In the midst of all the craziness around the college football landscape Saturday, one tiny, albeit significant note may have slipped under your radar.
Mansfield University has returned to the gridiron, although on a slightly smaller -- and faster -- scale.
For those who don't know, little old Mansfield, tucked up Route 15 in northern Pennsylvania, holds as much a place in the history of college football as does South Bend, State College or Southern California. Thanks to the College Football Hall of Fame, Mansfield is recognized as the site for the first outdoor game played at night in 1892 between Wyoming Seminary and Mansfield.
Despite that standing, the charter member of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference dropped its football program following the 2006 season, ending the program's 115-year history. The main reason was simply the cost, about $500,000 per season.
But after one season without football, the itch came back around campus and now, a year later and two years removed from their last game, the Mountaineers are back.
More than 3,000 fans turned out Saturday to watch Mansfield take on Cornell in the school's first-ever sprint football game, sort of a miniature version of the football played around the country, but just as physical and just as intense.
In fact, the only difference between the football the Mountaineers play now and that which they played just two falls ago is the size of the players. The rules for sprint football are exactly the same, except with one big -- or little -- difference: Players can not weigh more than 172 pounds.
"I really don't think it is that much different than any other football," said head coach Dan Davis, who has coached in college for 19 years. "You block, you tackle, you play hard and good things happen."
One thing Davis knows for sure is that it takes a special kind of kid to play sprint football. Because when the big 'uns are 172 pounds, the little 'uns are really little. But they love football, which is why they are out there.
Take Terrell Lehman, a sophomore from Lewisburg who is one of the Mountaineers' offensive linemen, for example. Of the 50 players on Mansfield's roster, Lehman is one of just four who are taller than 6-foot. No weights are listed because they aren't really needed; each player has to get weighed before each game.
"All of our kids are special," said Davis. "They are self motivated more so than most teams I have been around. It's exciting to be part of such a history-rich program like Mansfield's. I love the tradition and the special things we do as part of this program."
Mansfield's return to the field didn't have a happy ending -- a 35-0 loss to Cornell -- but the fact that the Mountaineers were on the field was victory enough.
"Even though we had a tough day score wise, if you watch the film you can see our mistakes were correctable ones more than simply being outclassed," Davis said.
Mansfield will compete against universities with a lot more history in sprint football. As part of the Collegiate Sprint Football League -- which has been around for 70 years -- Mansfield will play against Cornell, Penn, Princeton, Army and Navy. It is a non-scholarship league and Mansfield is the only public university. After a provisional membership this fall -- where it will play four games, including a home game against Penn on Saturday -- the Mountaineers will play a full league schedule next year.
"Our goals are to continue to improve and eventually contend for the conference championship," said Davis, who has 39 freshmen or sophomores on his 50-man roster. "This year, we want to be a much better team at the end than at the start. The future is extremely bright in that we have a talented group of players who will get better and better as the years go on. If we can keep the nucleus of this team intact, three or four years down the line could be a special time for Mansfield University Sprint Football."
Then again, just the fact football is back at Mansfield is special.
n E-mail comments to bbowman@dailyitem.com.
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Bill Bowman's college football column: Mansfield football back on the map
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