1895 Auburn Tigers football team

• Source: 1895 Auburn football schedule[1][2]

The team executed a "hidden ball trick" in the game against Vanderbilt as Auburn seemed to run a revolving wedge.[3] Vanderbilt still won however, 9 to 6; the first time in the history of southern football that a field goal decided a game.[4] "Billy" Williams recalled:[5]

I was playing left half for Auburn and Tichenor was quarterback. We were on Vandy's 15-yard line and had the ball in our possession. Tich passed the ball to me; I raised his jersey and hid the ball under it, at the same time dashing toward our right end, protected by several members of the Auburn team...Vandy thought I had the ball. Tich journeyed around his own left and went over the Vanderbilt's goal line. The first time the Vandy players knew Tich had the ball and had made a touchdown was when they saw him pulling the ball from under his jersey.

Quarterback Reynolds Tichenor described the nature of the play as follows:[4]

"The play was simply this. When the ball was snapped it went to a halfback. The play was closely massed and well screened. The halfback then thrust the ball under the back of my jersey. Then he would crash into the line. After the play I simply trotted away to a touchdown.

The Tigers again used the play against Georgia. Georgia coach Pop Warner later used the trick in 1897 while at Cornell against Penn State; and again and most famously in 1903 while at Carlisle against Harvard, attracting national attention in a close loss.