Pitt's Role in Player Numbering and Other Numbering Plans

This week's episode of the Pigskin Dispatch Podcast concerned a portion of an October 2023 Factoid Feast that covered a suggestion to number football players 1 through 11. When preparing for the podcast, I did more research and came across new-to-me information about the University of Pittsburgh’s role in player numbering and alternative approaches to the player numbering system that became the standard.

Pigskin Dispatch Podcast... Standardized Player Numbering

Today's Tidbit.. Factoid Feast I

Below are previous stories about the origins of player numbering and wacky numbering systems, such as using four-digit numbers, Roman numerals, and alpha-numeric systems.

Today's Tidbit... The Origins Of Player Numbers

Football's Wacky Uniform Numbers

I previously credited Pitt with popularizing, not originating player, numbering, but the new-to-me information concerns Karl Davis, who worked at Pitt in 1907. The Origins of Player Numbering story shows that the first known use of numbers on football players was the 1905 Iowa State-Drake game, but Pitt deserves credit for being the first to use player numbers consistently. Davis, whom I was unaware of until this week, worked in publicity at Pitt in 1907 when he came up with the idea of numbering players. Stagg raised the idea six or seven years earlier, but Davis may have been unaware of Stagg's idea and ISU-Drake's use of numbers in 1905.