Princeton–Yale football rivalry

Significance

The rivalry is one of the oldest continuous rivalries in American sports, the oldest continuing rivalry in the history of American football, and is constituent to the Big Three academic, athletic and social rivalry among alumni and students associated with Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities. The Kentucky Derby and Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show example American sporting events that are older or have been engaged continuously longer than this contest.

Princeton claims 28 collegiate football national championships. Yale claims 27 collegiate national football championship. And the rivalry has been played seriously beyond the gridiron, sometimes for future undergraduate matriculants. Princeton's Undergradate Dean of Admissions in 2002 was charged with hacking the Yale undergraduate admissions website.

Princeton and Yale first met on the gridiron in 1873 and soon dominated the sport. Princeton has been considered the best football program of the nineteenth century. Princeton played the University of Virginia in 1890, a contest considered the first major North - South intersectional football matchup. Princeton won, 116 - 0. Yale's record was 100 - 4 - 5 in the 1900s.

In the mid to late 20th century a saying regarding the fortunes of the Yale football program gained currency among different constiuencies. As reported in the November 9, 1970 issue of Sports Illustrated, the saying offered that the alumni would rather beat Harvard, the coaches would rather beat Dartmouth, and "the players would rather beat Princeton".

Some past teams and participants have been noteworthy:

During the 25 seasons spanning 1869 through 1894 the consensus collegiate national champion was either Princeton (16 titles) or Yale (13 titles);

Three of four Heisman Trophy winners affiliated with Ivy League football programs participated in the rivalry: Clint Frank and Larry Kelley for Yale, and Dick Kazmaier for Princeton. Frank won the first Maxwell Award in 1937 and Kazmaier won the Award in 1951;

Twenty nine members of the College Football Hall of Fame have been associated with Yale's football program. Twenty six members of the Hall of Fame have been associated with Princeton's football program;

Princeton won the 1950 and 1951 Lambert Trophy. Princeton last claimed a collegiate national championship in 1950. Yale shared the Lambert in 1960 with the Navy team;

The first time a movie camera recorded a football game was the November 15, 1902 Princeton - Yale contest. Thomas Alva Edison manned the camera;

Twenty-five teams, eleven representing Princeton and fourteen representing Yale, have won outright or shared the Ivy League football title;

Only The Rivalry, between Lafayette and Lehigh, has been contested more often in football.

The Princeton - Yale football rivalry, many contests scheduled on Thanksgiving at the Polo Grounds or in the New York metropolitan area during the late nineteenth century, is older and has been played more often than the Harvard - Yale, Army - Navy, Penn State - Pitt, Amherst - Williams, Minnesota - Wisconsin, Indiana - Purdue, UNC - UVA, Auburn - Georgia, Cal - Stanford, or Andover - Exeter football rivalries.

Yale leads the series 76 - 53 - 10.

1873

College of New Jersey captain Cyrus Dershimer led the Tigers to victory, 3 - 0, November 15, 1873, in the inaugural contest. "A leather covered, egg-shaped projectile was tossed and kicked on a field that measured 120 yards in length and 75 yards in width." The College of New Jersey's trustees adopted the current name in 1896, announced during the school's sesquicentennial celebration.

1876

Yale won 2 - 0 on Thanksgiving Day in Hoboken, NJ. The contest was the first football game of any type played on Thanksgiving Day.

1879

The 1879 game, a season-ending scoreless tie in Hoboken, NJ, was Frederic Remington's last game at Yale. Walter Camp captained the Yale team. The programs, College of New Jersey 4 - 0 - 1 and Yale 3 - 0 - 2, were named consensus co-national champions.

Remington, reputed to dunk his uniform in animal blood "to look more businesslike on the field," removed from New Haven to take care of his ailing father, then headed to the American frontier. Remington's illustrations of cowboys there became iconic images of the mythic West.

The contest has been considered the first in the series "played off school grounds" on a Thanksgiving.

1884

The 1884 contest ends in a scoreless tie in front of a noteworthy 15,000 spectators in New York City.

1888

Yale outscores opponents 698 - 0 during the season. Defeats Princeton 10 - 0 to end season with 13 - 0 record.

1890

Yale won, 32 - 0, on Thanksgiving Day, in Brooklyn, New York. The victory is first of 37 consecutive wins, with 36 shutouts. Yale football letterwinner Federic Remington depicts on canvas a Yale athlete scoring a touchdown that day in a painting displayed prominently in Ray Tompkins House, the administrative headquarters for Yale athletics.

1891

Yale won 19 - 0 at the Polo Grounds. Yale swept its 13-game schedule and held scoreless all thirteen opponents; in turn, Yale scored 488 points.

1893

The College of New Jersey's best team in the nineteenth century was the 1893 team. The squad defeated Yale, 6 - 0, on Thanksgiving Day in New York City. Princeton's victory was the only loss suffered by four time consensus All-American and College Football Hall of Famer Frank Hinkey during his Yale career. The victory ended Yale's thirty-seven game win streak.

1897

Charles Ives, a composer who championed American vernacular stylings in American classical music, spectated the contest on November 20, 1897. Yale, his alma mater (and where he played briefly football but never earned a letter), won 6 - 0. The victory inspired the composer's Yale - Princeton Game.

Ives proposed successfully to Harmony Twichell after the 1905 contest in New Haven. Rev. Joseph Twichell, Ives's father-in-law, was a member of an investigative committee, convened at the behest of the Harvard Board of Overseers, to determine the extent of brutality, as well as character-building, on college and prep school gridirons post the notorious 1894 Harvard - Yale game. Groton founder Endicott Peabody was a committee member.

1906

Scoreless tie nets undefeated season for both programs and co-national championship. The season is first played under auspices of the NCAA's forerunner, the IAAUS, formed to reform unsportsmanlike play in the sport. The forward pass is now legal.

1914

Yale, by 19 - 14, won its debut at Palmer Stadium on November 14, 1914. Palmer Stadium is the second largest stadium in the country. Yale Bowl is the largest.

1922

Grantland Rice's Team of Destiny, the 1922 Princeton Tigers football team, completed an undefeated season with 6 - 0 victory. Bill Roper's squad is acknowledged as national champions for the season.

1934

November 17 was the last time eleven football athletes, future Downtown Athletic Club trophy winner Larry Kelley among them, as a unit played without substitutes to the final whistIe from the opening kickoff in a major college football game. Yale defeated Princeton, 7 - 0, in front of 53,000 fans at Palmer Stadium.

Princeton sought its sixteenth straight victory in a streak extending back to the 1933 season. Princeton coach Fritz Crisler, the acknowledged father of two-platoon football, guided the Tigers to a 7 - 1 record one year after an undefeated season and a national championship. The 1934 team outscored opponents 280 - 38.

The contest inspired two monographs. "Football's Last Iron Men: 1934, Yale vs. Princeton and One Stunning Upset" by Norman Macht, University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books, published in 2010, and "Yale's Ironmen: A Story of Football and Lives In The Decade of The Great Depression and Beyond" by New York Times sportswriter and Yale alumnus William N. Wallace, published by Iunverse Press in 2005.

1937

College Football Hall of Fame member Fritz Crisler coached his final game for Princeton versus Yale in 1937. Crisler's record was 2-3-1 versus his Yale counterparts (1-3 versus Ducky Pond) but he led Princeton to consensus national championships the two seasons he defeated Yale. Crisler coached against Yale's Downtown Athletic and Heisman Trophy winners Larry Kelley and Clint Frank, and he coached in the Ironmen game. He lost the 1937 contest, 26 - 0.

1949 - 1951

The 1949 - 1951 contests, each won by Princeton, featured Dick Kazmaier, the eventual winner of the 1951 Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Award, Walter Camp Award, and Associated Press Athlete of the Year. Princeton won 21 - 13, 47 - 12 in New Haven (most points ever scored by a visiting team at the Bowl) and 27 - 0. The three victories are paired with victories versus Harvard netting head coach Charley Caldwell's charges four straight HYP football championships.

Dick Kazmaier dominated portions of the contests. Kazmaier, for example, tossed three touchdown passes and ran for another in the 27 - 0 victory over Yale his senior season. Earlier in the season Kazmaier and teammates crushed Harvard 54 - 13. Kazmaier won the coveted Heisman Trophy for the season.

1960

The 1960 Ivy League football season ended with Yale 7 - 0 and Princeton 6 -1. Yale, captained by Mike Pyle, who switched to offensive tackle from center for the season, won before 65,000 spectators at the Bowl. The 1960 Yale team is the program's sole undefeated, untied team since 1923. The team was ranked 14th in the season-ending AP poll, in front of 16th ranked Penn State and 19th ranked Syracuse.

Pyle captained the Chicago Bears during its 1963 NFL Championship season until the end of the1969 season.

1981

Princeton, in Palmer Stadium, ended a fourteen-game loss streak to Yale, 35 - 31, November 14, 1981. Bob Holly, a future Super Bowl champion with the Washington Redskins, passed for 501 yards and wide receiver Derek Graham accounted for 278 yards, both Princeton records, in the victory. Rich Diana ran for a Yale record 222 yards.

Yale was 8 - 0 including a nationally televised "upset" victory versus Navy. Yale Head Coach Carm Cozza's record was 14 - 1 versus Princeton before the final whistle. Holly, a right handed quarterback, scored the winning touchdown on a left roll out with four seconds remaining.

1988

Jason Garrett, captain of the 1988 Princeton team and Asa S. Bushnell Award winner as the Ivy League Player of the Year, quarterbacked a 24 - 7 victory over Yale in New Haven. Garrett, who played professionally in three leagues and won two Super Bowl rings with the Dallas Cowboys, is the current head coach of the Cowboys. Garrett was named NFL Coach of the Year for the 2016 season.

1997

Princeton defeated Yale 9 - 0 in front of a little more than 6,000 spectators on a blustery and cloudy afternoon at the Meadowlands, home to the NFL New York Jets and New York Giants.

The Princeton Tigers football team spent the seadon on the road while Princeton Stadium was constructed. The Yale game was the sole game played in New Jersey.