The Birth Of Scoring
1883
The Birth Of Scoring
It’s not clear to me when the first point system in college football was finalized.
Wikipedia is a bit undecided on the subject:
The article gets the early scoring system correct — but it’s really not clear whether that system was ever in place in 1883.
Most 1883 articles describing football read something like these:
Okay — let’s see if we can figure these out.
Wikipedia reports that Yale defeated Wesleyan 90-0 on September 29. 14 goals at 5 points each makes 70 points; 3 touchdowns at 4 points each make 12. That gives us 82 points, not 90. Two conversions at 2 points each would give Yale 86 points. In other words — the numbers don’t quite add up.
That Boston Evening Transcript article clearly indicates that some papers were reporting touchdowns and field goals separately without converting the total to points. It’s a bit confusing that both were reported in the same article, of course.
I’m assuming that “faces” in that article refers to safeties. The Philadelphia Times article writes “softies,” which I’m pretty sure is a mistake.
Meanwhile, the New York Times article has an even more confusing scoring system. Field goals were indeed 5 points each in those days. If touchdowns were worth 4 points each, the total score should have been 18 points, not 14.
Anyway, I’ve got no idea what’s going on here. I haven’t been able to find any contemporary daily newspaper articles that discuss the scoring of those days. The search continues.