Today's Tidbit... 100 Years of Football: 1916-1922

This is the seventh in a series looking back at “100 Years of Football,” syndicated cartoons published by Jerry Brondfield and Charles Beck in 1969. Today's version covers the period from 1916-1922.

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The forward pass entered football’s mainstream in the mid-1910s, allowing new teams to emerge nationally. WWI upset rosters nationwide, while the Spanish Flu contributed to football’s strangest season in 1918. Following the war, college football entered a period of explosive growth, soon reflected by a stadium-building boom. (Click images to enlarge)

(Brondfield & Beck, '100 Years Of Football,' News-Item (Shamokin, PA), October 27, 1969.)

By the mid-1910s, Pop Warner had converted Pitt into a national power after he left Carlisle. The Rose Bowl restarted in 1916, though many had forgotten about the 1902 game, with Brown’s Fritz Pollard as one of its stars. He and Paul Robeson of Rutgers were among the few Black players of the era. Coaching from the sideline became illegal in 1914, with a 1917 rule barring substitutes from talking to teammates on their first play in the game.