In recognizing the 125th season of Stanford football and the 150th year of college football, GoStanford.com is celebrating and highlighting Stanford's football history with a season-long series by decade.
This week: The 1890s
Games of the Decade:
March 19, 1892: Stanford 14, California 10
In the fall of 1891, shortly after Stanford's first registration, a group of students came to the Encina Hall dorm room of John R. Whittemore. They were interested in starting a football team and knew that Whittemore, a transfer from Washington University in St. Louis, was the only student on campus with college football experience. Whittemore agreed to become a captain and player-coach, thereby launching Stanford football.
Cal, which had played since 1882, challenged Stanford to a Thanksgiving Day game, but Whittemore knew his Cardinals, as they were called, would not be ready in time, especially against an experienced team. Seeing much progress a few months later, Whittemore this time issued the challenge. The Berkeleyans accepted and a game was set for the spring.
San Francisco's Haight Street Grounds, a block east of the current Kezar Stadium, was built for 15,000. Ten thousand tickets were printed, but nearly 20,000 showed up. Only a freshman, Stanford student manager Herbert Hoover, the future U.S. president, helped organize the game and collected money from those ticketless fans who wished to attend.
Hoover and the Cal manager were forced to collect coins in anything they could scrounge up (bills were rarely used in those days), renting a wash boiler and dishpans from nearby homes in exchange for free tickets.
Action from the first Big Game, at San Francisco's Haight Street Grounds.
As the captains stepped to midfield for the coin flip, another problem arose. No one thought to bring a ball. A local sporting goods merchant left on horseback to get one. The ball he brought was not regulation, but after more than an hour delay, who could quibble?
Stanford, propelled by speed and deception, shocked favored Cal with three first-half touchdowns on long runs, two by Carl Clemans. His first came on a reverse for 45 yards, giving Stanford a 14-0 lead (touchdowns were worth four points and conversions two). But with advantages in size and strength, Cal wore down Stanford in the second half, scoring two touchdowns and driving for more as time expired.
Hoover and the Cal manager never saw the game. They were still counting the coins in a hotel room well into the night, splitting $30,000 in gate receipts, enough to fund Stanford football for the next season. Stanford's 14-10 victory marked the first intercollegiate football game for both schools and the beginning of a legendary rivalry.
Dec. 29, 1894: Stanford 12, Chicago 0
Chicago would become a power in the next decade. In 1894, however, the Maroons were good and ambitious. Chicago, in its third season under the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg, assembled a 22-game schedule, going 14-7-1. Seventeen of the first 18 were played at home and the remaining four on a Western trip. In a pair of postseason intersectional games that seemed to foreshadow the modern bowls, Stanford and Chicago split a pair in different cities: On Christmas Day, Chicago won 24-4 at San Francisco's Haight Street Grounds, and on Dec. 29, Stanford earned a 12-0 victory at Athletic Park in Los Angeles. These were Stanford's first intersectional games. "Every man on the team worked like a demon," wrote the Stanford Daily after the second contest, "and each one left the field with a halo of glory."
Jan. 30, 1892: Stanford 10, Hopkins Academy 6
This game is notable because it was the first game Stanford ever played. Once Cal accepted the Stanford challenge to meet in March, each team assembled a series of tuneups. This game, against an Oakland prep school, was played at Stanford on a practice field east of Encina Hall that had no grass, some gravel, and was hard as cement.
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Notable Coaches:
Walter Camp (1892, 1894-95)
"The Father of American Football" laid the groundwork for the rise of West Coast football by offering his services, without salary, to become Stanford's first coach.
Camp was a football guru and hugely successful coach. At Yale, he went 68-2 from 1888-92. His final two Yale teams each went 13-0 and did not allow a point.
Camp created and administered the first "All-America" teams and, as chair of the sport's rules committee from 1879-94, was integral in conceiving the line of scrimmage, center snap, 11 players a side, downs, formations, and scoring systems. As The Athletic's Michael Weinreb wrote, football became "the game Camp shaped in his own image."
Camp coached both Yale and Stanford in 1892, completing a national championship season at Yale before leaving to start an abbreviated season at Stanford.
His coaching was more clearly evident in 1894 when, with an inexperienced squad, Stanford lost twice to Reliance Athletic Club early in the season, but improved to rout the same team, 20-0, in a third matchup.
Camp went 12-3-3 in three Stanford seasons, bringing legitimacy to West Coast football through his knowledge and influence, and in encouraging other experienced players and coaches, particularly from powerhouse Yale, to come West and teach the game.
John R. Whittemore (spring 1892)
Whittemore wasn't officially a coach, but as captain of Stanford's first team, he organized and coached the Cardinals to a 14-10 victory over Cal in the first Big Game, capping a 3-1 season that included three prep games for the Cal matchup.
Knowing Stanford could not compete physically with Cal, Whittemore used his team's speed to its advantage, and created deception using plays in which multiple players handled the ball. There was a play called the "Whirling V", a variation of the "Flying Wedge," but altered so the ballcarrier could go left or right inside of straight ahead.
Whittemore had one more bit of influence. Convinced that Stanford needed to learn to play "correct football," rather than rely on trickery, he sought the advice of the great Walter Camp. The Yale coach took the correspondence one step further, volunteering to become Stanford's coach.
Starters from Stanford's first team, in 1891-92. John Whittemore is in the center, holding the ball.
C.D. "Pop" Bliss (1893)
A halfback from Yale – Bliss was the second of four former Yale players to coach Stanford in the 1890s – Bliss led Stanford to an 8-0-1 record in 1893, his only season on The Farm. It would be Stanford's best record by winning percentage (.944), in the school's first 14 seasons.
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Prominent Players:
Charlie Fickert '98
From his position of left guard, Fickert was a skilled blocker who played with a relentless style that earned the respect of teammates. Fickert blocked a punt that resulted in the only touchdown of the 1894 Big Game. As a player, Stanford went 3-0-1 against Cal and outscored the Berkeley men, 60-6. Fickert was team captain in 1896 and would become the first alum to be named head coach, leading Stanford to its first Rose Bowl, in the 1901 season.
Guy Cochrane '96
Played three seasons under Walter Camp and earned the captainship as a senior in 1895. A left tackle, Cochrane picked up a blocked punt and returned it for a touchdown in a 6-0 victory in the 1894 Big Game. He also is believed to have scored Stanford's only touchdown in the 6-6 tie with Cal in 1895. Stanford went 20-3-4 in his four seasons, from 1892-95.
Stu Cotton ''98
Cotton scored five touchdowns in the 1896 and 1897 games against Cal, including three in 1897 when Stanford won 28-0, for the highest scoring margin in series history to that point, at San Francisco's Recreation Park. Cotton, who played left end, scored on two short runs and an eight-yarder to close the scoring.
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Best Teams:
1893 (8-0-1)
In his only season as coach, former Yale halfback Pop Bliss guided Stanford to its first undefeated season, in its third season overall. Stanford outscored opponents, 284-17. The only blemish to its record was a 6-6 Thanksgiving Day tie with Cal, coached by former Yale great Pudge Heffelfinger. Stanford won its final five games by shutout, including a season-ending 18-0 New Year's Day victory against the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland, Oregon, concluding a Northwest stretch of four games in eight days.
Stanford's 8-0-1 team of 1893. Coach Pop Bliss is in the Yale sweater.
1897 (4-1)
All games led to the Big Game in the 1890s, and if the rivalry contest with Cal were the ultimate bar, Stanford had no greater season in the decade than in 1897, when it thrashed Cal, 28-0, on Thanksgiving Day at San Francisco's Recreation Park. It was the most decisive result between collegiate teams in Pacific Coast history. It also capped a stretch in which Stanford went undefeated in its first seven Big Games. Stanford was big (an average of 201 pounds along the line) and experienced (average age of 23) during a 4-1 season under George Brooke and those advantages helped Stanford to its second consecutive shutout victory over Cal, by a combined 48-0.
1895 (4-0-1)
Walter Camp's final season as Stanford's coach was blemished only by a 6-6 draw against Cal in 4-0-1 campaign. San Francisco's Haight Street Grounds was a sea of mud as a heavy rain fell throughout the Big Game. Cal was bolstered by the first appearance of a live bear mascot, but the cub was frightened by the crowd noise and removed by halftime. A first-half touchdown by Bill Campbell gave Stanford a 6-0 lead and the Cardinals hung on for the tie.
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Key Moments:
The Block (Nov. 29, 1894)
Cal was a solid favorite going into the fourth Big Game, as each team went into seclusion for secret practices -- Stanford in Woodside and Cal in San Francisco. With the game scoreless on a cold day at the Haight Street Grounds, Stanford's Charles Fickert broke through the line and blocked a punt almost at the moment it left the foot of Cal's Wolf Ransome. With Fickert and teammate Guy Cochrane in pursuit, Cochrane picked up the bouncing ball and ran 45 yards for the score. The result was not secured until Al Spalding's open-field tackle forced a Cal fumble near the goal-line in the waning seconds, giving Stanford a 6-0 victory in coach Walter Camp's only Big Game triumph.
The Trophy (Nov. 26, 1896)
Before the Stanford Axe, which made its first appearance at an 1899 baseball game, there was the silver University Club Trophy. In 1892, the University Club of San Francisco donated a trophy that would go into the permanent possession of the first team to win three Big Games. In 1896, Stanford did just that with a 20-0 victory at San Francisco's Central Park. After that, another trophy was donated. The Tilden Statue, produced in Paris by world famous sculptor Douglas Tilden, would go to the next team to win two. With victories in 1898 and 1899, Cal finally had its Big Game reward.
The 1896 team earned Stanford's first silver, the University Club Trophy, for beating Cal for the third time.