Football was much different in 1890, the year Ohio State first fielded a team. The game was pioneered at the Ivy League schools of the East Coast, so most people in Ohio had never seen a game. In 1890, some OSU students bought a football and began trying to figure out how to play. They were perplexed by the oblong shape of their first ball, but started playing with it and eventually formed a team. They wore scarlet and gray, and, apparently, funny striped hats. Our first coach, Alexander Lilley (seen in this list of all OSU coaches), was a Princeton graduate who was asked to coach because he was familiar with the game from his time in the Ivy League.
In those days, the rules of football were evolving, but some standards had already been set. There were eleven players on each side of the ball, but the same players played offense and defense, so the first OSU team only had 14 players on the roster. The snap was performed with a foot instead of the hands. There was no forward passing yet, so the quarterback would normally hand off or lateral to another back, or run the ball himself. The offense had three downs to gain five yards or the ball was turned over. Touchdowns were worth four points and field goals were worth five. The "try," or kick after a touchdown, was worth two.
Our first roster:
Quarterbacks: Joseph Large and E. D. Martin
Center: Jesse Jones (captain)
Right guard: Paul Lincoln (captain)
Right tackle: Walter Miller
Right end: Charles Foulk
Left guard: Hamilton Richardson
Left tackle: Arthur Kennedy
Left end: J. B. Huggins
Halfbacks: Charles Morrey and Frank Rane
Fullback: David Hegler
Substitutes: H. L. Johnston and Hiram Rutan
The First Games
The first game was played in Delaware, OH against Ohio Wesleyan in May of 1890, and was a 20-14 win for the Buckeyes (although we were not yet known by that name). They played two 45:00 halves, and quarterback Large, halfback Morrey and linemen Foulk and Kennedy scored touchdowns. The season continued into the fall, where, after losing some players to graduation and filling out the roster with a few new guys, the Buckeyes lost all three games. Charles Foulk moved to quarterback and Charles Murray became the team's manager. The 1890 season ended 1-3.
Who were these players?
Not much is known about the lives of these original Ohio State players, but what I have found, I will share:
Charles Foulk went on to become a Professor of Chemistry at OSU and stayed at least into the 1920s. He researched extensively on Ohio's water supplies. Famed automobile innovator Charles Kettering was a student of Professor Foulk. Charles Morrey became a Professor of Bacteriology at OSU.
Paul Lincoln became president of the OSU Alumni Association. Hamilton Richardson became mayor of Brooklyn Heights, OH and the president of the Brooklyn Heights Board of Education. Frank Rane moved to West Palm Beach, FL, and joined the East Coast Finance Corporation. David Hegler was the longest surviving member: he died in 1959 in Chillicothe.
David Hegler. H. L. Johnston and Arthur Kennedy can also be found listed as members in Company A. of Ohio State's University Battalion in 1890.
Alexander Lilley did not become the Ohio State coach until the fall of 1890. On May 3, 1890, the date of the first Ohio State football game, Lilley was demonstrably still a student on the Princeton campus. For more details, you can read either my book, "Ohio State Football: The Forgotten Dawn," or that of Dan P. McQuigg, "Days of Yore: Men of Scarlet and Gray."
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