In 1882, it was agreed upon by the colleges, that the team having the ball should, on three downs, either advance it five yards, lose 10, or relinquish the ball to the opponents. Scoring was changed so that four touchdowns defeated a field goal and two safeties equaled a touchdown. The first numerical method of scoring was adopted the following year when it was ruled that safeties counted one point, touchdown 2, goal from touchdown 4, goal from field 5. Later in the same year, it was changed again as follows: safety 2, touchdown 4, goal from the field 5, touchdown followed by goal 6.
Radical Changes of the Eighties
The decade of the eighties witnessed radical changes in football at Harvard. It saw the beginning of systematic coaching and organized practice; training table was established; and the game itself was subject to rigid faculty rulings. Games at first were not allowed in Cambridge until after 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and in 1885, football was abolished in Harvard and the team withdrew from the Intercollegiate Association. The ban was lifted the following winter. In the fall of 1890, Harvard broke a jinx of long standing to defeat a great Yale team in the first victory over the Elis since 1875.
Training had also been greatly improved. The spring of 1889 saw the first spring practice. Captain A. J. Cumnock '91 originated a crude, brutal machine which was the first tackling dummy used at Harvard. Dr. W. M. Conant '79 was made the team doctor and it was he who introduced the custom of the players' retiring from the field between the halves for rub-downs and medical attention.
After football had weathered the storm of protest launched against it at this time because of the alleged brutality of the game ingenious coaches and players devised even more startling mass plays and formations. The second half of the Harvard-Yale game of 1892 saw the introduction in collegiate football of the "Flying Wedge". This was followed by "Guards Back," "Tackles Back," the "Turtle Back," and other plays conceived for the purpose of utilizing momentum and brute force.
The Two-Year Break
In 1894, the same year Harvard transferred the scene of all its home games from Jarvis Field to Soldiers Field, the bitter feelings manifested between Harvard and Yale on the gridiron came to a head in a game characterized by unusual roughness and a large number of injuries. This resulted in a two-year break in football relations between the two colleges.
The year 1897 stands out for two reasons. First it marked the renewal of relations with Yale which have continued unbroken except during the war, and second, it signalized the beginning of scientific, business-like coaching with the appointment of W. Cameron Forbes '92 to the position of head coach.
The Harvard team of 1898 had in its starting lineup four men who were to direct Harvard coaching for 14 of the next 17 years. They were B. H. Dibblee '99, W. T. Reid '01, J. W. Farley '99, and P. D. Haughton '99. Dibblee took over the burden of coaching when Forbes was appointed Governor General of the Philippines. In 1900, Yale put one of its greatest teams on the field to defeat a stubborn Harvard team 28 to 0. The statistics of this game show that Yale gained a total of 555 yards for rushing against 153 for Harvard.
Beginning of Graduate Control
The position of the game of football was strengthened at Harvard in 1903, when the Harvard Graduate Football Association was formed. In 1905, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton agreed on a three-year eligibility for members of intercollegiate football teams. In this same year the new football era began. The changed rules called for a 10-yard gain in four downs and permitted the quarterback run, the forward pass and the onside kick. At the same time the game was shortened to 60 minutes, divided into four quarters.
Haughton was called to the helm of Harvard football in 1908. The following year, the last vestiges of the old mass play were abolished when the rules prohibited pushing and pulling of the runner.
The 1914 game was the first to be played in the Yale Bowl and the first in which the lateral pass attack was used against Harvard. The Crimson eleven was prepared for such an attack and in defence spread out over the field leaving only three men in the line. In the next year, Richard King '17 earned the distinction of scoring the first touchdown against Yale ever made in the Stadium which had been used since 1903. On that day, the Crimson team pushed across five more touchdowns to defeat Yale 41 to 0, the largest score by which a Harvard football team has ever beaten Yale.
In general, the outstanding development in Harvard football since 1919 has been the development of the forward pass. The high spot of this period was Harvard's 7 to 6 victory over Oregon in the Rose Bowl classic in 1919.