The biggest football team that Saban hasn’t coached

David Sherin ComebackTown gives voice to residents of Birmingham and Alabama.

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Today’s Visiting Columnist is Norman Jetmundsen.

Across the country – and certainly in Alabama – college football is a religion.

People read, write, watch, talk and argue about it, not just during the season, but throughout the year.

It’s natural, then, that a lot of time and energy is spent discussing who were the greatest teams in the game’s history.

There are many Teams and narrated programs that can claim this honor. Each generation has its own unique challenges to play the game. Still, there is one team whose season will never be equal, let alone surpassed. In fact, no one ever even tries to copy it through one – not even Nick Saban.

If you guess ordinary suspects like Alabama, Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, Michigan or Oklahoma, you are wrong. So who had the most amazing season of college football ever? To answer this question we have to go back to 1899 and to a small episcopal school on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee – University of the South, also known as Sewanee.

In 1899, football was still fairly new in the South. It began in 1869 when Rutgers played Princeton in an unruly race called “fighting.” Football took over in the south in the 1890s – just a few decades after the Civil War – because it gave young men a way to prove their manhood, not on the battlefield, but in a grid.

By 1899, the game was governed by rules, but it was much different from the current game. There were 11 players on each team who played both attack and defense, and it is noteworthy that if you came out of the game, you could not return. So players had to play when injured, and in fact it was considered cowardly to leave the game unless you have something broken.

There was no forward feed. The quarterback had to surrender or ignore the ball and they were not allowed to run with the ball. There were no wrinkles, the game was very fast paced, and the teams had three drops to reach five yards. Teams often kick in the first or second point in an attempt to get their opponents deep into their own territory. Touchdowns and field goals were both worth five points.

It was a cruel game with very little protective gear. Kicking, hitting, and biting were common. Players could lead with their feet. Teams can even throw one of their teammates across the battle line to get extra yards in attack or defense to break a flying wedge.

At the turn of the 19th century, there were 18-20 deaths a year, and the game was almost banned until President Teddy Roosevelt convened at the White House in 1905, which eventually led to the legalization of the forward passport, more security. rules and equipment and eventually the formation of the NCAA.

Football was played by students at the time. There were no sports departments, and students handled schedules, finances, travel, and all other administrative duties, including hiring football coaches. Schools did not participate in the finances of their teams.

This Sewanee team had an exceptional group of young men who played the game out of love without sports scholarships. Student Manager Luke Lea was a visionary who had many amazing deeds later in his life. They had a new, young coach, Billy Suter, who formed the players under the leadership of the team captain, a determined young man named Henry G. “Ditty” Seibels.

What makes the 1899 Sewanee team so special? In 1899, Luke Lea devised a schedule that was unprecedented in the South. Because so many schools were so far apart and traveling was so expensive, most schools in the South only played 4 or 5 games a year. (This was in contrast to the Northeast, where schools were close together and could play a dozen or more games a year.)

Lea drove Sewane to play a 12-match schedule over 6 weeks and travel around the south. Unbelievable – and what sets Sewane apart from all the other college football teams – is Lea drove Sewane to travel 2,500 hundred miles by train and play five games in six days.

On this historic train ride, Sewanee traveled to Austin to play Texas Thursday 9.11. On Friday, November 10, they played Texas A&M In Houston, and then they played Tulane In New Orleans on Saturday, November 11th. They had a Sunday off and traveled to Baton Rouge to play LSU on Monday, November 13th. The last game of the road trip was on Tuesday, November 14th in Memphis, where they played Be Miss. On Wednesday, November 15, they returned to Sewane’s wild party.

They won all 5 games and won a combined score of 91-0. But when they returned to Sewane, they still had three games left, including the two hardest teams in the south, Auburn and North Carolina.

The Auburn The game is noteworthy because it was played on Thanksgiving in Montgomery and 4,000 people arrived. Auburn is coached by John Heisman. It was a tough gang with many fights, pulls and even weapons pulled. Auburn could be a better team that day, and the halftime score was Sewanee 11 and Auburn 10. However, due to many fights and an undisciplined crowd, both Auburn had to cut off the handles they had sewn their pants to give them an unfair advantage, the game often delayed. As a result, after 14 minutes in the second half, the referees called the game into the dark, and Sewanee won. Heisman even wrote a letter to the Birmingham Age Herald claiming the judges betrayed their victory, and the referee responded with his own letter to the newspaper.

Sewane’s last game against North Carolina was another tough competition. North Carolina was close to the goal first, and because of two Sewanee penalties, they had 5 attempts to score a goal. Sewanee kept them on an important finish line. The match was 43 pounds and Sewanee won the field goal 5-0. During the year, Sewanee had scored 322 points against 10 of his opponent.

There are many amazing stories and notable characters from this wonderful season. Just one story to pique your interest. The team’s lineman was William “Wild Bill” Claiborne. He had a bad eye that he covered with a patch while playing. When he started the game, he lined up against his opponent, raised the seat, and said, “This happened in the last game – let’s see what happens today.” He then put the patch back on and left the other player to worry.

This amazing team and the people who made it possible are making an amazing story. That’s why my friend David Crews and I have embarked on a 5-year project to make a documentary about this team and preserve this mythical season for posterity. When we started, we thought we would find a lot of history, but not much factual information. Instead, truth is better than story and makes a convincing and rich saga.

In addition to the study and the team’s rich history, we have interviewed several of the team’s offspring as well as famous football coaches, analysts and historians to give a comprehensive comment on the team and its season. We also have nationally renowned musician Bobby Horton, who makes our music, and talented artist Ernie Eldridge, who has done a dozen original illustrations for our film.

You can read more about our film on our website: www.sewanee1899.org We hope the film will be available to the public in 2022.

Norman Jetmundsen is a graduate of the University of Sewanee: The University of the South; University of Alabama Law School; University of Oxford; and a retired lawyer.

David Sher is the founder and publisher of the publication ComebackTown. He is a former chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham) and the City Action Partnership (CAP).

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