Via kleph at Football Study Hall, check out this video of the Yale vs Princeton game held on Nov. 14, 1903 in New Haven, Connecticut, filmed by none other than Thomas Edison:
You know, a little ESPN GameDay would have made that experience so much better…
Get The Picture 
These teams were getting plays off faster than Oregon.
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Wow. Who knew the hurry-up was turn-of-the-century?
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Very cool, thanks for sharing. Rules officials should look into taking helmets away to reduce the danger of high hits and not have to deal with how you tell if it was mean-spirited.
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Impressive crowd for 1903. Does either school draw that many fans for a football game today? And where is the sideline reporter? Isn’t it written in a rulebook somewhere that there be an smokin’ hot sideline reporter at every game? Who’s Joe Namath gonna hit on?
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I don’t know what kind of crowd Yale home games actually attract, but their home stadium has a capacity of about 61k, the most of any school-owned stadium in I-AA.
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Impressive. I’ve always heard negatives about the attendance, tailgating, etc. for the Ivy League and essentially most northeastern schools. But having never been to a game at one, I really wasn’t sure. But I was impressed by what appeared to be a large seating capacity for 1903.
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the references i’ve found put this crowd at about 50,000 which is substantially more than the 33,000 capacity for yale field. that actually makes sense. this was easily the game of the year in 1903 as the victory gave princeton an undefeated season and the “national championship” as it were. for games of that scale, it was common to build enormous temporary stands to accommodate more spectators. remember, there was no radio or television, profit was made at the gate. ten years later yale completed the 71,000-capacity yale bowl which they had no problem filling for quite a few decades to come.
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Bobo’s play calling was atrocious.
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How many times can you run it straight up the middle? IT’S 3RD DOWN, BOBO!
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Looks a lot like Florida’s offense after Dan Mullen left for Miss. State.
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So now we know who started the context-less crowd shots. It was that blasted Edison. That quick ball spot and snap would never fly in the SEC. Mark Richt would eat everyone else’s lunch and be 1,000 lbs or something. SEC: slowing the game down to fight obesity.
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Very impressive. Almost 110 years old. Kind of crazy watching that knowing that man had not yet flown and that everyone in that stadium is now dead. Surreal!
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At 2:24, the right end was offsides.
Doesn’t look like they caught it on instant replay.
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If it weren’t for all the people in the stands, I’d swear it was the 2013 Georgia Tech spring game.
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Except for the fact that the Nerd Bowl only holds 55K… empty seats.
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Did anyone notice that the kicker was warming up pre-game and he was drop kicking it. This was as close to Rugby as they could make it. I’m pretty sure the forward pass was illegal.
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an incomplete forward pass resulted in a 15 yard penalty..
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Early-History-of-Footballs-Forward-Pass.html
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The Library of Congress’ branding is not much less subtle than ESPN….
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Lou Holtz was there.
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Predicted ND and SC to win that day no doubt…even if they weren’y playing. Wasn’t that the last year SC won a title in football.
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Not so fast my campfire friend. He did predict both would win that day and, as usual, he was wrong. On Nov. 14, 1903, the same day Princeton thumped Yale 11-6, South Carolina lost 6-5 to NC State in an offensive shootout.* Princeton took the 1903 mythical national championship title
http://tiptop25.com/champ1903.html
In another offensive shootout that day (when Granny was a graduate assistant to James Farragher), Notre Dame and Northwestern tied 0-0
http://www.fanbase.com/article/november-14%2c-1903%2c-notre-dame-%286-0%29/35449
* South Carolina’s 8-2 record in 1903 was their best since they started in 1892. In fact, the 8-2 record in 1903 was their benchmark for 79 years until 1982 when they went 10-2.
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What did all those fans do in between plays or at halftime without a giant video board showing public service announcements and blaring that infernal George M. Cohan music?
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