Today's Tidbit... Low Volume and Percentage Passing in the 1930s

Bernard Taylor catches a TD pass. (1927 TCU yearbook)

Anyone that follows football history understands that it took a few decades for the forward pass to take hold. Still, it can be hard to recognize how few passes were thrown without looking at a team’s season statistics.

TCU became known for its passing offense under Dutch Meyer in the 1930s and 1940s, and before that, they had a leading passing attack in the 1920s under coach Matty Bell.

College football did not yet track consistent statistics, but individual schools tracked and published stats in varying formats. As seen below, TCU’s 1926 game-by-game passing stats were published in the 1927 yearbook.