The 1905 Washburn vs. Fairmount football game was a college football game between Fairmount College (now called

Wichita State University Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 areas of study in ...

) and the

Washburn Ichabods The Washburn Ichabods are the athletic teams that represent Washburn University, located in Topeka, Kansas, in intercollegiate sports as a member of the NCAA Division II ranks, primarily competing in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics ...

played on December 25, 1905, in

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had a population of 647,610 in 2020. It is located in ...

. It marked the first experiment with the

forward pass In several forms of football, a forward pass is the throwing of the ball in the direction in which the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line. The forward pass is one of the main distinguishers between gridir ...

and with the ten-yard requirement for

first down A down is a period in which a play transpires in gridiron football. The down is a distinguishing characteristic of the game compared to other codes of football, but is synonymous with a "tackle" in rugby league. The team in possession of the ...

s. Despite the game's

Christmas Day Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...

playing date, It is unclear if the game was considered "regular season", "post season", or "exhibition" in classification.

Game play

Fairmount College was coached by

Willis Bates Willis Sherman "Bill" Bates (January 26, 1880 – May 13, 1939) was an American football and basketball coach. He served as the head football coach at Fairmount College—now known as Wichita State University—from 1905 to 1908 and at Southwest ...

. The head coach for Washburn that season was

John H. Outland John Henry Outland (March 17, 1871 – March 24, 1947) was an American football player and coach. He played football at Penn College in Oskaloosa, Iowa, the University of Kansas, and the University of Pennsylvania. He was twice named an All-Ame ...

, but because he was officiating, it is likely that the coaching duties fell to assistant coach (and next year's head coach) Garfield Weede. The game ended in a 0–0 tie. The conditions for the game were excellent, but neither side was able to approach the other team's goal except by a punt. Only seven first downs were made the entire game—four by Washburn and three by Fairmount. Most of the game was played in the middle of the field, to the disappointment of the fans.

New rule test

Safer but not "conducive"

Both teams had played a previous game that same season. What made this second game unique was that it was a test of a proposed rule of play. During the game, each team's offense was required to gain ten yards in three downs instead of four to earn a new

. The experiment was considered a failure. Football legend

officiated the game and commented, "It seems to me that the distance required in three downs would almost eliminate touchdowns, except through fakes or flukes." The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'' reported that there was much kicking and that the game was considered much safer than regular play, but that the new rule was not "conducive to the sport."

Impact

Three days later, 62 schools met in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

to discuss rule changes to make the game safer. As a result of that meeting, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, later named the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

(NCAA), was formed and several other rule changes were made to improve safety for players, including the addition of the

First forward pass

In his history of the sport of football, David M. Nelson concluded that "the first

es were thrown at the end of the 1905 season in a game between Fairmount and Washburn colleges in Kansas."
p. 128
/ref> According to Nelson, Washburn completed three passes, and Fairmount completed two. Credit for the first pass goes to Fairmount's Bill Davis, who completed a pass to Art Solter.

References