One Hundred Years Ago, The Blatantly Obvious Was Born

We'd like to say happy birthday to the reason that Jeff George was allowed to inspire a mullet/mustache combo trend that changed the world in which we live: the forward pass turns 100 years old today.

The seemingly simple, obvious act of lurching the ball in front of one's self toward a player further down the field was invented, of all places, at St. Louis University. The first forward pass was, fittingly, incomplete, but the next was a touchdown in SLU's 22-0 win over a very confused Carroll College of Wisconsin.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in 1945 a SLU player commenting that, "we were loaded with a sort of atomic football bomb that astounded and wrecked all opposition." We might disagree with the wording, but hey, if you've ever seen Shane Matthews throw, you have to admit, atomic bomb kind of sums it up.

Anyway, happy birthday, forward pass. Without you, Joe Namath would have never been famous enough to drunkenly come on to Suzy Kolber on national television, and without that, the world would be a much more barren, forlorn place.

SLU Was The Pioneer [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]