Modern Football

I was pleased to see that the 1913 Notre Dame-Army game was remembered in the November issue’s “Time Machine.” While the body of the article correctly named Gus Dorais as the Notre Dame quarterback and Knute Rockne as the team captain, I was disturbed to find that the caption to the illustration attributed both positions to Mr. Rockne.

As one of Gus Dorais’s grandsons, I can attest not only that he was the quarterback but also that he was the punter, drop kicker (place kicking was not the style in 1913), and punt catcher.

As “Inventing Modern Football” points out, the rule changes made in 1912 lifted most of the restrictions on the forward pass. Gus Dorais was the first to demonstrate how these rules could be made into an offensive strategy, and thus bring football into the modern era.