Today's Tidbit... Poorly Coached Teams of Old

There isn't an insult that hits harder in football than to say a team is poorly coached. I don't know what defines a team as being poorly coached, but you know it when you see it. At least, that's what people who throw around the term seem to think.

Indeed, some teams are more organized, snappier, and give 110%, while others incur pre-snap penalties, fail to execute the "basic fundamentals," and mostly lose games or fail to live up to expectations.

Like everything else in football, there is a history of poorly coached teams that I thought would be worth exploring, so I searched for "poorly coached" and "football" between 1890 and 1909. I only received 67 hits, so teams were better coached back then, or people were more polite. I only made it through half of the 67 articles before deciding I had found enough material for a Tidbit.

Before digging into the article details, I asked one of our artificial intelligence overlords to describe the characteristics of poorly coached college football teams. It identified the following:

• Unmotivated players

• Overly negative coaches who are controlling, strict, or yell at players. 

• Uncoachable players

• Players overthink their game due to constant criticism by the coach

• Pressuring players to play when injured

• Not listening to athlete feedback

• Choosing favorites

• Having poor communication with athletes 

The earliest article mentioning a poorly coached football team concerned the 1894 Yale squad, coached by William Rhodes and captained by four-time All-American Frank Hinkey. What's lovely about the mention is that it came two weeks before the team's first game and suggested that if the talented team did not win the championship, it would be due to being poorly coached.

('Capts. Hinkey And Rustin,' Chicago Tribune, September 10, 1894.)

Yale finished 16-0 that year.