Wartime Football (Parts I-II)

Not too long ago, I posted a photo of Cornell's 1945 roster on this site's Facebook page (and if you haven't done so yet, crush that like button like you're crushing a blocking sled during two-a-days), which got me thinking about wartime football. World War II turned the game upside down, as manpower shortages forced some programs to shut down entirely during the war and others to play on a limited basis. Some, however, kept on going like nothing was amiss.

The Northeast scene was no different. Twenty-one teams covered by this little ol' blog had football teams at the time World War II broke out. The state of the programs during the prime war years (1943-45) can be divided into four categories:

1) Shut down entirely (no team from 1943-45)

2) Partially shut down (played at least one season from 1943-45)

3) Played on limited basis (played throughout 1943-45, but with small schedules against smaller schools/military camps/etc.)

4) Full speed ahead (played full schedules).

First, we'll get category No. 1 out of the way.

Shut down entirely

Central Connecticut, Northeastern, Vermont.

Maybe it's a coincidence, but two of those three programs later dropped the sport. CCSU soldiers on, however.

OK, on to group No. 2, the main subject of this post.

Partially shut down

Six schools covered by this blog fall into this category.

Boston University shut down the program in 1943-44, but threw together a 5-game schedule in '45 upon the end of WWII that summer. Perhaps the '45 Terriers should have stuck with intrasquad games: BU lost all five game by a combined score of 235-3. When you're losing 70-0 to Tufts, that's not a good sign. The Wikipedia season summary puts it best: "The season finale against Harvard was so one-sided that head coaches Dick Harlow and Walt Holmer elected to cut 5 minutes from each of the final two quarters." (And, as we'll see later on, it's not like Harvard was operating on all eight cylinders during the war.)

The Terriers' uniforms were identical to what they wore at the start of the war: Black helmets, red jerseys and socks at home; white shirts and socks on the road. I like how the stripes on the sleeves and socks are in sync.

Connecticut took only the 1943 season off, then played full eight-game schedules in '44 and '45, unlike most smaller schools in New England. A few liberties had to be taken, however, as the Huskies played Norwich, CCNY and Brooklyn twice. (And those mighty '44 CCNY Beavers went 0-8 and were outscored 333-0. As in ZERO points. Wonder how they would have fared against BU.) The '45 team faced more traditional foes such as Maine, Lehigh and BU. UConn went 7-1 both seasons.

I think I've talked about these uniforms before, but the jerseys are distinctive; I can look at an old photo from the '40s and can immediately tell it's UConn thanks to the shoulder panels and the stripes on the wrists of the sleeves.

Depending on your source, Delaware either shut down entirely or returned in 1945 for a four-game slate. (The late, great College Football Data Warehouse lists the coach as "unknown," which should tell you how informal this team was.) The Blue Hens defeated Drexel and Haverford, tied West Chester and lost to Johns Hopkins — their only defeat from 1941-46, when the Hens went unbeaten in '41, '42 and '46.

I can't find any decent photos of Delaware's uniforms from '45, so I offer the ones from '42. Note the use of plastic helmet shells, a rarity in that era. Plastic shells took off after the war and were worn by almost everyone by the mid-50s. Ironically, one of the last holdouts was Delaware, which appears to have worn leather lids into the '60s. 

Massachusetts (State, as it was called until 1947) played a brief schedule in 1945, beating Maine twice, tying Amherst and losing to Brooklyn.

The uniforms were largely similar to what the Statesmen (yes, that was their nickname; "Redmen" came a couple years later and "Minutemen" in 1972) wore in 1942, with tan/gold helmets replacing the maroon versions. Wonder how people would react if UMass wore all-mustard yellow unis today?

New Hampshire is an interesting case, for a couple reasons: 

1) The Wildcats had no football in 1943, brought it back in '44 and dropped it again in '45;

2) For years, the Wildcats' media guides said UNH had no team in '44. (And for years, UNH and its arch-rival, Maine, listed different records for their all-time series, since they faced off twice in '44.)

But UNH indeed fielded a team, dropping two games to Middlebury and going 1-1 against Maine — the last time the rivals faced off more than once in a season until 2013, when they met in the regular season and the NCAA playoffs, which I'd rather not discuss. 😁

The Wikipedia entry on this team is remarkably detailed, and it's worth a read.

I'm unsure what the Wildcats wore on the road, but the best guess is they used the same duds as in 1942, when they went undefeated. (The home unis bear more than a passing resemblance to what Maine wore in the 1950s.) Only one member of the '42 crew played for UNH in '44.

Rhode Island (State, as it was called until 1952) punted on 1943-44 but played three games against Maine, Boston University (both wins) and Rutgers (a loss).

The few photos I've uncovered of the '45 Rams are fuzzy and hard to make out, so again I offer you the 1942 uniform, which used four different shades of blue. The helmets are light blue, but the front leather portion is painted white. The jerseys have a pair of light blue stripes down the sleeves and the numbers are the only dark blue portion of the uniform. It's not a pretty uniform, but it's an interesting one.

Next up: Teams that played on an informal basis throughout the war.