Countdown to Labor Day: 16
The countdown to the start of the 2013 season is under way, as Pitt is 16 days away from its Labor Day opener against Florida State at Heinz Field. Panther-Lair.com is counting down the days until the biggest season opener in recent memory.
Today's number is 16, so we're looking at the second national championship.
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Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner set the bar high for his coaching tenure at Pitt when he won a national championship in his first season. So what did Warner do for a follow-up in second season?
He won it again.
After posting a perfect 8-0 record in 1915, Warner's Panthers had no intention of losing in 1916. With All-Americans Robert Peck, James Herron, Andy Hastings and Claude Thornhill leading the way - not to mention future coaches Jock Sutherland and Doc Carlson - Pitt came out in 1916 with high expectations.
To say the Panthers lived up to those expectations is an understatement. Pitt opened the season with a 57-0 win over Westminster and never looked back, posting shutouts in six of eight games and only suffering one close game. That game was the second of the season, when the Panthers beat Navy 20-19 on the road.
Otherwise, Pitt rolled. The Panthers shut out Syracuse (30-0), Penn (20-0), Allegheny (46-0), W&J (37-0) and Penn State (31-0), while also beating Carnegie Tech 14-6.
Pitt was declared national champion by virtually every selector, although college football historian Parke Davis named Pitt and Army as co-champions.
Nevertheless, the Panthers were dominant in 1916. They allowed just 25 points in eight games, and the season served as part of Warner's school-record 32-game winning streak, which had begun a year earlier and would last until the finale of the 1918 season.
Warner claimed one more championship at Pitt (1918) before moving on to be the head coach at Stanford, where he won his fourth title in 1926.
Previous entries in the Countdown
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