Trains, Planes, and Football Conferences

The Big Ten will soon stretch from sea to shining sea, a feat the FCS Pioneer Football League has performed since 2001. Still, the history of athletic conferences is one of colleges and universities organizing regionally, going back to a handful of Eastern schools forming the Intercollegiate Football Association. The IFA defined the game's playing rules until the NCAA's predecessor seized control in 1906.

The NCAA did not become involved in eligibility and similar standards until the late 1940s-early 1950s. Conferences played that role by setting eligibility standards among like-minded schools; their role in scheduling games among conference members came decades later. For example, the Big Ten spent decades with each school scheduling their games independently. Most played anywhere from three to seven conference games per year, and even in 1960, Michigan's AD, Fritz Crisler, argued against the plan to require seven conference games per year. Crisler believed that conference membership was based on shared values, not schedules.

So, in the days before conference scheduling requirements, which coincided with large numbers of independent schools, the primary driver of football schedules was the nation's railroad network. There is no getting around railroads being the only method of getting around back then. Railroads were a primary determinant of who, where, and when you played until the 1950s.

Transportation costs and the time required to get from point A to point B meant early teams overwhelmingly scheduled teams in their region. For example, many top Eastern games occurred in Springfield, Massachusetts, or New York City. Both enjoyed excellent rail connections that allowed the teams and alums to get to the games, and the traditional 2:30 PM or 3:00 PM starting times for games allowed everyone to travel to the game that morning.

Iowa State’s football traveling party prepares to board the train for their 1906 game at Minnesota, a 22-6 loss. (1908 Iowa State Bomb yearbook)