Chicago Cardinals 1923 Prior to the opening of the 1923 season, the Cardinals shipped local favorite Lenny Sachs to the Milwaukee Badgers (NFL team). Sachs, a 175-pound end out of Chicago's Loyola University, was a solid, experienced receiver and a good guy to boot. Needing a receiving end with Sachs out of the picture, the Cardinals signed Notre Dame's quick running All-American Roger Kiley, who would be united with former college teammate Eddie Anderson, who already was at the other end position. Both Kiley and Anderson were well-regarded high end performers and gave the south-siders the needed speed to challenge for the NFL title. Cardinals' owner Chris O'Brien next step was replacing player/coach John 'Paddy' Driscoll with player/coach Arnie Horween - still playing under the assumed name of McMahon... but that's another story. O'Brien wanted Driscoll to be free of the coaching duties so as to be able to give his full attention to playing quarterback, or halfback or field goal kicking.
Player/coaches continued to be the norm during the 1920s, since 'no real coaching was allowed during the games.' O'Brien then obtained power-packed fullback Rip King from Akron and signed speedy halfback Jack Crangle from the University of Illinois. The Chicago Cardinals 1923 had one of the fastest backfields in the league with Driscoll, the two Horween brothers - Arnold and Ralph - and John Mohardt, Art Folz and Bob Koehler. Mohardt was a solid performing halfback with quick moves to the outside and Koehler, an opened-field runner, who attended the University of Northwestern in nearby Evanston, Illinois. Folz, a quarterback with quick moves came out of Chicago's Englewood High School. Optimism was high among players and fans when two Newly acquired all-star linemen joined the squad. Management acquired the services of 212-pound tackle Sully Montgomery and 203-pound guard Wilfrid Smith who later became a well-known Chicago sports' writer.
The Cardinals started the 1923 season by shutting out their first five opponents, including a resounding 60-0 trashing of the Rochester Jeffersons (NFL team). Paddy Driscoll scored 27-of-the-60 points. As usual most of the Cardinals games were played at home. The team's only road game was a 3-0 loss to its arch-rival Chicago Bears. The Cardinals did win more games in 1924, going 8-4 in league competition, but their 7-2-1 record of 1922 was still just a shade better. Footballhistorian.com - Archives - Professional Football History
November 24 1923 Yale tops Harvard
Because the football was such a big attraction, the games had to be played rain or shine. Huge crowds of people, many of whom had traveled hundreds of miles for a game, could not be turned away with rain checks as in baseball. On November 24, 1923, fifty-five thousand people sat through a three-hour downpour at Harvards Soldier Field to see Yale beat Harvard for the first time since 1916. The score was Yale over Harvard 13-0.
That game became famous, not only because the Bulldogs scored their first touchdown in 16 years against the Cantabs, but also because a Yale halfback named Raymond Ducky Pond really lived up to his name. He picked up a Harvard fumble on his own 33-yard line to go splashing and skidding 67 years for the winning touchdown. From footballhistorian.com Archives
The 1920s
In 1921 Bob Zuppke, of Illinois University, introduced the last of the basic football innovations; the huddle. Teams no longer lined up immediately after the ball was downed, waiting for it to be snapped on a pre-arranged signal. Instead, they gathered in a huddle around the play-caller, who gave the signal as well as the next play. At the time, Bob Zuppke came in for severe criticism for his huddle. But it soon grew popular, especially after Illinois University took the national title in 1923.
Ilinois Football History
