1899 Sewanee Tigers football team
| 1899 Sewanee Tigers football | |
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SIAA Co-Champion
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| Conference | Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association |
| 1899 record | 12–0 (11–0 SIAA) |
| Head coach | Billy Suter |
| Captain | Henry Seibels |
| Home stadium | McGee Field |
| 1899 SIAA football standings | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Conf | Overall | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Team | W | L | T | W | L | T | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sewanee $ | 11 | – | 0 | – | 0 | 12 | – | 0 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vanderbilt | 4 | – | 0 | – | 0 | 7 | – | 2 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alabama | 1 | – | 0 | – | 0 | 3 | – | 1 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nashville | 3 | – | 1 | – | 0 | 3 | – | 1 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| North Carolina | 2 | – | 1 | – | 0 | 7 | – | 3 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tennessee | 2 | – | 1 | – | 0 | 6 | – | 2 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Auburn | 2 | – | 1 | – | 1 | 3 | – | 1 | – | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Texas | 3 | – | 2 | – | 0 | 6 | – | 2 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Clemson | 2 | – | 2 | – | 0 | 4 | – | 2 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Georgia | 2 | – | 3 | – | 1 | 2 | – | 3 | – | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ole Miss | 2 | – | 3 | – | 0 | 3 | – | 4 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| LSU | 1 | – | 3 | – | 0 | 1 | – | 4 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kentucky State | 0 | – | 1 | – | 0 | 5 | – | 2 | – | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SW Presbyterian | 0 | – | 1 | – | 0 | 1 | – | 1 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Davidson | 0 | – | 2 | – | 0 | 1 | – | 3 | – | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cumberland | 0 | – | 3 | – | 0 | 0 | – | 3 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Georgia Tech | 0 | – | 5 | – | 0 | 0 | – | 5 | – | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tulane | 0 | – | 5 | – | 0 | 0 | – | 6 | – | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1899 Sewanee Tigers football team represented Sewanee: The University of the South in the 1899 college football season. Sewanee was one of the first college football powers of the Southern United States and the 1899 team in particular was very strong. In 1899, the team went 12–0, outscoring opponents 322 to 10, and won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association title. Known as the "Iron Men," with just 13 men they had a six-day road trip with five shutout wins over Texas A&M; Texas; Tulane; LSU; and Ole Miss. It is recalled memorably with the phrase "...and on the seventh day they rested."[1][2] Grantland Rice called them "the most durable football team I ever saw."[3]
The 11 extra points against Cumberland by B. U. Sims is still a school record. The offense was led by Diddy Seibels; the defense by Ormond Simkins. Ormond was the son of William Stewart Simkins, who may have fired the first shot of the American Civil War. John Heisman's Auburn team was the only one to score on Sewanee.
Several writers and sports personalities consider this Sewanee team one of the greatest ever. Former Penn State coach Joe Paterno once said "While there are some who would swear to the contrary, I did not see the 1899 Sewanee football team play in person. Winning five road games in six days, all by shutout scores, has to be one of the most staggering achievements in the history of the sport. If the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) had been in effect in 1899, there seems little doubt Sewanee would have played in the title game. And they wouldn’t have been done in by any computer ratings."[4] Tony Barnhart in Southern Fried Football: The History, Passion and Glory of the Great Southern Game listed Sewanee as his number 1 Southern football team of all-time.[5] A 16-team playoff to determine the best team in college football history with winners decided by fan votes was run by the College Football Hall of Fame, called the "March of the Gridiron Champions." Sewanee, starting at the lowest seed, won the tournament, beating such teams as the 1971 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team and 1961 Alabama Crimson Tide football team.[6]
Contents
Schedule
| Date | Time | Opponent | Site | Result | |||||
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| October 21, 1899 | 1:00 p. m. | vs. Georgia | Atlanta, GA | W 12–0 | |||||
| October 23, 1899 | 3:30 p. m. | at Georgia Tech | Atlanta, GA | W 32–0 | |||||
| October 28, 1899 | Tennessee | McGee Field • Sewanee, TN | W 46–0 | ||||||
| November 3, 1899 | Southwestern Presbyterian* | McGee Field • Sewanee, TN | W 54–0 | ||||||
| November 9, 1899 | at Texas | Athletic Field • Austin, TX | W 12–0 | ||||||
| November 10, 1899 | vs. Texas A&M* | Herald Park • Houston, TX | W 10–0 | ||||||
| November 11, 1899 | at Tulane | New Orleans, LA | W 23–0 | ||||||
| November 13, 1899 | at LSU | State Field • Baton Rouge, LA | W 34–0 | ||||||
| November 14, 1899 | vs. Ole Miss | Memphis, TN | W 12–0 | ||||||
| November 20, 1899 | Cumberland | McGee Field • Sewanee, TN | W 71–0 | ||||||
| November 30, 1899 | 2:50 p. m. | vs. Auburn | Riverside Park • Montgomery, AL | W 11–10 | |||||
| December 2, 1899 | vs. North Carolina | Atlanta, GA | W 5–0 | ||||||
| *Non-conference game. | |||||||||
Season summary
Sewanee’s 1899 season was very successful. From October 21 through December 2, under the leadership of Coach Herman [Billy] Suter and future College Football Hall of Famer captain Henry “Diddy” Seibels, the Sewanee team, officially the Tigers but nicknamed the "Iron Men," played and won twelve games, was unscored upon except for one game, outscored its opponents 322 to 10, and was champion of the South. Most of their twelve opponents, including Tennessee, Louisiana State, and Texas, are among the all-time powers in US college football. The Auburn team they beat was coached by John Heisman, after whom the Heisman Trophy is named. By the end of the season, eleven of Sewanee's victories were against Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association conference rivals, setting the record for the most conference games won in a single season by any team before or since.[7]
Background
Despite being from a small Episcopal university in the mountains of Tennessee, the team came to dominate football in the region during the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Reasons for their success include being one of the first teams in the region and the school session running through the summer with a long winter break, giving the team more practice compared to its opponents.[7]
There is little evidence today at Sewanee of the team's former success. The school does not have a large stadium and is part of the NCAA Division III, which offers players no athletic scholarships. Although Sewanee was a charter member of the NCAA's Southeastern Conference when it was formed in 1932, they never won a game and withdrew in 1940. Like some other football powers of yore such as the University of Chicago, Sewanee today emphasizes scholarship over athletics.
Sewanee had 7 starters return from the undefeated 1898 Sewanee Tigers football team.[8]
Georgia
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Ormond Simkins provided the first score with a fine line buck.[9]
Sewanee's starting lineup against Georgia: Sims (left end), Jones (left tackle), Keyes (left guard), Poole (center), Claiborne (right guard), Bolling (right tackle), Pearce (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Kilpatrick (left halfback), Seibels (right halfback), Simkins (fullback)[10]
Georgia Tech
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Sewanee followed the defeat of Georgia with a 32 to 0 victory over Georgia Tech.[11]
Tennessee
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In a driving rain, "where each 5-yard line was a miniature stream,"[12] Sewanee beat Tennessee 46 to 0.
Sewanee's starting lineup against Tennessee: Sims (left end), Jones (left tackle), Keyes (left guard), Poole (center), Claiborne (right guard), K. Smith (right tackle), Pearce (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Kilpatrick (left halfback), Seibels (right halfback), Simkins (fullback)[13]
Southwestern Presbyterian
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Sewanee defeated Southwestern Presbyterian 54 to 0.
Sewanee's starting lineup against Southwestern Presbyterian: Sims (left end), Jones (left tackle), Keyes (left guard), Poole (center), Claiborne (right guard), Bolling (right tackle), Pearce (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Gray (left halfback), Seibels (right halfback), Simkins (fullback).[14]
The Road trip: 5 shutouts in 6 days
The 1899 Iron Men team's most notable accomplishment was a six-day period from November 9 to 14 which is arguably the greatest road trip in college football history. Manager Luke Lea, after a disagreement with traditional rival Vanderbilt University over gate receipts resulting in the 1899 game being cancelled, sought a way to make up for the lost revenue. In response, Lea put together an improbable schedule of playing five big name opponents in six days. Playing so many games in a short period minimized costs while maximizing revenue.[7][15] During this road trip, Sewanee outscored them for a total of 91-0, including Texas, Texas A&M, LSU, and Ole Miss. Sewanee played and shut out them all while traveling by train for 2500 miles. This feat, barring fundamental changes in modern-day football, can never be equaled. Contemporary sources called the road trip the most remarkable ever made by an American college team.[16]
On College Gameday Nov. 13, 1999, ESPN featured the University of the South with a four-minute segment on the 1899 football team. Thanks to CSX Railroad, a short train ride in Cowan provided a re-enactment of an early leg of the Sewanee to Texas train ride.
Texas
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The train carrying the players pulled into Austin on the night of the 8th to face the undefeated Texas Longhorns the following afternoon. Sewanee won 12–0. Sewanee scored five minutes into the first quarter, and a minute before the end of the game, "and the intervening time was devoted to the liveliest battle ever witnessed here."[17] Diddy Seibels played throughout the game, scoring both touchdowns, despite his head having split open just above his left eye, bleeding profusely. By the end of the game his head was coated with blood.[17]
Sewanee's starting lineup against Texas: Sims (left end), Jones (left tackle), Keyes (left guard), Poole (center), Claiborne (right guard), Bolling (right tackle), Pearce (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Kilpatrick (left halfback), Seibels (right halfback), Simkins (fullback)[17]
Texas A&M
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Not 20 hours had passed since the last game before the Tigers faced the Texas A&M Aggies. The Tigers won 10 to 0. Ormond Simkins ran in a touchdown from the 1-yard line near the end of the first half. Quarterback Warbler Wilson got the second TD with five seconds left in the game.[2] Texas A&M's campus paper, the Battalion, reported :..."(the Sewanee Tigers) are unmistakably the champions of the South this year..."[2]
Sewanee's starting lineup against Texas A&M: Sims (left end), Jones (left tackle), Keyes (left guard), Poole (center), Claiborne (right guard), Bolling (right tackle), Pearce (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Kilpatrick (left halfback), Gray (right halfback), Simkins (fullback)[18]
Tulane
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After another 350-mile overnight train leg, the Tigers beat Tulane in New Orleans 23–0.
Rex Kilpatrick scored first. Quintard Gray scored twice more. The lone score of the second half was another, 5-yard run by Kilpatrick. The game was called due to darkness.
Sewanee's starting lineup against Tulane: Sims (left end), Jones (left tackle), Keyes (left guard), Poole (center), Claiborne (right guard), Bolling (right tackle), Pearce (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Kilpatrick (left halfback), Seibels (right halfback), Simkins (fullback)[19]
LSU
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Before the trip to Baton Rouge, the team saw a play and then toured a sugar plantation owned by John Dalton Shaffer, rather than enjoy the nightlife New Orleans.[2] Sewanee then defeated LSU 34 to 0.
Henry Seibels scored first. Sewanee's next run from scrimmage was then another Seibels touchdown. Rex Kilpatrick had one score, and Sewanee managed two further touchdowns. One account reads "In spite of their long, tiresome trip, the Sewanee men were lively as school boys out for a day off."[20]
Ole Miss
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The Tigers arrived in Memphis on their third pre-game overnight train ride in five days.
Ole Miss kept the game close. Henry Seibels scored with fifteen seconds left in the first half, and Kilpatrick scored the other with thirteen to go in the game. The Commercial Appeal praised the Tigers: "Yesterday's score against (Mississippi) marked the two hundred and fortieth point for which the Tennesseans have scored to nothing for their opponents, during the present season. The trip of the Sewanee eleven, along with record, will probably remain unequaled for generations."[2]
Cumberland
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In Sewanee's only home game all season, the Tigers defeated the Cumberland Bulldogs 71 to 0. One account reads: "For five minutes after the beginning of the game Cumberland made some good gains, bu the Sewanee defense suddenly grew strong, the ball was secured on downs, and Seibels crossed the line for touchdown seven minutes after play began."[21] B. U. Sims had 11 extra points, and Simkins was given the day off. The halves were twenty-five and thirty minutes.
Auburn: The only points scored
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Recalling the only game in which the 'Iron Men' were scored upon, by John Heisman's Auburn team in an 11 to 10 win,[22] On the Auburn team's early version of the hurry-up offense,[23] Fuzzy Woodruff wrote:[7]
Under Heisman's tutelage, Auburn played with a marvelous speed and dash that couldn't be gainsaid and which fairly swept Sewanee off its feet. only the remarkable punting of Simkins kept the game from being a debacle.
I recall vividly one incident of the game, which demonstrates clearly just how surprising was Sewanee's victory.
The Purple was taking time out. They began this early in the game, when their athletes appeared tired and worn whereas Auburn men were full of fight and fire.
A Sewanee player was down, his head being bathed...Suter, the Sewanee coach, and Heisman, the Auburn mentory, were walking up and down the field together. They approached this boy. The rules were not as rigid then I guess against coaches encroaching on the field of play or conversing with player or anyhow they were not enforced for Suter, evidently as mad as fire, asked the down and out player 'Are you fellows going to be run over like this all afternoon?'
'Coach,' said the boy, lifting his tired head from the ground, 'we just can't stand this stuff. We've never seen anything like it.'
Suter and Heisman turned away. 'Can you beat that?' Suter asked the Auburn coach. Heisman didn't say anything, I guess he thought a great deal.
He told me afterwards that he had never felt so sorry for a man on a football field as he had for Suter at that moment.
Sewanee's starting lineup against Auburn: Pierce (left end), Jones (left tackle), Claiborne (left guard), Poole (center), Keyes (right guard), Bolling (right tackle), Sims (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Kilpatrick (left halfback), Seibels (right halfback), Simkins (fullback)[22]
North Carolina
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The season closed with a 5–0 victory over the North Carolina Tar Heels and the championship of the south. Sewanee's defense was strong, and Seibels's punting gained 10 yards on each exchange of punts. A single free kick from placement proved the difference.[24]
Sewanee's starting lineup against North Carolina: Simkins (left end), Jones (left tackle), Keyes (left guard), Poole (center), Claiborne (right guard), Bolling (right tackle), Black (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Kilpatrick (left halfback), Seibels (right halfback), Hull (fullback)
Postseason awards and honors
W. A. Lambeth of Virginia in Outing and Coach Suter both posted All-Southern teams.[25][26] The Vanderbilt Hustler remarked on Suter's selection of 9 of his own players, "Only nine! He surely must have been thinking of a baseball team."[27] Included on Suter's All-Southern: Richard Bolling, Wild Bill Claiborne, Deacon Jones, Rex Kilpatrick, William H. Poole, Henry Seibels, Ormond Simkins, Warbler Wilson.[28][29] Wilson was also selected All-Southern by Lambeth. B. U. Sims made Lambeth's team and was a substitute for Suter.
Players
Varsity lettermen
Line
- Ralph Peters Black, end
- Richard E. Bolling, tackle
- William "Wild Bill" Claiborne, guard
- John William "Deacon" Jones, tackle
- Henry S. Keyes, guard
- Joseph Lee Kirby-Smith, tackle
- Hugh Miller Thompson "Bunny" Pearce, end
- William H. Poole, center
- Bartlet Et Ultimus "The Caboose" Sims, end
Backfield
- Charles Quintard Gray, halfback
- Ringland F. "Rex" Kilpatrick, halfback
- Henry "Diddy" Seibels, halfback
- Ormond Simkins, fullback
- William "Warbler" Wilson, quarterback
Subs
- Preston S. Brooks, back
- Harris G. Cope, quarterback
- Albert T. Davidson
- Andrew C. Evins
- Daniel B. Hull, fullback
- Landon R. Mason
- Floy H. Parker
- Herbert E. Smith[30]
Coaching staff
- Head coach: Billy Suter
- Manager: Luke Lea
- Trainer: Cal Burrows
See also
References
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