A TOUCHDOWN was worth five points, a field goal four, a first down was five yards and The Daily Pennsylvanian, then known simply as The Pennsylvanian, cost two cents. Just like the Penn football team 99 years later, the 1904 Penn football team went undefeated. Even the impressive accomplishments of the undefeated 2003 team easily pale in comparison to the overwhelmingly dominant standards set by the 1904 team, 100 years ago.
The Pennsylvanian headline of Nov. 25, 1904 read, "VARSITY, 222; OPPONENTS, 4." Besides a single field goal allowed to Swarthmore, Penn held its other 11 opponents -- Penn State (then called State College), Virginia, Franklin and Marshall, Lehigh, Gettysburg, Brown, Columbia, Harvard, Lafayette, Carlisle and Cornell -- scoreless. Although there was no championship game, Penn earned a share of the national championship. For 48 quarters of football, not a single team crossed Penn's goal line.
Despite the fact that in 1904, football at Penn and football as a sport was still in its infancy, the Quakers had already emerged as a national power. Football debuted at Penn in the fall of 1876, as Penn lost to Princeton in its first game, 6-0.
At that point in football history, the game shared few similarities to modern football as we know it today. The game resembled soccer and rugby more than anything else.
Many of the origins of modern football actually developed in the Ivy League. Football historians consider Yale alumnus Walter Camp the pioneer and founder of modern football. After playing football at Yale for six years (two as a medical student), Camp worked hard to implement the fundamental concepts of modern football such as the line of scrimmage, yardage markings and first downs.
As Camp popularized football, Penn looked to bring recognition to its own program. According to Ivy League football historian Mark F. Bernstein, author of Football: the Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession, Penn played at various off-campus sites in the early 1890s in an effort to draw attention to its program. Penn played exhibition games inside the Philadelphia Academy of Music and Madison Square Garden in New York. Although the concept of indoor football did not last long, football at Penn gained popularity in the latter half of the decade.
John Outland, a medical student, anchored Penn's offensive and defensive line from 1897-1899, garnering All-American honors at both guard and tackle in consecutive years, the first player to accomplish such a feat. In 1946, the Football Writers Association of America dedicated the Outland Trophy, given to the nation's top offensive or defensive lineman, in his honor.
In spite of previous successes, the 1904 football season was, by almost all accounts, Penn's best season to date and perhaps the best season the team will ever achieve. According to Bernstein, Penn coach Carl Williams, who split his time as a coach and as an optometrist, implemented a first of its kind -- an "aggressive, swarming defense." Williams' strategy translated into an incredibly staunch Penn defense and unprecedented toughness and intensity that permeated both sides of the ball.
The New York Times described the ferociousness and strength of the Penn team in its recap of the Penn-Cornell season finale, won by the Quakers, 34-0. The paper explained that, "A feature of the game was the fierce tackling of the Pennsylvania boys. On nearly every scrimmage when the Cornell team had the ball, there would be one of the visitors laid out."
Vince Stevenson, Penn's quarterback in 1904, often set this intense tone for the entire team. Playing a position usually known for finesse, Stevenson could drop back to pass or attack the line of scrimmage as a scrambler. In recapping Penn's first significant victory of the year, against Columbia, and perhaps Stevenson's best game of the year, The Pennsylvanian described him as the best quarterback that Penn had ever seen, writing:
"The agility and cleverness with which he evaded the Columbia tackles in his three long runs, each responsible for a touchdown; won him the applause and cheers of the spectators; but his cool judgment and veteran generalship in running the team, though less spectacular, is as praiseworthy as his other work."
Despite weighing just 142 pounds and standing at 5-foot-9, Stevenson never backed down from any opposing player. In the season finale against Cornell, Stevenson was ejected for, as reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer, diving "into a pile of tacklers savagely."
Despite his wild instincts, Stevenson was named an All-American at the end of the season. Two other Quakers -- fullback Andy Smith and guard Frank Piekarski -- also received the same honor. Stevenson was also later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1962.
In addition to the individual honors, Penn earned a share of the national championship in 1904 with the University of Michigan. The title marked Penn's second national championship, as the Quakers won their first title 10 years earlier in 1894.
The Penn student body matched the fierceness brought to the field by the 1904 team with nearly equal enthusiasm and support for the players. The fans attended games at Franklin Field and outside of Philadelphia in record numbers. More than two weeks before the Harvard game, the Houston Club, which was the first student union in America and the precursor to Houston Hall, began selling train tickets to Boston for the game with Harvard.
After dominating Harvard, 11-0, the team and its supporters returned to a festive campus. Players and students celebrated the victory with a parade in the dormitory triangle followed by a bonfire. "All freshmen are expected to gather wood this afternoon for the bonfire," the front page of The Pennsylvanian stated on the morning of the celebration.
Later in the season, before the game against the Carlisle Indians, The Pennsylvanian printed a message to all students at the top right hand corner, demanding that "All undergraduates must be present at Franklin Field not later than 1:15 this afternoon to practice the new football songs." The songs "Pennsylvania" and "Big Chief" were printed below the message so that students could prepare for the mandatory meeting accordingly.
"Big Chief," which included derogatory imitations of Native American chants, was directed at their Carlisle opponents, most of whom were Native Americans. Lines such as "But he gets no scalps at Pennsylvania/ Big Chief's team won't do" illustrate the prejudices of the times.
Penn's opponents did not receive nearly the same support and interest as the Quakers did. For instance, Lehigh could not get enough players in order to field a competitive team for the 1904 season. In forecasting the 1904 Penn-Lehigh game, The Pennsylvanian commented that, "Lehigh's chances in today's game are slight. The candidates for the team have been few. And the team has not received adequate support from the student body." With significant backing from its student body, Penn won the game easily, 24-0.
Penn's dominance was such that throughout the season, coach Williams actively sought more competition for his team. Penn allowed its only points of the season in a 6-4 victory against Swarthmore. Williams, however, was unhappy about the closeness of the game. He had the Quakers scrimmage Swarthmore at least two more times, with the Red and Blue winning the additional contests more handily.
Penn even managed to scrimmage a team of several sailors from the battleship USS Alabama. Penn won easily, though the members of the Alabama battled "spiritedly," according to The Pennsylvanian.
Regardless of the opponent or the value of a touchdown, 100 years later Penn again embarks on another season with no intention of losing. While this year's team will assuredly allow more than four points, another undefeated season would make for a nice story to go along with the 200th anniversary of the 1904 team, 100 years from now.
