The 1903 New Hampshire football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented

New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts (NHC) was founded and incorporated in 1866, as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College. In 1893, NHC moved to Durham, where it became the University of New Ha ...

during the

1903 college football season The 1903 college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the ''Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book'' listing Michigan and Princeton as having been selected national champions. Conference standings Major conference standings ...

—the school became the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, mo ...

in 1923. Under the direction of second-year head coach

John Scannell John Thomas Scannell (January 27, 1872 – October 2, 1951) was an American player and coach of college football, and also a physician. He was the first head coach of the football team now known as the New Hampshire Wildcats. Biography Scannel ...

, the team finished with a record of 2–7–1 or 2–6–1, per 1903 sources or modern sources, respectively.

Schedule

Scoring during this era awarded five points for a

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

, one point for a conversion kick (extra point), and five points for a

field goal A field goal (FG) is a means of scoring in gridiron football. To score a field goal, the team in possession of the ball must place kick, or drop kick, the ball through the goal, i.e., between the uprights and over the crossbar. The entire ba ...

. Teams played in the

one-platoon system The one-platoon system, also known as iron man football, is a platoon system in American football where players play on both offense and defense. It was the result of smaller roster sizes in the early days of the game and rules that limited player ...

and 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 gridiron ...

was not yet legal. Games were played in two halves rather than four quarters. The scores of two late-season contests between New Hampshire and Dover A. C. were listed in Boston newspapers; one New Hampshire win (10–5 on November 21) and one New Hampshire loss (5–6 on November 26,

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...

). In addition to the varsity games listed above, New Hampshire's second team (reserves) defeated Dover High School, 22–0, and played the Exeter Academy second team to a tie, 5–5. ''The New Hampshire College Monthly'' stated that the team played 14 games, having "lost eight, won four, and tied twice" (4–8–2). The ''College Monthly'' provided recaps of 12 games (the 10 varsity games listed in the table, plus the two games played by the second team); it did not provide recaps of the two late-season games against Dover A. C. The overall record of the 10 varsity games (2–7–1), two second-team games (1–0–1), and two late-season games (1–1) does tally to 4–8–2. The team's original schedule included games against

Massachusetts State College The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

and

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

, but there is no record of those games being played. The September 26 game was the first meeting of the New Hampshire and Maine football programs. The score is listed as 18–0 in the New Hampshire football media guide and in contemporary news reports of 1903;

College Football Data Warehouse College Football Data Warehouse is an American college football statistics website that was established in 2000. The site compiled the yearly team records, game-by-game results, championships, and statistics of college football teams, conferences, ...

and the Maine football media guide list it as 10–0.

Notes

References

{{New Hampshire Wildcats football navbox

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

New Hampshire Wildcats football seasons New Hampshire football