Timothy P. Brown's Blog, page 9

Factoid Feast XV

As discussed in Factoid Feasts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, and XIV, my searches through football history sometimes lead to topics too important to ignore but too minor to Tidbit. Such nuggets are factoids, three of which are shared today.

The latest version of Factoid Feast celebrates football’s old days.

Bringing Down the Rafters

For a while, after colleges began keeping consistent statistics in 1938, some conferences published all-time and modern records for some footb...

Pigskin Dispatch Podcast... A Conference That Counts

Pigskin Dispatch’s Darin Hayes and I discuss the history of schools entering and leaving the Big 10. The Big 10 has played football for 130 seasons. In half of those seasons, the conference had 10 football-playing members, and in the other 65 seasons, it did not. The 2025 season is the tiebreaker.

Watch or listen to the podcast here and/or read the original Tidbit.

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Today’s Tidbit… What's Wrong With This Picture?

Look at the picture below of 36 men posing in a stadium. They wear athletic gear, with most of them wearing jerseys that display "ASUC" across the chest. If I told you the picture appeared in the 1914 yearbook of one of America's largest universities, you might think the image shows that school's football team. However, you would be wrong or right depending on what you mean by "football."

(1914 Cal yearbook)

ASUC stands for the Associated Students of the University of California. The organization ...

Gavin Hadden and Crescent Stadiums

Gavin Hadden is not widely known, but he deserves more recognition than he has received in recent years. I plan to conduct further research on Hadden for my next book, which will explore the history of football fields and stadiums. However, here's what I've discovered so far.

Hadden was born in 1888, attended Groton, and graduated from Harvard in 1910, where he was a reserve lineman. He also earned a graduate degree in civil engineering from Columbia in 1912 before launching his career in the fie...

Today's Tidbit... Interceptions As Incompletions

As forward passing became more common in the mid-1910s, it continued suffering from football conservatism. An example of conservatism was the general practice of not throwing forward passes until your team crossed midfield. Given the relative unreliability of forward passing at the time, coaches instructed their quarterbacks not to call passing plays in the danger zone. The example chart from 1919 guides quarterbacks not the throw the ball on the wrong side of midfield. In fact, throwing before ...

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Thanks for being a paid subscriber to Football Archaeology!

I wanted to let you know that I removed the paywall on the site archives and plan for future stories to be available for free as well.

I paywalled many articles and most of the archive over the last year or two, but that approach hasn't increased the paid membership. My new approach is intended t…

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The Packard Sports Library and Iron Men Football Teams

Just as many college football programs that dropped football during World War II struggled to restore their programs and eventually faded away, the same was true of several car brands. Packard was once a high-premium American brand that moved downmarket during the 1930s to gain volume. During the war, they produced Merlin engines for P-47s and V-12 engines to power PT boats. Delayed in introducing all-new models after the war, the brand slowly faded before being acquired by Studebaker and closin...

Today's Tidbit... Billy Vessels and Heisman Winners in Canadian Football

Happy Canada Day!

Can you name the ten Heisman Trophy winners who played professional football in Canada? Give it a shot and check the list at the end of the article.

Despite ten Heisman winners playing up north, only one signed with a Canadian team right out of school, a situation that is unlikely now due to the substantial salary differences between the NFL and CFL. Those money differences did not exist or were less pronounced back in 1953 when Billy Vessels signed with Edmonton. Vessels, a half...

Pigskin Dispatch Podcast... Berwanger Makes The Call

Pigskin Dispatch’s Darin Hayes and I discuss Heisman Trophy winner Jay Berwanger’s role in the 1949 Rose Bowl when he served as head linesman for the clash between Northwestern and Cal. He made a tough call in the days when instant replay was still a twinkle in many referees’ eyes.

Watch or listen to the podcast here and/or read the original Tidbit.

Football Archaeology is reader-supported. Click here to buy one of my books or otherwise support the site.

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Today's Tidbit... An Insider's Look at Super Bowl VII's Helmet Carts

The NFL was still tweaking its glitz and glam formula in 1973 when the Dolphins and Redskins played in Super Bowl VII. Among the excesses used to celebrate the day were the 140-member University of Michigan band, the Apollo 17 crew, entertainers from Woody Herman to Sammy Davis Jr. to Andy Williams, and, of course, the Happy People Singers.

But wait, there was more. The NFL also released 4,000 pigeons and 20,000 balloons. Yet, none of those excesses compared to the sight of 26 helmet carts, one p...