We Discuss How Pop Warner Shaped the Forward Pass and Modern Offense

And legendary coach Pop Warner, the exact mastermind who unleashed Jim Thorpe on the world, is looking to rapidly changing game of football.

But he isn't just reminiscing about the gritty glory days.

Instead, the godfather of the single wing offense drops a bold prediction about the T formation and where the sport's heading.

That was where he was.

Right?

Right.

Well, welcome back to the Channel.

Today we're digging up through the gridiron archives with historian Timothy Brown of football archaeology and we're breaking down the fascinating tidb.

Pop Warner looks forward and back to uncover one of football's greatest innovators that saw when he looked at the game's past and his future.

Let's go to it with Tim.

Hello my football friends.

This is Darren [email protected] welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another evening where we get to sit down and visit with Timothy p. Brown of footballarchaeology.com Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey Darren, thank you.

Look looking forward to chatting again and maybe see about talking about a little bit of pop.

Yeah, this is the pop in this story.

A little bit of pop to this.

I tell you, every year in April, pfra has a Western New York chapter that I belong to and we have hosted in a town called Springville, New York.

And that's the home of Pop Warner.

And they have a Pop Warner museum which is there's many items that Pop Warner once owned or directly connected.

And they have a couple rooms, they're really nice little museum there.

A lot of other local history too to check out.

So if you're ever in that area, check it out.

But Pop Warner has always been a really interesting fella.

And you have this great article that you wrote that you titled Pop Warner Looks Forward and back and it's got some great names in it.

So we'd love to hear this story.

Yeah.

So I always find it interesting to when we come across stories of somebody who is clearly, you know, football legend and innovator and strategist and everything else and you know, who just dramatically influenced the game and yet they also get some stuff wrong.

You know, like they say this is going to happen and then it doesn't.

Right.

So it's just kind of their prognostications aren't always correct.

So.

Yeah.

So this story is, you know, built around an interview.

Grantlin Rice went to, you know, meet with Warner at his house in Palo Alto, which is California, which is where, you know, Stanford is and where he coached, you know, for a number of years.

So Warner was retired by then.

So, you know, so it's one of those things where, you know, he, he obviously was aware of, you know, Warner at the time.

And so, you know, he, I guess 96, he must, must have been.

Probably was coaching at Cornell.

Yeah, Cornell.

I think he'd be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean he could, that could have still been when he, you know, he did the Iowa State and like Auburn the same year.

Georgia Tech.

George or Georgia.

It was Georgia.

Georgia Tech.

Heisman was a Georgia Tech.

But anyways, you know, so, you know, let's assume you more likely he was at, at Cornell.

But so, you know, I mean, so, you know, Warner was a tremendous innovator.

I profiled him a fair amount in my book when football came to Pass.

I mean, he's, I think he's underappreciated for the role he played in, in developing the forward pass.

You know, he, he was really one of the guys who.

And then he basically, you know, really helped innovate, you know, with, with the forward pass while, while he was at Carla.

But he's still, you know, he's best known for the single wing.

Right.

And then secondarily the double wing.

So, you know, the single wing,.

A.

He kind of had some car at the time.

It was called the Carlisle formation, but, you know, I mean.

So in both of them needed.

It's kind of funny because later on he criticizes the, the modern tea, right?

But his formations really depended on having the tremendous, you know, like three tool player, you know, the, the guy who can run pass and kick.

And so Jim Thorpe was the prototype, you know, for the, for the single wing.

And then, you know, out at Stanford he had, I think Stanley was maybe his first fullback.

But then, now I'm blanking on his name.

He was Ernie.

Ernie Nevers.

Yeah, Ernie Nevers, you know, was like, you know, he and, and Nagursky were the premier fullbacks of that era, NFL, you know, once, once he got out of, got out of the college.

But you know, so both of those, both offenses really, you know, maybe just that they, they worked best when you had tremendous players, when he had a focal point.

Right.

And most teams don't have that, you know, most teams don't have that kind of player.

So it was always a little bit of a struggle.

And I think some people, you know, people used to argue the Notre Dame box allowed a little bit more spreading.

You know, if you didn't have quite the same, if you had good, talented players, but no superstar that maybe worked a little bit better.

But anyways, it was just one of the, you know, so those two offenses, single wing and the double wing probably were the most dominant offenses throughout really through World War II, you know.

You know, and I think that the Eagles, I think were the last NFL team to run the single wing.

And they were doing it, I want to say for sure in the late 40s, maybe even early 50s, you know,.

Greasy Neil is their coach.

I think they were running.

So I mean that stuck around for a long time.

But so one of the interesting things, you know, when he was talking to, when he, when Grant Grantland Rice was talking to him.

Warner had watched UCLA and Princeton have success running the single wing in recent years.

So he was like, single wing is going to make a comeback, you know, and he thought that the, he thought that the modern tee took too long for plays to develop, which is exactly the opposite of what most people said because the quick, the quick dive was one of the main benefits of the modern tee.

But I think, you know, he was really focused on the, you know, the quarterback faking and then dropping back to pass.

So that took time to develop.

Right.

I, I don't think you could tell the, the Washington redskins in the NFL championship game that they, they lost 77 to nothing to the Bears who introduced the, the tea in that, that game.

I think they'll tell you it developed pretty quickly.

I'll bet.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, so, I mean, but even then, you know, he's viewing it as, you know, know, he obviously had preferences for what he thought worked and somehow that drop back quarterback thing just didn't work for him.

And you know, the quarterback oftentimes wasn't, couldn't see the field or couldn't see his backside when he was dropping back, you know, those kinds of things.

So I mean there's arguments against, you know, that drops, you know, drop that quarterback.

But, but anyways, you know, he was convinced that Single wing and double wing gonna make a comeback and this modern tea is going to go away.

And that never happened.

Yeah, you know, not exactly.

Right.

Yeah.

And so you know it.

But I guess the, the other thing that, that is interesting then is that so now we've evolved again.

You know, we went through a period where the drop back quarterback, you know, he had the big statue type guys that dominated the NFL for decades.

Right.

And now, you know, with the, you know, zone read, read option, RPO style of game now the quarterbacks tend to be pretty mobile.

You know, the best ones tend to be pretty mobile guys.

Right.

So it's kind of in some ways shifted a bit back towards his model of, of offense where, you know, you have a stud and you let him do his thing, you know.

Yeah.

Obviously very, you know, very controlled.

So he might have been 60, 70 years off in his production.

Yeah.

But you know, it's interesting though because if you think about it, what the NFL fans now call the Wildcat, that's basically a formation of the single wing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know, if you're, some of the, you know, some of the block because of the complexity of the blocking patterns in those offenses, you know, if you, if you got a program, especially high school level, you know, if you got a program where, you know, you have kids for the four years and you, you're running the program, you know, from middle school on and you can teach the kids and you know, and they, they can get really adept at, at some of those, some of those blocks and you don't need as much talent, you know, so a lot of,.

A lot of misdirection in those, the modern single wings ones that I witnessed and it's, it's hard to tell who has a ball because they're, they're going every which way with fake handoffs and snap into different players and it's, it's.

Yeah, so I'm really complex.

There's, you know, like one of my, one of the guys I like following on social media is coach Dan Casey and he, you know, he's showed a couple of plays, you know, this weekend where you know, teams are running basically single wing concepts right.

In the NFL and at major college level and you know, they're just Sticking in a play and boom, you know, get.

It's all a misdirection and, you know, surprise plays.

And it's.

It's still effective football if you block it.

Right.

There are still coaches.

I know you can go on YouTube, you can go on websites that are instructing coaches how to use a single wing.

So, you know, there's.

It's still a.

A small segment that really appreciates that offense and run it to this day.

Yeah, well, again, you know, blocking is still blocking.

Right, right.

You know, so, I mean, it.

It's.

You got all those, you know, the zone principles dominate a lot of it now nowadays, but, you know, when you can do both like a.

Like Iowa has had a lot of success.

I mean, they haven't had the most talent, but, you know, they do.

They can.

They can block both styles.

Right.

And so it's.

They're tougher to prepare for.

Yeah, most definitely.

Well, Tim, it's great that you come out and you bring up these, you know, antiquated offenses that are maybe resurgence, you know, so we get to be a little bit more familiar with them and.

And really, you know, talk about the people that originate it, like Pop Warner and some of the other folks that you talk about are different concepts, different pieces of equipment.

And you do this in your tidbits.

Maybe you could share with the audience how they could take in some of your tidbits.

Yeah, sure.

Just go to footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site, so subscribe.

You'll get an email every time that I publish a new article and otherwise bookmark it.

Come and look at it whenever you want.

So come on, take a look around and see if you like it.

All right, Tim.

Well, we really appreciate you joining us tonight and love to have you join us next week.

Very good.

Thanks.

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