Yale's Return to the Florida All-Star Games
Two Eli players provide a blast from the past in this weekend's Spiral Tropical Bowl.
Despite a disappointing 5-5 year, the Yale Bulldogs will have two representatives in this weekend’s Spiral Tropical Bowl at Camping World/Citrus Bowl Stadium in Orlando.
Wide receiver and kick returner Melvin Rouse II and tight end JJ Howland both received invites to the Tropical Bowl after solid seasons for the Bulldogs. Rouse totaled 553 receiving yards and five touchdowns on 48 catches while adding 146 yards on punt returns and an 86-yard touchdown vs Columbia.
For his career, Rouse caught 69 passes for 812 yards and added over 500 return yards. On top of that, he was an All-Ivy honorable mention cornerback in 2019, after intercepting two passes and making 34 tackles. He is the first Yale receiver to appear in an all-star game since Dave Ewan appeared in the 1994 Epson Ivy Bowl in Tokyo after catching 46 passes for 873 yards and six touchdowns that season.*
Howland caught 16 passes for 238 yards for two touchdowns, with the scores coming against Patriot League champion Holy Cross and Harvard in The Game. For his career, Howland caught 34 passes for 564 yards for an impressive 16.6 average.
He is the first Yale tight end to appear in an all-star game since Nate Lawrie appeared in the Blue-Gray and Las Vegas All-Star Classics after catching 113 passes in his career, including 72 his senior year.
Before Howland and Rouse, 12 Bulldogs appeared in Florida all-star games across four editions of Miami’s North-South Shrine Game and Orlando’s Rotary Gridiron Classic. Yale had some notable players appear in Miami from 1948-1951.
In the 1948 edition, the Bulldogs sent four players to Miami, kicker Billy Booe, center Ed Conway, tackle Ed Pivcevich, and QB Tex Furse. Booe made 34 consecutive extra-point attempts, a Yale record that stood until 2003, and added field goals versus Wisconsin and the Merchant Marine Academy.
Furse was Yale’s career completion percentage leader for 55 years after ending his career completing 167 out of 304 passes (54.9%) for 2135 yards and a 15-21 TD-INT ratio. His 61.4% completion percentage in 1947 was the Bulldog season record for 53 years and is still the tenth-best output in program history.
Furse and Booe performed well in that inaugural Shrine Game as Furse threw two touchdowns and Booe kicked both of the North’s extra points in a 24-14 loss to the South.
The next year, the Bulldogs sent linemen Ed Emerson and Bob Jablonski to Miami, and in 1950 guards Walt Clemens and Charles Masters continued the young lineage of Yale linemen in the North-South Shrine Game that year.
Joining them was QB Stu Tisdale who went 73-153 for 990 yards and 7 TDs and 14 INTs from 1949-1950. Tisdale combined with Dick Doheny of Fordham to complete 11-24 passes for 130 yards for the North. Clemens is notable in Yale history for being one of two Yale players to appear in the Senior Bowl with the other being Tyler Varga, who appeared in the 2015 edition.
1951 would be the last time Yale sent players to Miami’s North-South Shrine Game with halfback Bob Spears and QB Jim Ryan going down to the Orange Bowl. Ryan led the Elis in passing that year, completing 34 out of 89 passes for 450 yards and one touchdown and three interceptions, while Spears ran for 451 yards on 110 carries. Ryan also had a 97-yard kickoff return for a touchdown vs Fordham and would carry the ball twice for seven yards in the Shrine Game.
A Bulldog player would not appear in a Florida all-star game for the next fifty years until defensive back Josh Phillips appeared in the 2001 Rotary Gridiron Classic at the Citrus Bowl. Phillips had fifty tackles and intercepted four passes for the Bulldogs during the 2000 season.
The progression of Yale players in both the North-South Shrine Game and Rotary Gridiron Classic shows the diminishing influence of Ivy League football on the national scale. Lost in the facts above is Yale failing to send a player to the East-West Shrine Bowl when it was in Florida from 2010-2020. Despite this, Melvin Rouse II and JJ Howland will look to party like it is 1951 in Orlando on Saturday.
*While Ewan is the last Yale receiver to appear in an all-star game, the Epson Ivy Bowl pitted an Ivy League all-star team against a Japanese team. The last receiver to appear in a conventional all-star game was Curt Grieve in the 1981 Blue-Gray Classic. Grieve caught 51 passes for 791 yards and 12 touchdowns to cap a career where he caught 88 passes for 1445 yards and 20 touchdowns.
**Throughout my research, the 2009 Yale Media Guide and 2021 Yale Record Book were of tremendous help to me. Do check them out :)