The Princeton–Yale football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Princeton Tigers of Princeton University and the Yale Bulldogs of Yale University. The football rivalry is among the oldest in American sports.
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. The rivalry has also been played beyond the gridiron, with Princeton's Undergraduate Dean of Admissions hacking the Yale undergraduate admissions website in 2002.
Princeton and Yale first met on the gridiron in 1873 and soon dominated the sport.Travers, Steven. Pigskin Warriors: 140 Years of College Football's Greatest Traditions, Games, and Stars. The Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Lanham, Maryland, 2009. pg. 4 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.Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, December 21, 2016, pg. A14, by line Andrew Beaton Yale's record was 100–4–5 in the 1900s.Pigskin Warriors: 140 Years of CollegeFootball's Greatest Traditions, Games, and Stars, by Steven Travers, The Rowman + Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., Taylor Trade Publishing, Lanham, Maryland, 2009, pg. 4Travers, pg. 273Travers, pg 274
In the mid to late 20th century a saying regarding the fortunes of the Yale football program gained currency among different constituencies. 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 14, 1903, Princeton–Yale contest. Thomas Alva Edison manned the camera;Yale Alumni Magazine, March 2001- Special Tercentennial Issue, Greatest Moments in Yale Sports History
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,Yale Alumni Magazine, October 1998, "Artist in the Backfield", by line Judith Ann SchiffNew York Times, "COLLEGE FOOTBALL: A Woeful Yale Loses to Princeton", November 16, 1997, by line William N. Wallace is older and has been played more often than the Harvard–Yale, Army–Navy, Cornell–Penn, Columbia–Cornell, Penn State–Pitt, Amherst–Williams, Minnesota–Wisconsin, Indiana–Purdue, UNC–UVA, Auburn–Georgia, Cal–Stanford, or Andover–Exeter football rivalries.
Yale leads the series, 82–55–10.
Notable contests 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.""Yale and Princeton share storied history, rivalry", Yale Daily News, November 16, 2004, bylined Zack O'Malley Greenburg and Rawan Huang The College of New Jersey's trustees adopted the current name in 1896, announced during the school's sesquicentennial celebration.Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 27, Friday, October 29, 1926, pg. 149
1876 Yale won, 2–0, on Thanksgiving Day in Hoboken, New Jersey. 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, was Frederic Remington's last game at Yale.Schiff, Yale Alumni Magazine, October 1998 Walter Camp captained the Yale team.The Harvard Crimson, "Former Football Captains, Complete List of Rival Leadership Given Since 1872", November 24, 1916, without by line 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,"Walter Camp: Football and Modern Man, Oxford Press, 2015, Julie Des Jardins, pg. 101 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.Walter Camp: Football and the Modern Man, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pg. 92, Julie Des Jardins
1884 The 1884 contest ends in a scoreless tie in front of a noteworthy 15,000 spectators in New York City.The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football, pg. 121, Harper Collins, New York, Miller, John J.
1888 Yale outscores opponents 698–0 during the season. Defeats College of New Jersey 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 is displayed prominently in Ray Tompkins House, the administrative headquarters for Yale athletics.Yale Alumni Magazine, "The New A.D.", November 1994, by line Tom Verde
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.Travers, pg. 268 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.Yale Alumni Magazine, November/December 2004, "When Men Were Men and Football Was Brutal", by line Bernard Corbett and Paul Simpson, adapted from The Only Game That Matters, by Bernard M. Corbett and Paul Simpson, Crown Publishers, division of Random House The victory ended Yale's thirty-seven game win streak.
1897 The Yale Banner 1956 opens its feature "end of an era", reporting Yale's football history up to the impending start of round-robin play among the appointed eight Ivy League programs in a few months, with the following quote, supposedly "from a father of a former player":
"And those girls in Blue! Mothers, sisters, sweethearts, their radiance is over you now. The loving worship of fair women for brave men, which preserves the courage of the human race is yours now.One and all of them would tear out their heart strings to bring you victory. Yale calls you. Where Yale calls there is no such thing as fail. Now go. Do or die like heroes and gentlemen and may the God of Battles crown the Blue with victory!" Yale won the game, 6–0.The Yale Banner 1956, pg. 129, "End of an era" by Leo Maurice Bearcat
Charles Ives, a composer who championed American vernacular stylings in American classical music, spectated the contest on November 20. The victory inspired the composer's Yale–Princeton Game.The Life of Charles Ives, by Stuart Feder, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pgs. 83–84, and
Ives proposed successfully to Harmony Twichell after the 1905 contest in New Haven.From the Steeples and Mountains: A Study of Charles Ives, by David Wooldridge, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, a Borzoi Book, New York, 1974, pgs. 131-2 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.Walter Camp: Football and the Modern Man, Oxford University Press, Julie Des Jardins, pgs. 114–115
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 whistle from the opening kickoff in a major college football game. Yale defeated Princeton, 7–0, in front of 53,000 fans at Palmer Stadium.
Larry Kelley scored on a pass play of more than 80 yards as Yale defeated one of Princeton’s greatest teams as an underdog.The Yale Banner, pg. 139
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."William N. Wallace, Former Times Reporter, Dies at 88," New York Times obituary, August 14, 2012, by line Daniel E. SlotnickYale Alumni Magazine, November/December 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