Flashback to Ohio Wesleyan Football in 1890

The site of the original football matchup, as it looks today.

• Teams consisted of somewhere between 11 and 13 men who purposely grew their hair long and thick in lieu of protective head gear. There were no facial guards or padding of any sort.
• The players wore sleeveless canvas jackets and knee-length trousers that were secured with cord lacing. Numbers were not used on uniforms to identify the athletes.
• Because of the rounded shape of the ball, as opposed to the modern oval-shaped ball, early football games focused largely on the running game.
• Games were played in two, 30-minutes halves, during which players had no timeouts. The huddle was unknown, as the captain called plays using numbered signals memorized by the team.
• Players could only leave the game if carried off the field due to injury or exhaustion. Once stepping foot off of the field, a player could not return to the game.