The following information is taken from a book, Southeastern Conference Football, by John D. McCallum. As the book was written in 1980, it predates most of my important officiated games.

The ‘T’ formation, which dates from 1891, had faded from use by 1900, and was brought back by coach Clark Shaughnassy at Stanford in 1910.

The earliest college football game in the South matched Washington and Lee against VMI in 1877.

In 1880, at old Stoll Field at the University of Kentucky, Transylvania College played Centre. Five hundred ladies and gentleman attended the game. The worst injury during that game happened when a Centre player was cut by a piece of glass he fell on. The field had been used for glass-ball shooting.

Officials during that era were usually the two coaches. The rules were very simple, but that did not prevent the games being filled with arguments.

As the offensive and defensive lines did not have a neutral zone at the line of scrimmage, it was almost impossible to be offsides.

Games were divided into 45-minute halves. Players could not leave the game unless they were injured. As players wore no helmets and very little padding, they grew their hair long for protection.

An early game in the South pitted LSU and Tulane. Admission to the game was 50 cents. The Tulane coach remarked before the game, “They are much bigger than we first thought. They must average 160 pounds.”

From all of that came the game of college football we now know. From a time when two officials could cover all of the action we have moved to now, when seven officials can barely cover the action.

Southeastern Conference football officials met this past weekend in Birmingham for their annual clinic.

As of last year, the group is made up of eight crews of seven officials, plus one floater and 22 more officials on the supplemental list. There are nine replay officials, and 12 communicators, who make up the instant replay officials.

As I have written in the past, college football officiating is moving toward a national format. With college football’s Division I moving toward a playoff system that is not a bad thing. The next move is to a national registration of officials, and the registration of high school and youth football officials looking for training to move up to the college level. The NCAA has bought interest in “ArbiterSports” which has joined with eOfficials.com, to provide that on-line training and registration. I have a difficult time reconciling my thoughts to such centralization of officiating the same as I feel about centralization of government.

al graning writes a monthly column for The Democrat.