The 2019 season marks the 150^th anniversary of the first recognized college football game ever played. A nationwide celebration will be conducted throughout this season highlighting some of the most memorable milestones, players, coaches and personalities that have elevated the game of college football to its present status.

Mansfield ranks among the first 100 schools in the nation to field a football program. In the 124-seasons Mansfield has offered a football program since its inception in 1891, a remarkable number of Mansfield alumni have achieved national recognition that few small colleges in the nation can claim.

George W. Woodruff    

Mansfield State Normal School Class of 1883
Yale University, Class of 1889
Instructor, The Hill School Pottstown, PA 1889
Graduate University of Pennsylvania Law School, 1895
Head Coach University of Pennsylvania, 1892-1901
Head Coach University of Illinois, 1903
Head Coach Carlisle Indian School, 1905
United States Acting Secretary of the Interior, 1907
United States Federal Judge Hawaii Territory, 1909
Chief Bureau of Land Pennsylvania Department of Forestry, 1921
Pennsylvania Attorney General, 1923
National Football Foundation Hall of Fame, 1963


Mansfield State Normal School had not yet fielded its first football team when George Woodruff graduated as valedictorian of the Class of 1883, but few men in the history of the sport played a bigger impact or achieved as much success on football's early gridiron than George Washington Woodruff.

Following his time at Mansfield, the Susquehanna County native would star on three college football national championship teams and direct three other teams to the national title as head coach. He was acknowledged as one of the most innovated coaches in early football history, inventing the onside kick, quarterback kick and flying interference plays. His renowned "guards-back" mass momentum play helped Penn to three National Championships. The brutality of the play would eventually lead to the legalization of the forward pass in 1906.

A four-year starter at Yale from 1885-88, Woodruff played guard for the Eli over one of the most successful spans ever recorded in college football history. Yale is recognized as the National Champion in 1886, 1887 and 1888.
In his senior season, Woodruff was one of the leading players on a team that did what no other team did before, or has done since, in posting a 13-0 record while outscoring their opponents 698-0 over the course of the season. Yale posted a 38-1-1 mark during Woodruff's playing career only losing 6-5 to Princeton in 1885.

That 1888 Yale team was coached by Walter Camp – "The Father of American Football" -- who would not pick his first All-America team until the following year. If he had picked a team in 1888, Woodruff would have surely been on it. Five members of that team, including Camp, Alonzo Staff and Woodruff have been inducted into the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame.

Woodruff was more than a football player during his time at Yale. A member of Phi Beta Kappa as well as the exclusive Skull and Bones Society, Woodruff was also a four-year member of the Eli's prestigious and successful crew team. He served as captain of the crew team his senior year in which he was also the intercollegiate champion in the weight-throw in track & field.

Upon graduation in 1889, Woodruff was hired as an instructor in athletics at the exclusive Hill School in Pottstown as well as at historic Penn Charter School in Philadelphia.

Woodruff, who was already nationally-known for his football accomplishments at Yale, also coached football at Penn Charter. The 28-year-old was accepted in the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1892 while assuming the head coaching responsibilities for the Quakers football and crew teams as he matriculated toward his law degree.

Eastern football ruled college athletics during this era with the Big Three of Yale, Harvard and Princeton in a class by themselves. No other school could approach the power and success of those three titans of the gridiron until Woodruff's third season at Penn.

After his first two seasons – successful as they were -- Woodruff realized that Penn would always be hard-pressed to field players as large as those at the Big Three. Already a workaholic, Woodruff came up with the "guards-back" concept in a round-table discussion with some of his players.

Woodruff had already implemented his "flying interference" play -- putting three players moving forward before the ball was put into play -- to good effect the season before, but came up with a new concept for the 1894 campaign.
Perhaps the addition of his younger brother Wylie Woodruff to the Quakers rush-line had something to do with it. Wylie, who also attended Mansfield State Normal School and would later serve as the head coach at the University of Kansas, was the starting guard along with Charles "Buck" Wharton on the 1894 squad. They were both big men and great athletes who would go on to Walter Camp All-American recognition.

With no requirements on the books as to the number of players on the line or motion, Woodruff had one of the guards line up directly behind the guard on the other side of the line with a halfback and fullback close on his heels. The other halfback was within reach of the fullback, a little to one side.

The first guard went into motion prior to the snap with the four other players forming a battering ram that leveled any opposing player that offered resistance. Often times the second guard – usually Wiley Woodruff – received the ball as the ball carrier.

The play stunned the football world and it would take years, and numerous rule changes, before opposing coaches figured out a way to stop the brutal assault that crippled even their biggest and bests defenders.
 
Woodruff used his bevy of innovative plays to stunning success. The Quakers were named National Champions in 1894, 1895 and 1897. Over a five-year span from 1894-1898, Penn under Woodward posted a 67-2 overall record. The Quakers 6-4 loss to National Champion Lafayette in 1896 snapped a 34-game winning streak.

That upset was even more unexpected after Lafayette's star player George Walbridge missed the contest after being carted off the train after suffering an attack of appendicitis in route to the game. Woodruff well knew of and respected Walbridge, who was a fellow Mansfield State Normal School alumnus who played in the world's first night football game in 1892.

 Woodruff would direct is team to a 31-game winning streak after the loss to Lafayette.

In 1897, Penn posted an undefeated 15-0 season winning the National Championship. No other team in collegiate football history would match that mark until Clemson's 15-0 performance this past season. That Penn team of 1897 included Mansfield State Normal School alums George Woodruff and All-American center Peter Overfield.

During his 10-year tenure at Penn, Woodward posted a remarkable 124-15-2 record. To this day he still ranks among the top five most successful coaches in college football history who have coached for 10 or more seasons.
Woodruff's success elevated Penn to the elite of college football, remaking the "Big Three" into the "Big Four". He is one of two Mansfield alumni to be inducted into the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame.

But for all of his success, Woodruff never forgot about his Mansfield roots. He attended Commencement of the Class of 1894 where he recruited Overfield to become a Quaker. He visited campus on other occasions throughout his life including as the Commencement speaker in 1923 when he served as the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Woodruff opened the doors for numerous Mansfield State Normal grads to join the most elite schools in the country including Marshall Reynolds who played for Penn in Woodruff's final season with the Quakers in 1901, later became an All-American.

Because of Woodruff's success, big-time colleges from across the country – including Penn, Princeton, Lafayette, LSU, Mississippi State, Penn State and Pitt among others -- recruited Mansfield State Normal School grads for their programs.

Woodruff's post-coaching career mirrored the same success.

He became a leader in the conservation movement in the country along with his best-friend and fellow teammate at Yale Gifford Pinchot. It was Woodruff who was responsible for purchasing much of the land that has become the forested areas of Pennsylvania's parks and game lands.

He shared the same personality traits and energy-level of his friend Theodore Roosevelt serving in President Roosevelt's "tennis cabinet" before being appointed by Roosevelt as the Acting Secretary of the Interior.
 But with all his success, Woodruff never forgot about Mansfield. Up until his death in 1934, Woodruff always appreciated the opportunities Mansfield offered him and other members of his family. He was always eager to give back to his alma mater when he could.

Perhaps the most striking example of Woodruff's pride and desire to give back to his first alma mater occurred the season following 1897's perfect 15-0 National Championship. Woodruff arranged for Mansfield State Normal School to travel to Philadelphia to play his defending National Champions Quakers. It would be an unusual of an event as it would be for Mansfield's current sprint football team to play Clemson.

In early October, four days after Penn shutout Penn State 40-0, a star-struck and admittedly overmatched Mansfield Normal team appeared on soggy Franklin Field dropping a 50-0 decision to the Quakers. For the Mansfield eleven the game was the highlight of their lives. They would retell the story of the trip and the game to anyone who would listen for the rest of their lives.

According to the Philadelphia papers, both Woodruff and Overfield were excited and proud to host their fellow Mountaineers with Overfield taking the entire team to dinner after the game.

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Steve McCloskey, a CoSIDA Hall of Fame and Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, retired from Mansfield University as the Director of Athletic Operations and Information in 2017.