SWC75
Bored Historian
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I love vintage sports films, especially football and each new season brings some more interesting clips posted to You-Tube. Here is a report on the opening game of the 1950 season at Michigan State:
Michigan State's coaching staff was essentially the Syracuse coaching staff from 1946 as Biggie Munn pulled a "Doug Marrone", seeing greater opportunities for success in East Lansing and moving there with almost his entire staff, including Duffy Daughtery. That success was coming to fruition at this point. The Spartans would have one loss that year, then go undefeated in 1951-52, ranking #1 in both polls the latter year. They also had one loss in 1953, 1955 and 1957.
Note how the players seem to do everything in unison. They break form the huddle, (and it is a huddle, not just the QB looking to the sideline for the signals while players meander around), walk to the line as a unit, get set in their positions as one. Then they execute shifts just before the snap of the ball to give them extra blocking at the point of the attack. And some of the plays they run look pretty good, like that halfback pass. Will we see Ashton Broyld launch one this year?
Note that both teams are wearing colored jerseys. The Beavers are in black with orange helmets, the Spartans in green. The contrast would have been striking to the fans at the game but is less so with the black and white camera. Nobody had color TVs in those days so they eventually put in a rule that one team, usually the visitors, had to be in white jerseys. SU switched that around for a number of years in the late 50's and early 60's. Now that everybody has color TVs, I'd like to see them switch back to using colored jerseys when there is a contrast. College football is supposed to be colorful.
Note also the "colored", (as it might have been said back then), player, (Don Coleman). The Spartans, along with Ohio State, Minnesota, Penn State and Syracuse, were among the first northern schools to become football powerhouses by recruiting black players.
I see the goal posts are in the back of the end zone. They were not in the NFL until the late 60's so the colleges were ahead of the pros on this. A "post pattern" used to mean that the receiver would literally run his defender into the post to get free in the end zone.
The narrator is Bob Elson, one of the first broadcasters to become a team's multi-generational "voice". He did the White Sox games from 1929-1970.
Macklin Stadium was not "new" in 1950. It had been built in 1923. But the latest of several expansions, made possible by the Spartans joining the Big Ten, brought the capacity to 51,000 beginning in 1948 and caused a name change from Macklin Field to Macklin Stadium. It's now Spartan Stadium and seats 75,000.
Note the players carrying the coach off the field, just for a victory in the opener. There must have been a sense that the good times were starting to roll in East Lansing.
Michigan State's coaching staff was essentially the Syracuse coaching staff from 1946 as Biggie Munn pulled a "Doug Marrone", seeing greater opportunities for success in East Lansing and moving there with almost his entire staff, including Duffy Daughtery. That success was coming to fruition at this point. The Spartans would have one loss that year, then go undefeated in 1951-52, ranking #1 in both polls the latter year. They also had one loss in 1953, 1955 and 1957.
Note how the players seem to do everything in unison. They break form the huddle, (and it is a huddle, not just the QB looking to the sideline for the signals while players meander around), walk to the line as a unit, get set in their positions as one. Then they execute shifts just before the snap of the ball to give them extra blocking at the point of the attack. And some of the plays they run look pretty good, like that halfback pass. Will we see Ashton Broyld launch one this year?
Note that both teams are wearing colored jerseys. The Beavers are in black with orange helmets, the Spartans in green. The contrast would have been striking to the fans at the game but is less so with the black and white camera. Nobody had color TVs in those days so they eventually put in a rule that one team, usually the visitors, had to be in white jerseys. SU switched that around for a number of years in the late 50's and early 60's. Now that everybody has color TVs, I'd like to see them switch back to using colored jerseys when there is a contrast. College football is supposed to be colorful.
Note also the "colored", (as it might have been said back then), player, (Don Coleman). The Spartans, along with Ohio State, Minnesota, Penn State and Syracuse, were among the first northern schools to become football powerhouses by recruiting black players.
I see the goal posts are in the back of the end zone. They were not in the NFL until the late 60's so the colleges were ahead of the pros on this. A "post pattern" used to mean that the receiver would literally run his defender into the post to get free in the end zone.
The narrator is Bob Elson, one of the first broadcasters to become a team's multi-generational "voice". He did the White Sox games from 1929-1970.
Macklin Stadium was not "new" in 1950. It had been built in 1923. But the latest of several expansions, made possible by the Spartans joining the Big Ten, brought the capacity to 51,000 beginning in 1948 and caused a name change from Macklin Field to Macklin Stadium. It's now Spartan Stadium and seats 75,000.
Note the players carrying the coach off the field, just for a victory in the opener. There must have been a sense that the good times were starting to roll in East Lansing.
