The 1921 American football season was a landmark year characterized by “impossible” upsets in the college ranks and a controversial finish in the professional game that fans still debate today.
1921 College Football: The Year of the Upset
The 1921 college season is best remembered for one of the greatest shocks in sports history and a murky national championship race.
- “C6H0” – The Miracle at Harvard: On October 29, the tiny Centre College Praying Colonels traveled to Cambridge and defeated the mighty Harvard Crimson 6–0. Harvard hadn’t lost in 25 games, and the score was so improbable that students famously painted the “chemical formula” C6H0 (Centre 6, Harvard 0) across their campus.
- A Divided Title: There was no single national champion. Cornell, Iowa, California, and Lafayette all claimed shares of the title. Iowa, led by the legendary Howard Jones, secured a perfect 7–0 season and snapped Notre Dame’s 20-game winning streak.
- The Rose Bowl Tie: In a rain-soaked defensive battle, California’s “Wonder Team” played Washington & Jefferson to a 0–0 tie. This game remains the only scoreless tie in Rose Bowl history.
- Media Milestone: On October 8, 1921, the first-ever live radio broadcast of a college football game took place as West Virginia played Pittsburgh.
Professional Football: The “Staley Swindle”
This was the second and final season of the American Professional Football Association (APFA) before it officially renamed itself the National Football League (NFL) in 1922.
- League Expansion: The league grew to 21 teams, including the addition of the Green Bay Packers, who officially joined the professional ranks this year.
- The Championship Controversy: The Chicago Staleys (soon to be the Bears) and the Buffalo All-Americans finished with identical 9–1 records. Buffalo had actually defeated Chicago earlier in the year and believed they had clinched the title.
- The “Post-Season” Trap: Staley’s owner, George Halas, convinced Buffalo to play a second game in December, which Buffalo viewed as an exhibition. Chicago won 10–7, and the league used a new tiebreaker rule—stating the second game of a series carried more weight—to award the championship to Chicago. Buffalo fans dubbed it the “Staley Swindle.”
A Deep Dive into 1921 Football History and Highlights
- January 1, 1921 – At Tournament Park in Pasadena, what we now call the 7th California defeated Ohio State, 28–0,
- January 1, 1921 – The one and only Fort Worth Bowl game was played as upstart Centre College upended TCU.
- August 27, 1921 – Green Bay owner J. Emmett Clair was granted a franchise by the American Professional Football Association under the guise of the name of Acme Packing Co. According to Packers.com, the Packers cut ties with financially strapped Acme Packing just a week shy of their first APFA game.
- August 27, 1921 – The Evansville Crimson Giants franchise formed, and they played in the NFL’s early formation, called the APFA, in the 1921 and 22 seasons. The nickname Giants was not too far off, as the team was headed by the 6’4″, 250-pound star and coach Franklin Fausch and Herb Henderson, who, according to reports, could kick a ball 80 yards in the air. The Crimson Giants were an early hit in the league. They competed with the best the APFA had to offer. But after a couple of crippling beatdowns in Green Bay, which we just talked about, some mismanagement of team funds, and a disconnect from the home fans, the Evansville 11 had to fold in 1922.
- August 27, 1921 – The Tonawanda Cardex Lumberman franchise applied and played in the APFA for the 1921 season. The Jacks played for only one game and have the distinction of being the shortest-lived franchise in NFL history. Their home was a small town just north of Buffalo, and they were from the smallest town in the NFL, with a population of just over 10,000. The team could only schedule away games week by week. This, coupled with the hometown newspaper’s better coverage of the semi-pro All-Tonawandans, gave little support for the Cardex squad. What made it even worse was that other NFL teams felt they could not draw crowds by playing the Jacks. So they scheduled more reputable teams to fill the stands.
- August 27, 1921 – The Minneapolis Marines, also called the Red Jackets team, joined the APFA/NFL for the 1921 through 24 season. They rejoined the NFL for the 1929 and 1930 seasons as the Minneapolis Red Jackets. According to the Pro Football Researcher Association’s Coffin Corner publication, 1998, volume 20, an article by Jim Quirk. The Marine squad, formed in 1905, reached its peak success in the years before the APFA and the NFL formed. Quarterback Rube Ursula and tackle Walt Big Boy Boolan were the Minneapolis stars who played in the teens and early years of the team, right through the professional era into the early 1920s. A stout defense is what the Marines were known for. And Ursula and Big Boy played both ways.
- October 8, 1921 – The first-ever live radio broadcast of a college football game took place as West Virginia played Pittsburgh.
- October 29, 1921 – Harvard’s 25-game winning streak was snapped as the Center College Praying Colonels traveled to Cambridge and defeated the Crimson 6–0.
- December 4, 1921 – The Chicago Staleys defeated the Buffalo All-Americans 10-7, in what Buffalo thought was merely an exhibition game. Chicago owner George Halas convinced the League that the game should count, and the Staleys became champions, and not Buffalo, in what All-American fans still call the Staley Swindle.
