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JohnTurney wrote:The question is how much Shaughnessy had to do with the Bears use of motion, which was a wrinkle probably not used in the early T. I cannot verify this through film, but maybe someone has seen more stuff from the 1920s and mid-1930s but Bob Oates told me that motion was the thing Shaughnessy brought to the T. Before him motion was not a big part of football according to Oates.
I don't think this is right. I've read in several places that the Bears started using the man in motion in 1930 when Ralph Jones took over as head coach, and in the early '30s Red Grange was often the back who went in motion.
I've read somewhere that Shaughnessy's innovation was having the offensive linemen spaced farther apart, which made the quick-hitting runs easier to execute, or something like that.
Also, just speaking T quarterbacks, Bernie Masterson of the Bears was in the top five passers in 1937 and '38. Obviously Luckman was an upgrade, but I think Masterson was the first T quarterback to throw the ball a lot by the standards of the time. Before him the Bears had Carl Brumbaugh, who was only throwing 30 passes per season.
JohnTurney wrote:The question is how much Shaughnessy had to do with the Bears use of motion, which was a wrinkle probably not used in the early T. I cannot verify this through film, but maybe someone has seen more stuff from the 1920s and mid-1930s but Bob Oates told me that motion was the thing Shaughnessy brought to the T. Before him motion was not a big part of football according to Oates.
I don't think this is right. I've read in several places that the Bears started using the man in motion in 1930 when Ralph Jones took over as head coach, and in the early '30s Red Grange was often the back who went in motion.
I've read somewhere that Shaughnessy's innovation was having the offensive linemen spaced farther apart, which made the quick-hitting runs easier to execute, or something like that.
Also, just speaking T quarterbacks, Bernie Masterson of the Bears was in the top five passers in 1937 and '38. Obviously Luckman was an upgrade, but I think Masterson was the first T quarterback to throw the ball a lot by the standards of the time. Before him the Bears had Carl Brumbaugh, who was only throwing 30 passes per season.
You could very well be right. At the time I was in no position to challenge Oates. I just mentioned that as someone who was alive at the time and had an opinion and had no way to verify if he was right.
You would know far better than I would.
Your timeline makes sense. I read that Halas thought he'd "perfected it" (whatever his definition of that is, I don't know) five years prior to 1937. So, maybe a couple of years of non-perfection in 1930-1932ish?
Solly Sherman was, I guess, not talented but brought in in 1939 as someone who could run the T. I've seen him run it in 1937 .. .at least I think it is him.
I do have Shaughnessy's 1946 book on the T but he gives no explanations in it as to its origins, just reads like a playbook. That is interesting on the splits . . . that is new to me.
"Shaughnessy himself had not used it at Chicago [Here they are talking about the University of Chicago, not the Bears], but he had experimented with the alignment as a member of the Chicago Bears' T brain trust, along with Owner-Coach George Halas and former Bears Coach Ralph Jones."
And this one:
"Shaughnessy hired Bernie Masterson, the Chicago Bears' quarterback of the previous season, to coach Albert in the intricacies of ball handling from under the center."
Of all places, I recall reading about Shaughnessy, Halas, and Jones in an historically unreliable Nagurski bio, so I'm not even sure if its worth digging up, but I am curious about whether Grange was actually that first T "man in motion". Many seem to believe that it was the Bears big blowout in '40 that brought attention to the formation in the pros.
"While coaching at the University of Chicago in the 1930s, Shaughnessy also assisted George Halas with the Chicago Bears, the reigning power in professional football. Working with Ralph Jones, another coach on the Bears’ staff, Shaughnessy put a running back in motion before the snap of the ball. Based on the faking of the quarterback, he tinkered with counter plays and quick openers.
The Bears started playing the modern T-formation in 1937 and went to it full time in 1940. They won the NFL championship in a 73-0 rout of the Washington Redskins."
Last edited by TanksAndSpartans on Sun May 07, 2023 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Posted this separately because I recalled there is footage of the Bears running the T from 1930 on YouTube, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link to it. There is a man in motion so I think Bob is correct. Specifically I found 3 plays run out of the T and 2 of them featured a HB in motion.
TanksAndSpartans wrote:
"Shaughnessy himself had not used it at Chicago [Here they are talking about the University of Chicago, not raw Bears]
I wonder if this is a semantic thing. By "used it" they mean almost exclusively or something like that. I have seen them
run in 1937, though that is not the only thing they ran. You can see the wing, the box as well even some sort of spread
The next couple of years it was all (almost?) T formation at U of Chicago then in 1939 it was mostly the wing.
So maybe they are referring to him not using it in 1939?
Either way Halas referred to U of Chi as one of the ones using it in that era. Maybe the qualification is Stanford
used it all the time, no wing, no anything else?
John, you've seen film of U. of Chicago - I'd go with that. I think the SI article had interesting tidbits, but probably some mistakes too. I liked that the author painted an interesting sketch of Shaughnessy's personality, but I didn't get the impression he was super technical on some of the details, plus its SI, so no sources given.
This is from Wikipedia:
In 1930, Halas had hired Ralph Jones, the athletic director and football coach at nearby Lake Forest College,[53] who had been his freshman coach at the University of Illinois in 1914.[54] Under head coach Robert Zuppke, Illinois employed the T formation in "its most rudimentary form".[54] With the Bears, Jones experimented with the old T formation, and he spread the linemen, pushed out one receiver, and used a back as a man in motion, the latter usually being Red Grange.[53] While these changes were innovative, they were not game-changing, and the T was used to complement the single-wing offense rather than replace it.[53] In 1935, Shaughnessy described to Halas his vision of the T formation that used "hidden ball stuff, but with power".[55] He had not employed it at the University of Chicago because he lacked the players to execute it.[55] In 1937, Shaughnessy began to work part-time as a consultant to the Bears for $2,000 per year ($37,699 adjusted for inflation).[56] In that capacity, he helped refine the T formation and analyzed scouting reports.[56] The Bears continued to experiment with the T,[49] and after Shaughnessy left Chicago, the formation became the club's standard offensive formation in 1940.[53]
Clark Shaughnessy, "Father" of Modern T Formation, Dies Friday at 78 in California, Gettysburg Times, May 16, 1970.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Paul Zimmerman, The '40s; The Bears roll out the T formation Archived November 2, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, August 30, 1999.
^ Jump up to: a b James W. Johnson, p. 4.
^ Jump up to: a b James W. Johnson, p. 2.
^ Jump up to: a b James W. Johnson, p. 3.
James W. Johnson, The Wow Boys: A Coach, a Team, and a Turning Point in College Football Archived April 28, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, p. 16, University of Nebraska Press, 2006, ISBN 0-8032-7632-X.
Last edited by TanksAndSpartans on Sun May 07, 2023 9:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Thanks TanksAndSpartans, a great article to read. Maybe one of the reasons why the Bears didnt use the T-Formation alot during the 1930s, was finding the right guy to play QB over center. Many guys were smaller but a QB needed to be at least, or ideally, 6'0ft to see over linemen, have ball-handling ability(even today, a lost art) and the smarts to not only deceive the defenses but quickly throw to the open man. Since Sid Luckman had done this formation at Columbia, he was ideal to make it work in the pros ...
Shaughnessy was definitely eccentric, the adjectives used to describe him in terms of looking at players as x's and o's were attached to Bill Walsh and Tom Landry as well, though Tom started on the defensive side of the ball, while Shaughnessy moved to that side of the ball to counteract the tendencies of the Modern T ...
As an amateur history buff of the game, I wish Albert had played longer than 1952, especially with Buck Shaw as his coach but the wear and tear of pro football, not to mention the disappointments of going 3-9 in 1950 and closing the 1952 season 2-5 after a 5-0 start, took a toll on him.
As a consultant for the Washington Redskins, did Shaughnessy teach or help Sammy Baugh learn the intricacies of the T-Formation, or did Baugh learn before(1943?)
Brian wolf wrote:As a consultant for the Washington Redskins, did Shaughnessy teach or help Sammy Baugh learn the intricacies of the T-Formation, or did Baugh learn before(1943?)
Pretty sure the Redskins changed to the T in 1944, and now that you mention it, I do think they brought Shaughnessy in to teach it to Baugh and Frank Filchock. Judging from their passing stats that year, Filchock picked up the new techniques faster than Baugh, who had his first great year as a T-quarterback in 1945.
TanksAndSpartans wrote:"With the Bears, Jones experimented with the old T formation, and he spread the linemen, pushed out one receiver, and used a back as a man in motion, the latter usually being Red Grange. While these changes were innovative, they were not game-changing, and the T was used to complement the single-wing offense rather than replace it.
This makes sense to me -- the bit about mixing the T with the single wing, I mean. From about 1931-35 Keith Molesworth, usually listed as a halfback, tended to throw more passes each year than Brumbaugh, which wouldn't be likely if they were lined up in the T formation all the time. It also suggests that Brumbaugh was playing blocking back when they went into the single wing, which fits in with the fact that he threw very few passes ran the ball only rarely.
