Message Games—

“Message Games” are not statement games, per se, but a friendly reminder to the other team (typically a rival) that Penn State is still a real problem for you… “Penn State still lives rent-free in your head”… Fans of the University of Pennsylvania got that message for the very first time in 1915… In the earliest days of Penn State football there was no bigger rival and no bigger headache than the Quakers of UPenn, one of the top national powers of this era… From 1890 through 1910, UP dominated this series winning the first 15 games in a row and 16 of the first 17 played… The lone bright spot, a 3-3 tie in 1909 along with a pair of close call 6-0 losses in 1904 and 1908… The tide turned in 1909 with the arrival of new State head coach Bill Hollenback, a former star fullback for the Quakers who had scored 3 TDs against the Nittany Lions in the 28-0 UP victory in 1907… Hollenback was the final piece of the puzzle needed to get State into the win column against its Quaker nemesis delivering the first two wins in 1911 and 1912… But, the Hollenback magic faded in 1913, and by 1915 State had a new coach in Dick Harlow, the first former Nittany Lion player to take the helm at State in the 20th century…

1915 at UPenn—We still have your number, even though you still can’t believe it

October 9, 1915, Penn State (2-0 on the season after two shutouts) is once again at Franklin Field in Philadelphia… Every game in this series which would run through the 1958 season was played on the Quakers home field…. On this day, just like 1911, UPenn fans would be in for quite a shock… Many felt that with Hollenback gone things would return to normal with the complete and total domination of “little brother” Penn State on the gridiron… After all, they had handily beaten the Lions 17-0 in their last meeting with Hollenback at the controls in 1913… Certainly that was a sign of good times continuing in Philadelphia…

With the game, the Quakers held a 3-0 lead at the half… But, in the third quarter, State drove from midfield and Left Halfback Punk Berryman punched it through the center of the Penn line (or in some contemporary newspaper accounts, “ran around the right end”) for the TD that gave State the lead… A little later, State was at midfield again…. Fullback Jeff Clark dropped back with the snap to the State 45-yard line… He would then deliver the only completed forward pass of the entire game hitting Sophomore Left End Bob Higgins at the Penn 40… Higgins shook off some defenders and took off for the endzone blowing the game open en route to a stunning 13-3 Penn State victory…. This was the first win over UPenn by a Penn State coach who not only did not graduate from UPenn, but actually graduated from Penn State, Dick Harlow… UPenn fans of the era really didn’t really think this was possible…

From there, a series once largely dominated by Penn for 25 years began to level off and become more and more competitive until it ended after the 1958 game with Penn State fans ripping down the wooden goalposts for the final time at Franklin Field… The final 12 meetings (which had become less frequent through the 1940’s) saw State win 10 times with a tie and only one loss… The series was ended by mutual agreement according to contemporary media in fall 1957… But, very likely the Ivy League (which formed in 1954) might have been a big factor, too… By 1957, Penn’s days of playing a national-type schedule were over… The Quakers had begun playing a full slate of 7 Ivy League games beginning in 1956, and now had only two open dates in its 9-game schedule for non-conference play, so dropping PSU after the scheduled 1958 game probably made some sense… At that time, no games with State had been scheduled beyond the ‘58 game… There was a hint here and there of resuming the series, but it would never happen…

For Other Message & Statement Game Stories—CLICK HERE

2023 vs. Iowa—The Whiteout Shutout

1995 at Iowa—Hawkeyes on the menu

1975 at Pitt—Not here, not now

1911 at UPenn—Our first true upset victory

Nittany NOTES:

Penn State football fans in 1915 who could not make, or afford, the round-trip train trek from the State College area to Philly, plus an overnight Friday stay at a hotel, and also pay the $1.50 game ticket price at Franklin Field gathered in Schwab Auditorium on the State College campus that October afternoon where for 25 cents (see ticket above) they could hear updates announced by megaphone and posted on a gridiron board describing the game action as it came in via a “leased private wire” from a telegrapher in the stands at Franklin Field… This was known as “Football Telephone Returns”…

The concept of “Football Telephone Returns” is believed to date to the 1903 Michigan at Minnesota game and appeared at Penn State for key road games (Pitt, UPenn, etc.) as early as 1909 in Old Main Chapel, and would run into the mid-1920’s before giving way to the rise of live game play-by-play on radio… The on-site telegraph operator would key in morse code (using some pre-determined football shorthand and player numbering scheme) to quickly describe the “live” game action… A second telegrapher at the college auditorium would decode the messages and hand them to the announcer… (There were also instances where alumni in Pittsburgh, for example, would pay for a similar feed from Franklin Field to a group gathered in the ballroom of a hotel)…

Remember, the first attempts at a live voice or live radio game description were still 6 years away, and an open telephone line for live voice description via a 2-hour phone call would have been prohibitively expensive, if not technologically impossible, at the time… Especially, when you consider that the first ever test of a transcontinental telephone call from New York to San Francisco had just happened months earlier in 1915…

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