1908 YEAR-IN-REVIEW

Football in 1908 was still very much a sport in flux. The "safety" measures put in after the 1905 season had made some in-roads, but there were still eleven fatalities on the gridirons of America in 1908: nine among high schoolers and two others at the collegiate level (one at Cowpens State and the other at St. Matthew's College). The forward pass rule was modified - a bit - to counteract a strategy put in place by Noble Jones College coach John Christian. The Colonels' QB (Tommy Stevenson) would throw the ball high in the air and hope one of his team mates would pull it out of the resulting scrum before it hit the ground. To counteract this, the AIAA modified the rule saying that if a second player from the passing team touched the ball, the ball would be given to the defense at the spot of the "illegal touching." Christian grumbled and said some un-Christian things before going back to the chalkboard to design a new strategy. 

Only two squads would manage to go unbeaten in 1908 - the St. Andrews Barons and Empire State Centurions. The Tennessee-based Barons had become a surprise power in the sport joining other schools such as Opelika State, Bayou State, Noble Jones and Central Carolina in a bloc of southern powers to counteract the heavily-Eastern balance of power in college football. There were four main areas of prominence in the sport at this time: the ivy-drenched "Old Line" schools sich as Ellery, Dickson, George Fox and Sadler (the teams that would form the Academia Alliance eventually), the Pennsylvania powers such as Liberty College, Centerville, Henrietta, and Penn Catholic, the Midwestern powers like Chicago Poly, Laclede, Detroit City and up & coming Central Ohio and the aforementioned southern schools. The West was emerging and would soon feature its own national powers, but for now, the heart of college football remained, largely in the Northeast - especially in the minds of the public. Empire State, a non-Academia school, was fighting for recognition amongst the traditional eastern powers.

What the Academia schools despised most was the success of Centerville. The Chiefs had seemingly come from nowhere to arguably become the nation's top squad and the bluebloods resented and belittled the "Indian school" as overachievers. Centerville coach Pug Johnston had played at Sadler, and this rankled his alma mater, particularly since Pug demanded that his squad be respected. So it was a bit of a surprise when the 1908 schedule featured a November 7th match between Centerville and the Dickson Maroons. Johnston had raised his program's profile and was confident enough to schedule not only Dickson (he was denied by Sadler, Ellery & Fox - and Brunswick failed to respond to his letter), but also strong non-Academia squads like Annapolis Maritime, Laclede, St. Pancras and the College of Omaha while also taking on fellow Pennsylvania powers like Penn Catholic and Liberty College. Johnston played more games than anyone else and he set his sights high. He was also a brilliant coach and strategist.

Without the now-graduated Alfred Trumaine (of whom we'll hear more later), the Chiefs were expected to take a step back in 1908. And they did... by losing one of their thirteen contests to finish 12-1-0. The lone loss came to Liberty College in Philadelphia, in a game dubbed the "Battle for Pennsylvania" on a windy day that saw both schools miss every attempted kick in what turned out to be an 18-6 victory for the Bells. Other than that, Trumaine or not, they won every game. St. Pancras fell 28-0; Annapolis Maritime played great defense and still lost 13-0; Dickson managed to score - a field goal - in a 17-3 loss; Minnesota Tech fell 20-0 in a snowstorm in St. Paul; Laclede got lassoed 38-7; the College of Omaha was wiped out 29-0 and Mile High State finished the season for both schools on December 5th with a 23-0 loss. On the season, Pug's charges scored 343 points and allowed only 28. 

It was a good year for the Keystone State's colleges: Centerville's strong showing topped the list, but Liberty College went 8-2-0 while Penn Catcholic went 6-1-0 and George Fox went 6-1-2. Ellery had the strongest showing for the Old Line schools, posting a 6-1-2 ledger for the season with star back Merritt Spaulding being generally considered the top player in the nation. Sadler, coming off a strong campaign in 1907, fell back to the pack with a 5-5 campaign. Bayou State's 9-1-0 season topped the southern schools while Potomac College posted a surprisingly solid 9-1-0 season. 

In its 1936 "Retroactive Championship Review" the Omni Sports Bureau designated St. Andrews as its national champion for 1908, with Bureau head Thomas Potentas noting that the Centerville's loss to Liberty "severely handicapped any chance of the Chiefs being recognized as champions despite their otherwise outstanding record." With Centerville's closure in 1918, there was no organization willing to counter Potentas' decision (though Empire State noted that it too had been unbeaten in 1908).

Mott's All-American Team for 1908:

Backs

• Merritt Spaulding, Ellery (SR)
• Noel Combs, Empire State (SR)
• Leopold Cobbs, Central Carolina (JR)

Ends

• Norman Trotter, St. Andrews (SR)
• Avery Caudill, Henrietta (SR)
• Milo Beaulieu, Bayou State (SR)

Linemen

• Everett Witcher, Opelika State (SR)
• James Shively, Bluegrass State (SR)
• Merle Bradbury, Frankford State (SR)
• Emerson Garner, Penn Catholic (SR)
• Homer Winston, Chicago Poly (SR)

1909 YEAR-IN-REVIEW

With Merritt Spaulding having graduated most pundits expected the Ellery Bruins to take a step back. In fact, the 1909 squad was even better than the 1908 edition that featured Spaulding. In a more team-oriented, less star-focused approach the Bruins coasted through the 1909 campaign without a loss, and aside from a 17-17 tie with rival George Fox on November 6th, were the nation's most impressive eleven. To be fair, both Liberty College and Minnesota Tech were unbeaten and untied (7-0-0), but neither played a top-level schedule such as the one Ellery faced that autumn.

The Centerville Chiefs, who had been nigh unbeatable the past several seasons, had their worst season under coach Pug Johnston, finishing 8-4-0. The Chiefs stumbled early and never really recovered. Despite a 24-7 win in their opener, they were facing a town team from Steelton, PA and should have won more handily. The problems became more apparent quickly - four days after their uninspiring win over Steelton, the Chiefs fells 10-7 to another town team (Lebanon Valley) stunning the gridiron world. Not surprisingly, when they took the field just three days later for their Saturday tilt with Penn Catholic, they fell again, this time 17-10. Though Johnston got them straightened out, they lost to both Liberty College (17-0) and in what was arguably the season's best game, they fell 6-3 to Ellery on November 20th. The lone bright spot for the overly demanding Coach Johnston was a freshman back he threw into some of the easier contests - a fellow name Jack Oxendine who would later become one of the towering figures of the sport.

It was a good year for the Academia-to-be schools - aside from Ellery, Sadler (8-1-0) and George Fox (8-1-1) were also strong and Dickson was 6-3-0. Brunswick at 4-4-0 was a disappointment and future stalwarts Pierpont didn't bother to field a team (neither did Henry Hudson). In the South, Noble Jones took a nosedive when Coach John Christian bolted for more money to coach at Minnesota Tech (where he promptly made them into a regional power), but Northern Mississippi (7-1-1) was a squad on the rise and Central Carolina (7-2-0) continued to impress. In the Midwest, the Minnesota Tech Lakers took to Coach Christian's pass-first concepts and went undefeated & untied on the year while other powers-to-be were still feeling their way (Chicago Poly went 4-4-0), Detroit City (4-3-0), Iowa A&M (4-3-1) and the brand-new program at Whitney College was an unimpressive 1-6-0.

The Mott's All-American Team featured a change in format as the team now had 11 players with more defined positions than the traditional Back-End-Line configuration of previous years. 

The 1936 Omni Scouting Bureau's retroactive National Champions list pegged Ellery as the champs, although at the 1909 season's conclusion, all three of Ellery, Liberty College & Minnesota Tech claimed the honor.

Mott's All-American Team for 1909: