1907 Carlisle Indians football team

1907 Carlisle Indians football

The entire 1907 squad.
Conference Independent
1907 record 10–1
Head coach Pop Warner (6th year)
Offensive scheme Single wing
Captain Antonio Lubo

The 1907 Carlisle Indians football team represented the Carlisle Indians football team of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School during the 1907 college football season. The Indians were coached by Pop Warner in his sixth year as head coach, last coaching the school in 1903. The team compiled a record of 10–1 and outscored opponents 267 to 62.

Jim Thorpe, undersized even for the Indians, persuaded Warner to allow him to try out for the team. Thorpe immediately impressed his coach and secured a starting position on the team.[1]

End Albert Exendine was a consensus All-American. In the game against Chicago, fullback Pete Hauser threw a 40-yard pass to Exendine, who ran out of bounds, around spectators and players, and back on the field for the catch.[2]

Hauser became a star during the 1907 season. In an early game, he scored a touchdown and kicked a field goal in a 10–0 victory over Villanova.[3] In October 1907, Hauser ran for a touchdown and kicked to goals after touchdown, scoring eight points, in Carlisle's 14–6 victory over the team from Syracuse University.[4] In November 1907, The New York Times wrote that Hauser handled kicking duties for Carlisle, returned punts, and was also "the mainstay of the defense."[5] That same month, Carlise defeated the Harvard football team, then one of the top teams in the country, by a 23–15 score in front of a crowd of 30,000 spectators in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The New York Times wrote that Hauser's end runs were "marvels" and that he was able to circle the Harvard ends "at will."[6] Carlisle's 1907 season ended with an 18–4 victory over Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago Maroons football team. Hauser was described as "a one-man wrecking crew" against Chicago, as he kicked two field goals and an extra point and threw a 50-yard touchdown pass as well.[3][7]

On October 26, 1907, Carlisle beat a Penn team that had won every other game and was declared national champion. The "national champions" lost 26–6, before an overflow crowd of 20,000 at Franklin Field.[8] Hauser's most historic moment in this game. At a time when forward passes were generally short tosses, Hauser threw a pass 40 yards, hitting his receiver in stride. In her history of Native Americans in football, Sally Jenkins called Hauser's long, 40-yard spiral pass against Penn one of the "three or four signal moments in the evolution of football" and "the sporting equivalent of the Wright brothers taking off at Kitty Hawk."[9] The Philadelphia North American compared it to the "puny" passes of the day, called it "a lordly throw, a hurl that went farther than many a kick," and predicted that Hauser's throw would be "talked of often this year."[9] Hauser's secret was throwing the ball in a spiral, allowing it to travel farther downfield. Carlisle head coach, Pop Warner, said that Hauser was credited as the first football player to throw a spiral pass and could "hit his ends on the dead run with uncanny accuracy."[10]


Schedule

Date Opponent Site Result Attendance
September 21 Lebanon Valley Indian Field • Carlisle, PA W 40–0   -
September 28 Villanova Indian Field • Carlisle, PA W 10–0   -
October 2 Susquehanna Indian Field • Carlisle, PA W 91–0   -
October 5 vs. Penn State Williamsport, PA W 18–5   -
October 12 at Syracuse Buffalo, NY W 14–6   -
October 19 Bucknell Indian Field • Carlisle, PA W 15–0   -
October 26 at Penn Franklin Field • Philadelphia, PA W 26–6   20,000
November 2 at Princeton Osborne Field • Princeton, NJ L 0–16   -
November 9 at Harvard Harvard Stadium • Allston, MA W 23–15   -
November 16 at Minnesota Northrop Field • Minneapolis, MN W 12–10   -
November 23 at Chicago Marshall Field • Chicago, IL W 18–4   -
*Non-conference game.

[11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Carlisle Indians made it a whole new ballgame, The Washington Post, May 13, 2007.
  2. ↑ radiolab
  3. 1 2 Tom Benjey (2005). "Beginnings of Modern Football" (PDF). College Football Historical Society Newsletter.
  4. ↑ "Indians 14 – Syracuse 6". The New York Times. October 13, 1907.
  5. ↑ "Indians Primed for Tigers' Game". The New York Times. November 2, 1907.
  6. ↑ "Speedy Indians Crush Harvard". The New York Times. November 10, 1907.
  7. ↑ "Exendine of Carlisle" (PDF). College Football Historical Society Newsletter.
  8. ↑ "15 Most memorable Phila. sports moments.". Philadelphia Inquirer. 2009-05-09. Archived from the original on September 26, 2009. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
  9. 1 2 Sally Jenkins (2008). The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation. Broadway Books. p. 234. ISBN 0767926242.
  10. ↑ "Peter "Pete" Hauser 1987 – Football – Cheyenne". American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame. Retrieved August 15, 2014.
  11. ↑ "1907 Carlisle Indian Schedule and Results".
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/30/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.