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I find it interesting that the running backs weighed about the same as the OLs, around 200 pounds.  I think the OLs were 230 or so typically when I was in school 1970s era.

It would be interesting to see a chart of the average weight of OLs in P5 by year (or decade).  I'd guess it's about 290 today, maybe 300.

UGA was 328 last season, average.  How much did the Fridge weight?  I think around 300 and he was considered to be a monster.

That is sort of something lost to the ages, with less recruits falling through the cracks, and coaches not simply rewarding tenure, the random great team.  I feel like you used to get the random 1974 Orange Bowl Kansas Jayhawks, or whatever, and then discover they were awful before and after that.

Trying to think of recent examples, and I'm not coming up with any.  I know I just fake used them, but maybe those 2007 Kansas and Missouri teams?  I think Wake Forest won an out of the blue ACC title in there.  You might get a short elite burst like MSU from 2013-2015, or Washington.  But I can't think of any one off great teams recently.  If Baylor could have figured out Oklahoma, maybe they would have fit?  If Kansas State had avoided the one pitfall and played in the BCS champion ship in 2011 or 2012?

backpedaling from 1930 to 1918 - thought this was timely................

 Running a college football program during a major war is a challenge enough. Calls to duty send rosters into constant flux. Sports tend to slip several notches down society’s list of priorities.

Toss in the horrific Spanish flu pandemic and it’s a wonder any games were played at all in 1918.

The 1918 Nebraska schedule originally consisted of this 10-game lineup. In a season of ever-changing circumstances and at least a dozen schedule adjustments, only two games would be played as originally billed. A third would happen only after twice being postponed.


https://www.huskermatwitter.com/1918-war-influenza-and-football/

OCT. 1: INFLUENZA HITS LINCOLN

Spanish influenza swept into the state in late September and is now officially a concern in Lincoln. But it’s not enough of a worry to call off the Oct. 5 season opener against Iowa. The Daily Nebraskan contains a number of precautions to follow, such as avoiding “crowded street cars, rooms, etc.” Even so, students “packed the Temple theatre to the rafters” for a pep rally later in the week.

OCT. 7: DEATH COMES TO CAMPUS

On the Monday after the Iowa game, the university’s first flu-related fatality is reported in the Daily Nebraskan. The death of John J. Knoll was technically caused by pneumonia, as was common in influenza cases. By the end of the week, at least five more fatal university cases would be reported.

OCT. 12: UNIVERSITY CLOSED

The university heeds a Lincoln City Council order that all schools, theaters, churches and places of public amusement or gathering be closed indefinitely. The 1,700-member Student Army Training Corps, which includes the football players, is not affected, however. Meanwhile, the university unsuccessfully pursues Illinois as a possible Thanksgiving opponent.

OCT. 22: NO SCRIMMAGE FOR YOU!

Hoping to tune up for the Nov. 2 Notre Dame game, the Huskers schedule a three-way public scrimmage at Nebraska Field for Saturday, Oct. 26, with Cotner College and Nebraska Wesleyan. But a widening of state flu restrictions to include outdoor gatherings puts an end to those plans. The citywide death toll is now above 90.

OCT. 29: A SCRIMMAGE, BUT FANS BARRED

With armed guards stationed at the Nebraska Field gates to enforce the ban on public gatherings, the Huskers trample Cotner College in a Tuesday afternoon scrimmage, 33-0. The Notre Dame game is now just four days away, and the ban is expected to be lifted by then. Meanwhile, hopes of landing the Great Lakes Navy Bluejackets as a Thanksgiving opponent don’t pan out. (The “Jackies,” with George Halas starring, would win the 1919 Rose Bowl.)

WINS, LOSSES AND MORTALITY

Though Nebraska’s final record of 2-3-1 was unspectacular, the team’s perseverance though grim circumstances stands out. By the end of the year, Lincoln’s official tally of flu deaths had reached 265, more than half occurring in the brutal month of October. The state’s death toll was reported to be anywhere from 2,800 to 7,500. Globally, the great war killed 15 million to 19 million people, including 751 Nebraskans. The flu pandemic is believed to have taken 50 million to 100 million lives.

The 1918 influenza pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920; colloquially known as the Spanish flu) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus, with the second being the swine flu in 2009.^[1] The Spanish flu infected 500 million people around the world,^[2] or about 27% of the then world population of between 1.8 and 1.9 billion, including people on isolated Pacific islands and in the Arctic. The death toll is estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million^[3] to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history.^[4][5]
Infectious diseases already limited life expectancy in the early 20th century, but life expectancy in the United States dropped by about 12 years in the first year of the pandemic.^[6][7][8] Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill the very young and the very old, with a higher survival rate for those in between, but the Spanish flu pandemic resulted in a higher than expected mortality rate for young adults.^[9]
To maintain morale, wartime censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.^[10][11] Papers were free to report the epidemic's effects in neutral Spain (such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII).^[12] These stories created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit,^[13] giving rise to the pandemic's nickname, "Spanish flu".^[14]
Scientists offer several possible explanations for the high mortality rate of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Some analyses have shown the virus to be particularly deadly because it triggers a cytokine storm, which ravages the stronger immune system of young adults.^[15] In contrast, a 2007 analysis of medical journals from the period of the pandemic^[16][17] found that the viral infection was no more aggressive than previous influenza strains. Instead, malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, and poor hygiene promoted bacterial superinfection. This superinfection killed most of the victims, typically after a somewhat prolonged death bed.^[18][19]
. . .
Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify with certainty the pandemic's geographic origin.^[2] Different hypotheses have been made about it, with the three main ones being Kansas in the United States, a British army base in France, and northern China ^[20]

Historian Alfred W. Crosby stated that the flu originated in Kansas,^[21] and popular author John Barry described Haskell County, Kansas, as the point of origin.^[15] It has also been stated that, by late 1917, there had already been a first wave of the epidemic in at least 14 US military camps.^[22]