Gridiron Time Travel: Red Grange, Ivy League Chaos, and Heisman History

The week leading up to Thanksgiving 2025 was a wild blend of honoring football’s past and watching history unfold in the present. Darin Hayes of Pigskin Dispatch dives into the biggest stories from the weekend, from a 100-year-old anniversary to the emergence of a new Heisman frontrunner.

Here is a look at the history that was made, and the history that keeps on giving.

🏈 100 Years Ago: The Power of the College Game

This weekend marked a significant anniversary: 100 years since the legendary Red Grange finished his college career and instantly redefined the professional game.

• November 21, 1925:Grange played his final college game for Illinois, defeating Ohio State 14–9. The game was a massive draw, pulling in an estimated80,000fans.
• The Next Day:Grange signed with the professional Chicago Bears, owned by George Halas.
• Thanksgiving Day 1925:Grange played his first professional game for the Bears, a scoreless tie against the Chicago Cardinals.

The most striking detail is the crowd size for his first pro contest: only 39,000 fans attended. The fact that the same superstar drew less than half the crowd in the much larger city of Chicago—just four days after his college finale—perfectly illustrates the overwhelming dominance of college football over the professional game a century ago.

(To commemorate this milestone, check out Chris Willis's new book, Red Grange Into Chicago Bears: The 100th Anniversary Scrapbook, available via Amazon and the Pigskin Dispatch store.)

🏛️ Modern History: The Game Finally Leads to the Postseason

The 141st edition of "The Game" between Harvard and Yale was about more than just rivalry this year. It was a winner-take-all battle for the Ivy League's first-ever automatic bid to the FCS playoffs, a monumental change after four decades of the league prohibiting football postseason play.

The stage was set for an upset:

• Undefeated Harvard(9-0 overall, 6-0 in Ivy play) traveled to take onYale(7-2 overall).
• Yale dominated the contest, winning45-28. The Bulldogs scored immediately after recovering a fumble on the first play from scrimmage and never looked back.

The victory created a virtual tie in the league standings, but the head-to-head win gives Yale the coveted automatic bid to the NCAA FCS playoffs. Harvard (9-1) is now waiting anxiously to see if they will receive an at-large bid. After years of demanding change, the student-athletes and coaches of the Ivy League now have their chance to prove themselves against the nation's best.

🌟 Heisman History: Jeremiah Love's Unstoppable Day

Notre Dame delivered a performance that rewrote the record books this weekend, largely powered by the sensational play of Heisman frontrunner Jeremiah Love.

The Fighting Irish pummeled Syracuse 70-7, in a game that was historic for both sides:

Notre Dame (8-2) Statistic Syracuse (3-7) 35 points

Points scored in the 1st Quarter (ND record since the 1930s)70 points allowed70 pointsTotal points scored (Most since 1932 vs. Haskell)70 points allowed (Most since 75-0 loss to Union College in 1891)

Jeremiah Love's dominant day—which was largely confined to the first half—only solidified his Heisman candidacy:

• 3 Touchdowns
• 171 Yards Rushing
• On just8 Carries(an average of over 21 yards per carry!)

Love scored three times as many touchdowns as the entire Syracuse offense, making a powerful statement to voters as the Heisman ceremony approaches.

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We had some great football history that's happened over the weekend.

As you come into this Monday and get ready for Monday Night Football and the Thanksgiving games coming up this week, we'll talk about the history in the making, history in the past, all relevant to this past weekend.

It's all coming up in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history on a day to day basis.

Your host, Darrin Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

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This is Darren Hees of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

We're going to talk a little bit about both of those here in this episode.

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Just a few days ago on the 21st of November, we celebrated Red Grange's last college game.

100 years ago on Friday was the last college game that Red Grange, the superstar of Illinois, at his last game at Ohio State in Ohio State's stadium before it was called the Horseshoe and the Lion.

I ended up winning that game 149 with Grange having a great day.

The very next day that Sunday, he.

Declared that he was going to sign.

With the professional team, the Chicago Bears of George Hallis.

And as a matter of fact, that following Thursday, which was Thanksgiving, just like it is this year he ended up playing for the Chicago Bears in a scoreless tie against the Chicago Cardinals that year.

And the rest is history.

He went on.

But something is kind of interesting about that.

It just shows the power of college football 100 years ago versus the pro game.

There was some 80,000 in attendance at the Ohio State Illinois game with Redgrange playing in that.

And most of the people came there to see Red Grange play football.

The following Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, people went.

To the stadium to watch Red Grange.

Play football for the Chicago Bears and There was only 39,000, less than half the crowd for professional game versus the college game just four or five days earlier to watch the same guy play.

And you're playing in a big city, a much bigger city.

Chicago is much bigger than Columbus, just like it is today.

So just tells you the power of the college game 100 years ago compared to what it is today.

So, you know, speaking of Red Grange, you know, we have took part in helping our friend Chris Willis, who just recently wrote a memorial scrapbook of that hundredth anniversary of the Red Grange turning pro.

It's called Red Grange Into Chicago bears the 100th anniversary scrapbook.

You can find that on Amazon.

We have links in our show notes.

So you can get to get to that.

Also you can find it on Pigskin Dispatch and our Pigskin Dispatch store.

And you can click on that and.

Get a copy of yours today.

Chris does a really nice job and.

We were so happy to help him.

Compile that together with some great images and of course the great history that Chris shares in that.

So make sure you get a copy of that.

Now let's get into some modern history.

And this is really kind of intriguing.

The Harvard Yale game this year, the 141st edition of the game, they call it.

You know, this goes back into the 19th century of Harvard and Yale playing and they usually play that last game of the season against each other.

And what we've talked about it so many times in our football history headlines, which by the way, if you haven't checked out on pigskindispatch.com we have recently redone pigskindispatch.com and it is like bigger and better than ever.

And our daily football history headlines are really smack dab in the middle of it and really the centerpiece of it.

Make sure you check those out.

We do posts on each day on social media, on X and Facebook, but you can go right to pigsign dispatch.com at the source and see all the great history each and every day of the year.

We cover this all year long too.

There's football all year long.

But anyhow, this year is the first time in some four decades, it might be longer than that, that the Ivy League is going to allow their teams in football to play into postseason, to go to a postseason bowl, going to playoffs.

And this is really spectacular because for so many years the Ivy League square schools have said no, we're going to put academics first.

You know, kids are having midterms and winter break and we want them to do their studies.

But they've allowed the basketball teams and I believe the hockey teams to go on and postseason during their seasons.

So makes you scratch your head.

Well, finally coaches and the students stepped up some student organizations last December when they were very disappointed their team could not go into further play football.

They approached the administrators and they got voted down and now they can go into the FCS playoffs.

So they won't be in the Football Bowl Championship Series, but they will be in the FCS, the lower level of Division 1 college football, which is spectacular playoff scenarios in there as well.

So the Ivy League champion would get an automatic bid.

Well, that came down to being on the line on Saturday the 22nd as Yale was at 7 and 2.

They were hosting an undefeated 9 and oh Harvard Crimson team who was really looking their chops to to beat up on their rivals.

But Yale came out and really put it to him in his 141st edition of the game as a Yale won 45 to 28 in the first play from scrimmage.

Harvard had the ball, lost the ball.

Yale pounces on it, scores a touchdown.

A player two later and never looks back.

45 to 28.

So that puts them in a virtual tie for the Ivy league both at 6 and 1 in league play.

Harvard's overall record 9 1.

Yale is 8 and 2 overall in this.

So what it does now is Yale because of the virtual tie, but they're head to head, put jail ahead.

Yale will get the Ivy League automatic bid into the fcs and Harvard is sitting at home and waiting to see if they get an at large invitation to the NCAA FCS playoffs.

So they might both be able to get to get in to this, this next Sunday.

I'm sorry, this today, the Sunday they were going to be watching to see if they got into it.

We should have checked that out before we came on to see if Harvard got in.

But there's a good chance that they.

Both could be in the FCS playoffs.

When this has been vacant from the Ivy League playing Even in a bowl.

Game for so long.

And it's good to see them out and play playing football again with the rest of the crowd and showing their stuff in the postseason.

So that'll be interesting to watch.

So history in the making here this weekend and another game that happened on Saturday was just fantastic in so many different ways.

Probably heard me say on some of our other programs that, you know, I went down last weekend and watched Pitt and Notre Dame and got to witness Jeremiah Love in person.

He did a spin move and accelerated.

Like, you know, 0 to 60, seemed.

Like 7 yards downfield after the spin and just took off and left every DB on the pit defense in his dust and race to a 50 some yard touchdown.

This man is a true athlete and probably, probably the best athlete in college football right now.

I'm going to go out and say that.

And I think many pundits have stated that he and he is on the Heisman watch and I think he is the front runner.

Even though many disagree with that.

I think he probably should do it.

Well, he really made that evident this week that he is, should be a Heisman candidate because against Syracuse and not that they really needed him, but Notre Dame playing their last home game of the year as a senior day, you know, big emotional day.

The Syracuse Orange came in not having the best season.

They came in at three and seven.

Notre Dame was eight and two coming into the contest.

So Syracuse just playing for pride.

Well, they didn't have much pride in this day because there was three touchdowns scored by Notre Dame before their offense took one step on the field.

There was two interceptions, pick sixes taken in and a block punt that put Notre Dame up 21 to nothing before C.J.

carr, the rookie sensation quarterback and Jeremiah Love and Price and you know, all the Notre Dame athletes on their looks like they have a superstar track team on their offense took the field and they end up pummeling Syracuse 70 to 7.

But who put up 75 points on the scoreboard?

But Jeremiah Love, you know, we told you he's on Heisman watch.

He didn't play much in the second half, but what he did is he scored three touchdowns.

He had 171 yards rushing on just eight carries.

That's over 21 yards per carry and three scores.

That's, that's pretty significant.

He had three more scores or three times the scores that Syracuse's whole offense had.

Jeremiah Love definitely a big time candidate for, you know, the Heisman Trophy, which will be coming up in just a few weeks here.

The Downtown Athletic Club will be choosing that.

A running back has not won that in quite some time, quite a few years.

Here it's been mostly quarterbacks, but there's, there are some, some good quarterbacks out there.

There's some linebackers, there's a lot of interesting candidates to see who they will choose this year to get that nice statue to put on your trophy case and be remembered forever as a Heisman winner.

So that is what we have for football history, you know, history in the making.

We told you, we report on it.

Some other news we have in here, we just launched our yesteryear.com yesteryearhub.com website for those of you that love history.

That has a little bit of sports tainted into it.

But you know, we just want to bring the nostalgic feel of some great memories back to you.

And we have some very interesting things going on over there.

And our yesteryearhub.com YouTube channel, yesteryear hub YouTube channel just released something we've been working on for quite a while with author Rich Melter, who's been a guest here on Pigskin Dispatch for so many times.

Rich wrote is reading a nice book is going to be coming out real soon on Hollywood starlet from the World War II era, Carol Landis.

And we helped produce that and put it together.

A nice video that you can check out on YouTube channel yesteryearhub.com also don't forget to check out Pigskin Dispatches YouTube channel.

There's some great shorts that we have coming out today and I think you'll enjoy that.

And pigskindispatch.com like we said, the, the, we have the jersey series going on.

We're bringing our championship series that we did earlier this year.

Those are, those are getting put back in there and all of our old podcasts are on there as well under the podcast tab on the front page.

And like we said, the football History headlines each day of the year telling the History hall of Fame birthdays and the great events and greatest games in college and pro football history.

You can find them there@pigskindispatch.com till next time everybody have a great gridiron day.

Peeking up at the clock, the time's running down.

We're going to go into victory formation.

Take a knee and let this baby run out.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you back tomorrow.

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