Iowa State, Georgia and Cornell In the spring of 1895, Warner was asked for a reference to fill the vacant head coaching position at
Iowa Agricultural College, in
Ames, Iowa. Instead of giving a reference, Warner himself applied for the job and received an offer for $25 per week (). Because Iowa State began its season in August—almost one and a half months prior to the beginning in Georgia—Warner was able to work out a deal. For , he would coach in Iowa from August until the second week of September, and then head to Georgia and begin coaching there.
Iowa State Ultimately, not only did Warner end up coaching at Iowa State before his time at Georgia; but while in Athens, he also received weekly updates from Iowa and sent back telegraphs with detailed advice for the following week. One story recounts that in the middle of September (just before leaving for Georgia), Warner took his team north west for a previously agreed-upon game against the Butte Athletic Club of
Butte, Montana. Apparently overconfident, Warner bet the entire sum of his Iowa State wages——on his team's victory. At halftime, his team trailed 10–2. Warner decided to enter the game, filling in at the guard position. Though this had a positive impact, it was not sufficient as his team still lost 12–10. Since then, Iowa State teams have been known as the
Cyclones. The team finished with three wins and three losses and, like Georgia, retained Warner for the following season. In 1896, Iowa State had eight wins and two losses. Despite leaving Georgia for Cornell in 1897, Warner remained head coach at Iowa State for another three years, posting winning records. The football team had three wins and four losses, including a
loss to North Carolina from a not-yet-legal
forward pass. He was rehired at a salary of $40 per week, With an undefeated record, the team won its first conference title. It also avenged the loss to North Carolina, winning 24–16, "For the first time in Southern football history the football supremacy of Virginia and North Carolina was successfully challenged." During those two years Warner also played two games against
John Heisman, another future coaching legend. Heisman was the head coach at
Auburn University, and they faced each other in the
1895 and
1896 games of the "
Deep South's Oldest Rivalry," an annual confrontation which has continued to the present day. Tichenor had executed the first "
hidden-ball trick" in an earlier Auburn game against
Vanderbilt, and used it again against Georgia. The next year, Tichenor faced Georgia's
Richard Von Albade Gammon, a star quarterback in his first year under Warner.
Cornell After Georgia's outstanding 1896 performance, Warner returned to his
alma mater Cornell at twice his Georgia salary. While remaining head coach at
Iowa State, he coached Cornell to records of 5–3–1 in
1897 and 10–2 in
1898; in the latter season, Cornell outscored its opponents 296–29. Despite its 1898 success, tension existed within the team, as its assistant coach (backed by a large proportion of the players) lobbied to replace Warner. Acknowledging an issue with his leadership, Warner resigned. Its late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century football teams were nationally prominent, and Warner was paid , an exceptionally high salary for a coach at the time. It has been said that after that game he considered Carlisle to be the future of college football. The head coach dealt with young players who differed from the white, East-Coast students with whom he had previously worked. At the beginning, he used the then-customary coaching methods of rough language and a strict routine. The Native American students were unaccustomed to such an approach, and several key players stopped attending practices. Warner adjusted his technique, saying that he "found I could get better results. I don't think I ever swore at a player from that time. Maybe I did a little cussing, now and then, but never at players." His coaching brought immediate improvement. In
1897 and
1898, the Carlisle teams had 6–4 records. In
1899 (Warner's first year), Carlisle won nine and lost two games—to the country's two best teams:
Harvard and
Princeton. That year saw Carlisle's first major victory, against one of the "
Big Four" teams, beating
Penn 16–5. At the end of the season, the school played
Columbia at the
Polo Grounds in New York City, a premier sports venue at the time, defeating them 42–0. The Columbia game was the first time that a crouching start, a form of what is now known as a
three point stance, was used by the
running backs. Before Warner's innovation, the stance for a back before the ball was snapped was bent forward with his feet well apart and his hands on his knees. Warner realized that if his players took a stance similar to the one taken by
sprinters, the legs would be bent, the back leaning forward, with one hand on the ground and the other arm cocked back to the thigh/hip region. Like with sprinters, this similar stance maximized the speed of his players. Shortly after, it became the standard football stance for both backs and
linemen. , with Warner at top right At the end of 1899, Warner was appointed the school's athletic director and his salary more than doubled. A track-and-field program was started that year. Warner knew little about the sport; to prepare as coach he bought every book available and consulted
Jack Moakley and
Mike Murphy, two of the era's leading head coaches. The program was successful; running was a Native American tradition, and students from the
Southwest were known for their stamina in long-distance races. Warner's next two years were less fruitful. The
1900 football team went 6–4–1, losing three games to the Big Four, and the
1901 season was a losing one, with Carlisle posting a 5–7–1 record. when Warner began implementing
double (lateral) passes. Carlisle's quarterback
Jimmy Johnson would make a lateral pass to the halfback running towards the sideline, bringing the defense with him as he tossed the ball back to the fast-running Johnson. For the tournament, Warner and the other team members each earned , although each player's expected share had been ; it was a financial failure. Carlisle's
1903 season was a success, with only two losses. he had a tailor sew elastic bands into the waists of several players' jerseys before the game so the play could be executed. Warner's next step was a brief return to Cornell.
Back to Carlisle After three years at Cornell, Warner returned to Carlisle. He considered his second stint there his best. From
1907 to
1914, the team won ten or more games a season five times. In
1908 he introduced the technique of body
blocking, instead of blocking with the shoulders. Warner considered the 1907 Carlisle team "about as perfect a football machine as I ever sent on the field". The team posted a 10–1 record, outscored opponents 267–62 and pioneered an elegant, high-speed passing game; it was one of the first teams to regularly throw the ball deep downfield. In the second play of the Penn game, Hauser threw a 40-yard spiral pass, hitting his
receiver in stride. According to
Sally Jenkins, in her
Sports Illustrated article on Carlisle:To take advantage of the Indians' versatility Warner drew up a new offense ..."the Carlisle formation," but later it would be known as the single wing. It was predicated on one small move: Warner shifted a halfback out wide, to outflank the opposing
tackle, forming something that looked like a wing. It opened up a world of possibilities. The Indians could line up as if to
punt – and then throw. No one would know whether they were going to run, pass or kick. For added measure Warner taught his quarterbacks to sprint out a few yards to their left or their right, buying more time to throw. The rest of the players flooded downfield and knocked down any opponent who might be able to
intercept or bat away the pass. Thorpe weighed just , light for a football player. Warner played him as a
substitute, encouraging him to put his time into track and field. By 1909, Warner had Thorpe competing in track and field and he won 14 events. In 1911, Thorpe began training for the upcoming
Olympics, and won
gold medals in the
pentathlon and
decathlon at the
1912 Olympic Games in
Stockholm. Thorpe’s Olympic victories in the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Games brought international attention to both Carlisle and Native American athletes; however, a year later the International Olympic Committee stripped him of his medals after it was revealed he had played semiprofessional baseball before the Games, violating the strict amateurism rules of the time, and only restored him as the sole champion in both events on the 110th anniversary of his victories in 2022. Carlisle football had another standout year in
1911, posting an 11–1 record.
Walter Camp selected Thorpe as a first-team All-American. According to one source, Thorpe was "recognized as the greatest player of the year and a man whose kicking is likely to revolutionize the game". Warner considered the 1912 team brilliant and adaptive, and experimented with new plays and formations. In its game against Army, Warner's team introduced a wrinkle to the wing-back system. According to Francis J. Powers, author of a book that concentrated on Warner's approach to football: Warner had both halfbacks close to the line and flanking the defensive tackles. That was the start of the double wingback offense, which enjoyed tremendous popularity until the
T formation was modernized with the man in
motion. The double wing became the most effective of all systems for effective forward passing since it permitted the quick release of four receivers down the field. Carlisle dominated the next two years, with the
1912 and
1913 teams losing only one game each. Coaching Pittsburgh from 1915 to 1923, he compiled a 60–12–4 record. Although the 1915 season was a success,
the next year's team was one of the greatest of Warner's career. The Panthers were again undefeated and, like the previous year, six of the eight games were shutouts. Thirty-two of their 35 players were from
Western Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. The team scored 255 points, conceding 25. Warner considered the team an improvement because its defense was more dominant than the previous year's. The Panthers were the consensus national champions, and Warner became recognized as one of football's greatest coaches. In 1917 the United States entered
World War I, and some players (including
Andy Hastings and
Jimmy Dehart) entered military service. Pittsburgh played an undefeated
full season despite the war, although it was not awarded the national championship. Although the team lacked the previous year's punch, it dominated the opposition. A key aspect of its success was the opposing coaches' inability to address Warner's evolving strategies; according to Powers, "His
reverse plays were a mystery, although Pop always was willing to explain them in detail to any other coach". Faculties had to step in to stop a decisive, postseason national championship game with John Heisman's undefeated
Georgia Tech team. The game was postponed until the following season, giving Tech the 1917 national championship (the first for any
Southern school). On November 23, 1918, the two teams played at Pittsburgh. At the stadium the locker rooms were next to each other, with only a thin wall separating the two teams prior to the game. Heisman was first to begin an inspirational speech and it was said that he passionately described both heroes of
Ancient Greece as well as the tragedy of a soldier found in his armor among the ruins of
Pompeii. Because of Georgia Tech's players' silence the speech was crystal clear on the other side of the wall. Upon its finish Warner smiled and quietly told his players "Okay, boys. There's the speech. Now go out and knock them off." Pittsburgh defeated Georgia Tech 32–0. The
1918 season was cut short at the end of November due to the continuing effects of World War I and the
influenza pandemic. Only five games were played, and the season's final game was in Cleveland against the Naval Reserve. Warner's first loss at Pitt, it was one of the most controversial games in school history. According to Warner and several reporters covering the game, Pitt was robbed by the
officials. The referees said that the timekeeper's watch was broken, ended the first half before Pitt was able to score and allowed the Reserves extra time in the fourth quarter to pull ahead, 10–9. Although he refused to acknowledge the loss, Warner's 29-game winning streak came to an end.
Moon Ducote kicked the 41-yard, game-winning field goal for the Naval Reserve, and Warner called him "the greatest football player I ever saw". Despite the loss, a number of selectors named the 4–1 1918 Panthers national champion. The team was led by freshman running back
Tom Davies, who averaged 150 yards per game over his four-year career. They were undefeated in
1920, with ties against
Syracuse and undefeated
Penn State. In
1921 the team's record dipped to 5–3–1, Warner's final season was his worst at Pitt, as the Panthers stumbled to a 5–4 record in
1923.
Stanford : line coach
Claude E. Thornhill, Warner, assistant Andrew Kerr and team captain
Jim Lawson. Football on the
Pacific Coast had been on the rise since the late 1910s. Early in 1922, Warner signed a contract with Stanford University in which he would begin coaching in 1924 (after his contract with Pitt expired). Health concerns, a significant pay raise and the rising status of Pacific Coast football made Warner make the big change. Years later, he wrote:I felt my health would be better on the Pacific coast. Weather conditions at Pittsburgh during the football season are rather disagreeable, and much of the late season work had to be done upon a field which was ankle deep in mud. At the close of every season I would be in poor physical condition, twice being rendered incapable of coaching while I recuperated in a hospital. Doctors advised me that the climate of the Pacific coast would be much better for a man of my age and in the work in which I was engaged. In
1924, Warner began his nine-year tenure at
Stanford University. When he began coaching, Stanford was one of nine teams in the
Pacific Coast Conference (PCC). Warner inherited a notable squad from the previous year, including
Ernie Nevers (whom Warner considered his greatest player) The game was thus a test of two different and highly influential systems of football: Notre Dame's
backfield was composed of the renowned
Four Horsemen. Nevers played all 60 minutes of the game, and rushed for 114 yards, more yardage than the Four Horsemen combined. Warner's offense moved the ball but was unable to score, and Notre Dame won 27–10. During the
1925 season, Stanford lost just one PCC game (to Washington); California was finally defeated, 27–7. It was the first year of a new rivalry, with coach
Howard Jones and the
University of Southern California (USC) team. In their first game, at the
Los Angeles Memorial Colosseum, Stanford scored twice in the first half but had to hold off the charging Trojans in a 13–9 win. Because of the loss to Washington, Warner's team was not invited to the Rose Bowl. Stanford won all its
1926 games, crushing California 41–7 and narrowly defeating
USC 13–12. Warner's team was invited to the
Rose Bowl to play
Alabama. Like the game against the Fighting Irish, Stanford dominated but the result was a 7–7 tie. After the game, both teams were recognized as national champions by a number of publications. The
1927 season was one of underachievement and ultimate success. Stanford lost its third game to non-conference
St. Mary's College. Stanford's next loss was against non-conference
Santa Clara. The game against USC was a 13–13 tie. However, that year, Stanford defeated California 13–6. The game included a
bootleg play, the invention of which some credit to Warner. Powers stated that, Stanford put the game on ice in the fourth period when Pop introduced the bootlegger play, which was to be widely copied and still is in use. On the original bootlegger, Warner made use of
Biff Hoffman's tremendous hands. Hoffman would take the pass from center and then fake to another back. Keeping the ball, he would hide it behind him and run as though he had given it to a teammate. Sometimes defensive players would step out of Hoffman's path, thinking he was going to block. Hoffman "bootlegged" for the touchdown against California ... Despite the two losses, Stanford finished the season as PCC co-champion. They were invited to the
1928 Rose Bowl against Pitt, Warner's former team now coached by protégé
Jock Sutherland. Warner broke his losing Rose Bowl streak, defeating Sutherland 7–6. The win was Warner's last appearance at the Rose Bowl. In recognition of his Rose Bowl accomplishments, Warner was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2018. The
1929 season is known for Warner's regular use of the
hook and lateral, a play that involves a receiver who runs a
curl pattern, catches a short pass and immediately laterals the ball to another receiver running a
crossing route. According to the October 25, 1929
Stanford Daily, "The trickiness that Pop Warner made famous in his spin plays and passing is very evident ... The
frosh have been drilling all week on fast, deceptive forward and lateral pass plays, and together with the reverses will have a widely varied attack". That season brought Warner his second straight loss to Jones, with Stanford defeated by the Trojans 7–0. USC won the conference, and went to the
Rose Bowl. Jones went on to win every year thereafter, including
1932, Warner's last season at Stanford. Because of the five consecutive defeats, Warner was severely criticized by Stanford alumni. In all, Warner and Jones played eight games; Jones won five, Warner two and one was a tie. Against Stanford's main rival, California, Warner won five games, tied three and lost one.
Temple Warner left Stanford for
Temple University in
Philadelphia, his final head-coaching job, after the 1932 season. He was paid $75,000 for five years (equivalent to $ million in ), one of the largest salaries ever offered a coach at the time. The
1934 team was undefeated during the regular season, losing to
Tulane in the
first Sugar Bowl. A star of the game was
Dave Smukler, whom Warner considered one of his great fullbacks. In later years Warner said he regretted his decision to leave Stanford for Temple. He left because of concern about the school's changing funding priorities. The university leadership was planning to make Stanford primarily a graduate school; because of an increase in the number of
junior colleges in California, the administration saw less need for undergraduate instruction at Stanford. Because fewer students were admitted, higher grade requirements for incoming students made admission more difficult and student athletes began enrolling at USC and California instead of Stanford. Warner soon realized that he had made the wrong decision; due to the economic effects of the
Great Depression, the number of applicants to Stanford decreased significantly and athletes were again admitted. Temple upset the
Florida Gators, coached by future Temple coach
Josh Cody, 20–12 in Warner's last game.
San Jose State While coaching at Temple, Warner continued living in Palo Alto (where Stanford is located). After his 1938 retirement he was immediately recruited as an advisor to
Dudley DeGroot, a former center at Stanford and now the head coach at
San Jose State College (near Palo Alto). Officially an advisor, Warner was immediately put in charge of the offense. According to Powers, "DeGroot had been using a single back offense but Pop immediately changed to the double wing, much to the doubts of San Jose players. However, the formation began to click and San Jose not only enjoyed an undefeated season but was the highest scoring team in the nation." That year the
San Jose State Spartans played against
College of the Pacific, coached by
Amos Alonzo Stagg. It was the first time the two coaches had met since 1907, when Warner was coaching Carlisle and defeated Stagg's University of Chicago 18–4. Warner and DeGroot's San Jose State defeated Stagg's
Pacific Tigers, 39–0. ==Personal life and death==