The focal point of this podcast episode is the historical significance and evolution of the Iron Bowl, particularly its inaugural match in 1893. We delve into the intricate origins of this celebrated college football rivalry, specifically highlighting the contributions of Timothy P. Brown from FootballArchaeology.com, who elucidates the early dynamics between Alabama and Auburn. The discussion reveals how both teams, despite their geographical and historical differences, adopted innovative formations such as the flying wedge, showcasing the game's developmental trajectory. Moreover, we examine rare images from the period that provide profound insights into the gameplay and strategies of the time, enriching our understanding of football's evolution. By connecting past and present, we celebrate the multifaceted roles of individuals in preserving and interpreting football history.

The discussion stems from Tim's Tidbit: The First Iron Bowl and 1892-1893 Auburn Football Images.

W have more in our blog post on the First Iron Bowl

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One of the games that college football fans look forward to every year is when Alabama and Auburn tag on in the Iron Bowl.

But we have some history of the Iron bowl going all the way back to the very first Iron Bowl.

Timothy p. Brown of FootballArchaeology.com joins us to tell us about this thrilling game and how it all started.

Tim's up in just a moment to let us know.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of.

American football events throughout history.

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

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

And welcome to another Tuesday where we get to go back in some antiquity of football and shared by FootballArchaeology.com's Tim Brown.

Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey there.

Good to chat again.

And this one really does go back.

This is a little story about people taking different roles and Roll Tide and it all kind of comes together.

Well, I figured you would have an iron grip on this story, so we're the right guy to talk about it.

Very good with the iron reference.

Hey, I am.

I do work in the steel industry, so I.

Something I know a little bit about.

Okay.

But we're trying to segue into a recent tidbit.

This time it is recent.

So this is one you're going to want to take a look at some of the images.

We have the link to Tim's website to this article in the show notes of both YouTube and the podcast.

You can check those out as Tim's talking here.

So check out Tim, what can you tell us about this one?

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing, that you got to see the images as you're, as you're listening.

But so this is, you know, these, this is one of my favorite.

These kinds of things are some of my favorite stories.

And it's so, and I mentioned the thing about people play different roles and I'll kind of come back to that at the end.

But it's kind of the idea that people so like you play a role in the football history thing because you're, you do all these podcasts and you bring all kinds of different people together.

You know, people from different who've written different books or, you know, whatever.

They've got different interests and you kind of showcase whatever their work is.

And then there's.

There's people who are collectors of different things.

And in this particular case, there's a guy who's a, you know, has become a friend of mine through, you know, the football history world, named John Genantonio.

And one of his big interests is old, and I do mean old.

And so he.

I don't know how he does it, I've never asked, you know, but he obtains these images of these ancient, you know, these ancient, ancient images of football teams.

And so.

And, but not only him, but there's other folks out there who, who sometimes reach out to me to say, like, hey, I bought the.

I've got these images or I'm thinking about buying these and I'm trying to figure out what the heck is going on here or who, who's.

Who's in this image.

What are the teams, you know, what's the team?

What team is pictured here?

Where is this happening?

Or what are they doing?

You know, it shows some kind of game action or it shows them practicing and it's like, what is going on here?

It doesn't look like anything that's familiar today because football has evolved and changed.

So.

So, like, you know, my kind of shtick is more like the rules and techniques and play designs and kind of kind of how the stuff actually worked.

Right.

And so, but, you know, so you kind of get different people with different interests coming together and eventually you can kind of figure out what's going on there.

And so, you know, in this case, it was just a situation where, you know, John had.

And it was, you know, basically it's primarily images of Auburn football in their first year of playing.

And one of the images he had was them playing Alabama.

It was a game action image of them against Alabama in the first Iron bowl, which is back to your iron reference.

So these are just like really, I mean, just incredible images.

But there's one or there were a couple where it's like, what the heck is going on there?

The flying wedge was.

So it's like, how did Auburn run the flying wedge shortly after Harvard ran it?

It's like, you know, how did that, how did that happen?

You know, so that was kind of the original mystery.

And so anyways, you know, digging into it, you know, it turned out that both Auburn and Alabama.

Auburn played some a game in the spring of 92, and then they played three or four games in the fall of 92.

Alabama also played like four games in the fall of 92, and then they agreed to play one another in February of 93.

So.

And both teams wanted to kick the other's butt.

So they solicited help from some of the Northeastern teams to get a coach to come down and help them.

And so Auburn got a guy named, I think it's Galliet, but Dave.

David Balliot.

Balliet or Ballier, I'm not sure who played for Princeton.

And, and Penn got a guy named Lewis Vale who played for Penn.

Now both those were juniors and.

But somehow they agreed to come on down and teach these guys or coach them for a little bit.

And so that's how they, how Auburn ends up.

You know, one of the pictures shows them lined up in the, in the, in the flying wedge.

So they learned it from these Northeastern guys who came down to coach them.

Right.

And the game report shows that Alabama also was running the flying wedge.

So they were probably, you know, Bama and Auburn were probably among the first teams to run the flying wedge in gameplay, despite the fact that it was a Northeastern innovation.

This is kind of this goofy thing that went on.

And then one of the other images shows this kind of oddball formation.

It's like, what the heck are they, you know, they're lined up in like four.

Like all the guys, except, you know, maybe one or two are a little bit further back, but most of the guys are within like four or five yards of one another in a.

The vertical dimension, but horizontally they're kind of spread out.

So it's like, you know, and they don't have a ball, so they're not in an offensive formation.

So what are they doing?

And you know, I mean, I had some other period like drawings or illustrations and it.

So it's pretty clear that what they were doing was they were on a.

What we would consider today to be a kick return team.

But you know, back then, most teams that kicked off dribble, kicked, meaning, you know, it's kind of like, you know, if you watch a soccer match today, they kick the ball a tiny little bit, and then they pass it to a teammate.

Well, they did the same thing then, a football kickoff.

Typically, they didn't kick it deep or anything to the receiving team.

They kicked it maybe one yard, picked it up and gave it to a friend.

And in fact, the flying wedge is exactly that.

They kicked it a foot or so, picked it up and handed it to one guy who was met, who was being led by these two, like, strings of teammates who then formed a wedge and, you know, ran in front of them.

So, so then if you're the return team, what do you do in response to that?

What do you do if you even forget about the flying wedge, what do you do?

How do you line up when most of the time what you're facing is somebody who's going to dribble, kick it, pick it up and run with it?

Well, you line up in a formation where most of your team, you know, they're going to be 10 yards back because you had to be on a free kick back then.

But most of your team is going to be up there to defend the kickoff, not to receive it.

Right.

And again, you kind of have to.

You have to look at this picture online, but that's what's going on.

You know, they're.

They're defending the dribble kick, not receiving a deep kick like, you know, we know today.

So in essence, what you're saying, back then, the kicking team was actually keeping the ball.

They were actually the exact kicking team and the return team, the other one was just a defensive trying to stop whatever advancement they were doing, similar to.

To soccer.

Okay, thank you for simplifying what I said.

But.

Yeah, exactly.

That's exactly the point.

Okay.

Yeah.

And so, So, I mean, it totally turns the logic.

So because of the different logic, then you go, well, this formation makes sense to me now.

Right.

And so anyways, I mean, so it's, it's, it's, you know, I think, you know, if you're into this, that kind of thing, definitely check out the picture because it's just, it's a great picture.

So then just, you know, one other little thing that, you know, that's in that story that I think is fun is there's another picture where it's like a team picture taken.

It's a pose picture on the steps of a campus building, and one of the guys holds what kind of looks like kind of a coffee cup or something, you know, And I remember looking at the picture when I first saw it and going, the hell's that little thing in his hand.

And in reading the old newspaper stories about it, one of them was telling how at the end of the game, which Auburn won, a young woman who was from Tuscaloosa, where the game was played, presented a silver cup to Auburn because they won.

They won the game.

And so this guy holding this cup, he's holding this silver cup that this young woman had presented.

And so it's one of those things like if you didn't know that that was the case, you might not even notice in the image that that that was the cup.

Right.

And then I was able to verify the shape of the cup through some, you know, images on Auburn's, you know, archives.

So anyway, I just think it's fun.

And so my kind of the different roles thing that, you know, that I kind of started with, so, you know, it's just kind of, for me, different people play different roles.

And so there are.

I've used John Jan Antonio's images for multiple posts.

And sometimes, you know, those images show how the game was played.

You know, back then, the newspapers rarely showed photographs.

And back then, they probably didn't show any photographs.

It was all line drawings because they just didn't have the technology to do it.

Right.

Otherwise, we're kind of guessing and we're kind of looking at written descriptions, and it's just harder.

You know, you need the written description, but you also have an images and even drawings helps you understand what was actually going on.

And so he plays a role in this thing, in understanding the game.

I play a role, or people like me play a role because, you know, again, I'm focused on the rules and tactics and, you know, and then there's everybody who's got a role in spreading the word on how this thing happened and how it was played in the past.

And so, you know, I don't know, I just think it's kind of an interesting thing.

And so, you know, thank you to John and to everybody else who collects that old stuff and helps document the game and.

And kind of.

And then allows me to have access to some of it to, you know, kind of figure out what was going on.

Yeah.

How it actually happened.

Thank you for connecting the dots of these pictures, you know, because otherwise they're probably.

John even probably didn't realize maybe the kickoff was going.

Maybe he did, but, you know, just, oh, there's a bunch of guys in a weird formation.

You know, like you said, new.

You really put some explanation behind it.

And now we are enlightened by it as well.

So we thank you for that.

And you do this quite often, though, Tim.

You, you take some things that, you know, may look very strange or, you know, as far as football, modern football, you know, they're alien to the game, but they're, they're the roots of the game and they tell the story of how it came about.

And you do this a great way on your site.

Maybe you could share with folks where they could find you at.

Yeah, just go to footballarchaeology.com subscribe and every time I publish a story, you'll get an email with the story or bookmark it or whatever.

Just, you know, try to find it.

And there's, you know, it's out there.

So have at it.

All right.

Some fascinating football ideology that happened over 130 years ago, I guess, and we appreciate you sharing that and Mr. Dan, Mr. John, I'm sorry.

And for sharing that with, with you so we could all see that and learn a little something about the game.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.

I'd love to talk to you again next Tuesday.

I look forward to it.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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