 seasons.
Princeton Football 1961-1980
Best team - 1964 (9-0 record, Ivy champ, No. 13 national ranking) Best players – 1. Stas Maliszewski (two-time All-America, consensus All-America in 1965, last consensus All-America at Princeton), 2. Cosmo Iacavazzi (All-America in 1963 and 1964), 3. Walt Snickenberger (1974 Bushnell Cup winner) Best game – 35-7 win over Dartmouth in final week of 1969 to share league title with previously undefeated Big Green Biggest achievement – Charlie Gogolak at Princeton and his brother Pete at Cornell introduced the soccer-style of placekicking to football, a move that has since become universal. Did you know? … Princeton had four straight shutouts in the middle of the 1964 season.
The 1961 Princeton-Yale game drew a crowd of more than 42,000 to Palmer Stadium. The 1979 Princeton-Yale game drew a crowd of 22,825 to Palmer Stadium. Perhaps those two numbers speak the loudest about the direction of Ivy League football from the early '60s through the late '70s. When the decade of the 1960s began, Ivy League football was still capable of producing national-caliber teams, who played in front of huge crowds. By the end of the '70s, the days of packed stadiums and national contenders were over, lost to a variety of economic and social factors. As the 1980s loomed, even the designation of Division I changed. Beginning in 1978, the top division of college football was split into I-A and I-AA, and the Ivy League schools became part of the lower of the two. While Ivy League football as a whole changed radically from the '60s to the '70s, the on-the-field differences between the two decades at Princeton were just as pronounced. Under the direction of Hall of Fame coach Dick Colman, the Tigers put some of their best teams on the field in the mid-'60s, highlighted by a 31-5 run from 1963-66. By contrast, Princeton did not have a winning record in any year from 1971-78. Colman replaced Charlie Caldwell as Princeton's head coach in 1957, and he continued the winning tradition well into the next decade. By the time he left after the 1968 season, he had won 75 games, now third-best in school history. The Tigers went 5-4 in both 1961 and 1962 and followed that with a 7-2 season in 1963 that saw Princeton tie Dartmouth for the league title after the Big Green knocked off the Tigers 22-21 in the final game of the year. That set up the 1964 season, when the Tigers romped to a 9-0 record and a No. 13 national ranking, the final time Princeton was ranked in the Top 20. Princeton outscored its opponents 216-53 and shut out Colgate, Pennsylvania, Brown and Harvard on consecutive weeks in midseason. The team was led by Cosmo Iacavazzi, who ran for then-school records of 909 yards and 14 touchdowns, and linebacker/guard Stas Maliszewski, both of whom were named All-Americas (Iacavazzi for the second straight year, Maliszewski for the first of what would be two straight years). The first eight weeks of the 1965 season were a repeat of the previous year, as Maliszewski and All-America placekicker Charlie Gogolak helped the Tigers to eight straight wins. Along the way Princeton shut out Columbia, Colgate and Pennsylvania and held Harvard and Yale to six points each. The winning streak ended at 17, however, as undefeated Dartmouth won a final week showdown in front of the last sell-out crowd ever at Palmer Stadium —stands were erected in the south end zone and people were on the promenade on top of Palmer Stadium—28-14 to take the Ivy title. The Tigers came right back the following year to go 7-2 and win a share of Colman's fourth and final Ivy League championship. Princeton also beat Yale 13-7 in 1966, which would be the Tigers' final win over their rival until 1981. Colman's final two years saw Princeton finish fourth each time, and Colman was succeeded by his assistant Jake McCandless, who replaced the single wing with the T formation, for the 1969 season. Princeton began McCandless' tenure with another share of an Ivy title, but it would be 20 years until the Tigers would win another. Princeton went 5-4 in 1970—Hank Bjorklund rushed for 1,081 yards to become the first Tiger to go over the 1,000-yard mark—and 1979. In between, the best record was a 4-4-1 in 1974. That year is more memorable for the exploits of Walt Snickenberger, who rushed for 1,041 yards and became Princeton's first winner of the Bushnell Cup as the Ivy League Player of the Year. Princeton and the rest of the Ivy League became part of Division I-AA in 1978.
Princeton Football 1981-1999 Best team - 1995 (8-1-1, outright Ivy League champion) Best players – 1. Keith Elias, 2. Derek Graham, 3. Dave Patterson Best game – 1981 vs. Yale (Bob Holly threw for 501 yards and ran for a touchdown on the game's final play to lead Princeton to a 35-31 win and snap a 14-year losing streak to the Bulldogs) Biggest achievement – Keith Elias set 21 school records and four NCAA records in his three years on varsity. Did you know? … Kevin Guthrie (88) and Derek Graham (84) combined to catch 172 passes in 1983.
Yale was unbeaten when it came to Palmer Stadium in the penultimate game of the 1981 season. The Bulldogs had beaten Princeton 14 straight times before that game, and there was little reason to think this year would be any different. That was before Bob Holly put together the greatest passing show in Ivy League football history. When it was over, Holly had completed 36 of 55 passes for 501 yards and four touchdowns and, just for good measure, scored the winning touchdown on the final play in a 35-31 Tiger victory. The win denied one of the better Yale teams of Carm Cozza's tenure an outright Ivy League title. As for the Tigers, that game to a certain degree summed up the early '80s, when Princeton featured pass-happy teams that piled up huge numbers and played some of the most exciting games the program has know. Scores like 55-44 (vs. Maine in 1981), 41-36 (vs. Cornell in 1982), 41-33 (vs. Lafayette in 1983), 32-30 (vs. Brown in 1984) and 49-44 (vs. Colgate in 1985) were the norm. Unfortunately for the Tigers, they were just 2-3 in those five games, and Princeton's only winning record from the start of the period through 1986 was a 5-4-1 mark in 1981. Still, it was a time of tremendous fun for Princeton football. Five of the top seven single-season passing performances in school history were from 1981-86, and seven of the top eight were from 1981-87. The succession of quarterbacks from Holly to Brent Woods to Doug Butler to Jason Garrett combined for 18,048 passing yards. Wide receivers Kevin Guthrie and Derek Graham, as strong a 1-2 punch as has ever been in the program, combined for 370 receptions for 5,444 yards and 35 touchdowns in their careers. Princeton averaged more than 2,400 passing yards per season from 1981-87, no other Princeton team before or since has had that many in any one season. As much fun as this period was, it all ended far too abruptly in the summer of 1987, when just prior to the start of training camp, head coach Ron Rogerson suffered a shocking fatal heart attack. Stepping into that difficult void was Steve Tosches, who has been the Tiger coach ever since. Since inheriting the program, Tosches has won three Ivy League championships, including the only outright title won by Princeton in the last 37 years in 1995. Tosches ranks second all-time in victories at Princeton, and he has led Princeton through a period of great stability and success. The 1989 team won a share of the league title, giving Princeton its first crown in 20 years. That team was led by running back Judd Garrett, who would set the University career rushing record while winning the Bushnell Cup one year after his older brother Jason, who still plays in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys. Judd's records were impressive, but they were also shortlived. In his place stepped the Back in Black, the dynamic and charismatic Keith Elias, who rushed for 4,208 yards and 49 touchdowns in three seasons at Princeton. Elias led the Tigers to the 1992 co-championship, and he won the Bushnell Cup in 1993 after rushing for 1,731 yards as a senior. Princeton went 24-6 in his three years on the varsity. After a 7-3 season in 1994, Princeton then ripped off eight straight wins to start the season en route to the outright league championship. The title was clinched on a frozen day in Hanover, N.H., when freshman placekicker Alex Sierk kicked an 18-yard field goal on the final day of the season. That team was led by captain Dave Patterson, who is the only defensive player in school history to win the Bushnell Cup. The end of the decade featured the last season in the 83-year history of Palmer Stadium, the "Road Warrior" season of 1997 as its replacement was built and the debut season of the brand-new Princeton Stadium.