It was September 28, 1940, the season opener. Stanford's Big Red Machine -- winless for the past two seasons -- trotted out under the leadership of quarterback Frankie Albert to play the intimidating University of San Francisco Dons.
With Stanford's first possession, Albert, to everyone's amazement, crouched behind the center. The center handed him the ball between his legs. Albert grabbed it, turned and whirled -- and the T formation was introduced to college football.
The Dons gaped; everyone gaped. No one had seen anything like it. Then, the stadium erupted in a roar. American college football would never be the same.
Stanford's brand-new coach, Clark Shaughnessy, had brought the T formation to the Farm the previous spring, honing it in clandestine practice sessions. Shaughnessy didn't invent the new formation, but he'd helped develop it in his former job with George Halas, founder of the Chicago Bears. Until then, offensive formations were double or single wing backs. Strategically, football was dull -- right-guard plunge, left-guard plunge, end around, the occasional short pass. But the T formation changed that. Now the quarterback could conceal the ball, and he had more options -- handing it off to one of the halfbacks, giving it to the fullback, or keeping it himself and running with it or passing it.
The Stanford Indians demolished the Dons that day, 27-0. "Indians Romp Over S.F. With New Razzle-Dazzle System," the headline in the Daily read. They bewildered their remaining opponents that year, dancing, passing and running their way to an undefeated season and a Rose Bowl victory against Nebraska, 21-13. Rooters sang to the tune of "God Bless America" -- "God bless Clark Shaughnessy, Frankie Albert, too . . . ." The team became the Wow Boys, a name reworked from Pop Warner's 1935 Vow Boys, who'd pledged never to lose to USC.
By the following season, however, Stanford's formation had lost its mystery. The Big Red Machine finished 6-3 in 1941, and one of the losing games was against Cal. Shaughnessy left that spring for the University of Maryland, never to repeat the success he enjoyed at the Farm.
But the T formation had been launched, and it would survive football's World War II hiatus to become the national standard.
--Carl Heintze, '47
