Now and 100 years ago, pandemics are (mostly) painful for high school sports Fullerton High’s football team won a title in 1918, a season full of hardships due to the Spanish Flu So here we are, about 115 days from the start of college football season, wondering if the games of 2020 will, in fact, be played. And when it started playing there was no slowing down the Golden Tornadoes. The one dark spot in the reboot is that Joe Hall, a Montreal Canadien player, died after contracting Spanish Flu in the 1919 Stanley Cup Final. The photo that accompanies this story is of an undetermined 1918 Georgia Tech home game that was taken by a student, Thomas Carter, who graduated in the 1920s with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. In 1918 College Football had to overcome the Spanish Flu and the end of World War I. As the second wave ravaged the country, hitting young adults particularly hard, the college football season petered out, with teams struggling to field rosters and schedule games. As a result, football teams were created at various military posts around the country and actually played against established college teams. The game was played to benefit military charities. Expert John Barry tells of how American baseball … That game was on Sunday, Nov. 23. “The football season of 1918 was one of the most peculiar in the whole history of the game and yet it will stand as an epoch-making one in the progress of the sport,” Walter Camp wrote for the “Spalding’s Official Foot Ball Guide,” per The Athletic. And although Major League Baseball’s season was ending before the brunt of the flu arrived, the spitball was nevertheless outlawed during the World Series. In fact, Georgia Tech outscored its first five opponents 425-0. Many schools were not able to play until late October or early November. According to the CDC, an estimated one-third of the world’s population was infected by the flu … A Georgia Tech game that was scheduled with Pennsylvania was cancelled when the Spanish flu went through Philadelphia. There was a Rose Bowl after the 1918 season, but back then it was called the Tournament East-West game. There was no consensus champion, with the Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book listing Michigan and Pittsburgh as national champions. Great Lakes Navy won 17-0. Much more is at stake from a century ago: TV money, bowl games, conference championships, cross-country travel all need to be sorted out. Many college players left to serve in the war, so some schools turned their football programs into intramural squads. Photo: University of Southern California/Collegiate Images via Getty Images. We certainly don't know. In 1918, there were no more than 90 college football teams. … The 1919 college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book listing Centre, Harvard, Illinois, Notre Dame, and Texas A&M as having been deemed national champions by major selectors Only Harvard, Illinois, and Texas A&M claim national championships for the 1919 season. The Golden Tornadoes, as they were known then, played a seven-game schedule with six of those games played at home at Grant Field. By the time World War I and the global flu pandemic finally ended in 1919, American fans were more than ready to get back to watching sports. Heisman, as you might recall, was never bashful about running up the score as his 1916 team beat Cumberland 222-0 in the most lopsided game in NCAA history. That's when the Spanish Flu outbreak ravaged the World. It had a state-champion basketball team, but the football season was decimated by the twin threats of the First World War and the deadly Spanish Flu Pandemic that killed 10 times more people globally than the war. We just know that the world has changed a lot since 1918. “The fans, so long denied of their favorite winter sport, will turn out in full force to cheer the Sooners to victory,” The Daily Oklahoman printed that day. That put Harvard's record at 9-0-1, a half game betterthan 6-1 Illinois and 7-1 Penn State in the loss column. Most Recent Games and Any Score Since 1869. 1919 College Football Schedule and Results. Harvard defeated Oregon, 7–6, in the 1920 Rose Bowl. According to records 25,000 attended the game. The 2020 college football season, assuming there is one, won’t be the first to be played amid nationwide restrictions due to disease. 1918 CFB Schedule and Results 1920 CFB Schedule and Results. In 1918, there were no more than 90 college football teams. Texas A&M began claiming the 1919 national championship in 2012. The flu, which came in multiple waves from 1918-1919, killed more than 675,000 in the United States. And if the games are played, will there be fans in the seats? Texas A&M began claiming the 1919 national championship in … The series was stopped before the decisive game and both teams were engraved on the Cup. As the N.H.L. Only Harvard and Illinois claim national championships for the 1919 season. Baseball played a full season, with the Reds winning a World Series, and tennis and golf started play again. “It would be difficult to overestimate the value of football experience as a part of the soldier’s training,” President Wilson wrote in a letter that was eventually published in 1919. One of the teams that played almost a complete schedule in 1918 was Georgia Tech, coached by the legendary John Heisman. On top of that, the Spanish flu pandemic led to the cancellation of a great many games nationwide, so that most schools played half a season or less, and some schools didn't play at all. The flu, which came in multiple waves from 1918-1919, killed more than 675,000 in the United States. According to a report in the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier, 18 schools did not play football in 1918 because of the flu and the war. Vanderbilt posted a 4-2 record in the 1918 football season. Georgia Tech, which had won the national championship the year before, did not start its season until Oct. 5. In Montana, no high school football championship was played in 1918 due to the flu, though play resumed in 1919. sports-reference.com/cfb/bowls/rose-bowl.html . The month after that, pro football and college football are both supposed to start up and be played even if there is a limited number of fans allowed in … But as the Stanley Cup Final opened, Seattle had a pronounced disadvantage — not because of the flu… They beat Furman 118-0, The Oglethorpe 11th Calvary 123-0 (in a game that was stopped after the third quarter), and N.C. State 128-0. This is the 1918 team photo of the Boston Red Sox. They upset regular-season champ Vancouver to win the three-team PCHA once again in 1919. Fans donned masks, and the season was shortened with games not starting until October and November. But there was a season. 1919College Football Top 25. There are 130 major college football teams alone in 2020, spread across 41 states and competing in 10 conferences, save for a … State College suffered greatly during the 1918 calendar year. Many schools played only three or four games. 9 “ Flu’ Masks in Vogue While Tigers Defeat Ames’ Basket Team,” St. Louis Star , January 11, 1919; “Influenza Masks Didn’t Bother Fight Fans,” Oakland Tribune , January 26, 1919. Georgia Tech led that game 126-0 at halftime. With so many teams lacking players because of the war, the game was scheduled between two military institutions that had fielded team, Great Lakes Navy of Illinois and Mare Island Marines of California. The biggest game of the season came when Georgia Tech, 5-0 and on a 33-game winning streak, went to Pittsburgh to play the Panthers of Pop Warner, who had a 30-game winning streak. “The football season of 1918 was one of the most peculiar in the whole history of the game and yet it will stand as an epoch-making one in the progress of the sport,” Walter Camp wrote for the “Spalding’s Official Foot Ball Guide,” per The Athletic. By the start of the 1918 college football season in October, cases of Spanish flu were on the rise once again throughout the United States. Picturedabove is the Harvard touchdown that beat Oregon 7-6 inthe Rose Bowl. Not only was there a deadly pandemic in 1918, but World War I was still winding down. And despite the threat of the flu, fans turned out at Georgia Tech. The war had already deprived most schools of able-bodied veteran players, and freshmen dominated many rosters this season. Conferences. The annual Army-Navy game was not played. The NBA season is also restarting a week after baseball begins with all games in a “bubble” in Orlando, Florida. The possibility of holding some form of the 2020 college football season during a pandemic has sent folks scurrying to research the 1918 season. Pittsburgh won 32-0 at Forbes Field before a crowd of 30,000. The 1919 college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book listing Centre, Harvard, Illinois, Notre Dame, and Texas A&M as having been deemed national champions by major selectors[1] Only Harvard, Illinois, and Texas A&M claim national championships for the 1919 season. The Boston Red Sox prevailed in the World Series that was played in September to end a season cut short because of the flu epidemic. The 1918 college football season also forged forward and changed the game for the next century to come. However, to boost … As with the MLB season, fans attending college football games wore masks as shown in these photos of a Georgia Tech game at Grant Field in 1918. While there were some who felt college football should completely shut down because of the pandemic, President Woodrow Wilson felt that football added to the overall morale of the country. World War I's impact on colleges in the country, and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 eliminated most of that year's scheduled college football games. Not only was there a deadly pandemic in 1918, but World War I was still winding down. 1919 Big Ten Conference football standings, 1919 Pacific Coast Conference football standings, 1919 Rocky Mountain Conference football standings, 1919 South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association football standings, 1919 Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association football standings, 1919 Southwest Conference football standings, Central Intercollegiate Athletics Association, Inter-Normal Athletic Conference of Wisconsin, Louisiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, 1919 Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference football standings, 1919 Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference football standings, 1919 Missouri Intercollegiate Athletic Association football standings, 1919 Nebraska Intercollegiate Conference football standings, 1919 Ohio Athletic Conference football standings, 1919 Southern California Conference football standings, 1919 Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association football season, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1919_college_football_season&oldid=1003740535, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Passing touchdowns leader: Ira Rodgers, 11, Receiving yards leader: Bernard Kirk, 372, This page was last edited on 30 January 2021, at 12:57. 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