College football has come a long way since its brutal beginnings. On this anniversary of the sport, it’s worth remembering that when it started in the late 1800s, players didn’t wear helmets. Or pads. Or face masks. They wore leather shoes, wool sweaters, and sheer guts. And the results were deadly.

By the early 1900s, college football had turned into a violent free-for-all. Players regularly suffered broken bones, crushed skulls, and internal injuries. In 1905 alone, 19 players died and over 100 were seriously injured. There was no forward pass, just brutal, battering plays. The field was a war zone.

The public outcry got so loud that President Theodore Roosevelt stepped in. He loved football but saw that something had to change. He summoned representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to the White House and demanded reform. That led to the creation of new rules, including the legalization of the forward pass and, eventually, protective gear like helmets.

But here’s the twist. When helmets were introduced, many, including Roosevelt himself, saw them as a sign the sport was going soft. Toughness was sacred. Taking hits to the head was considered part of becoming a man. Helmets were viewed as unnecessary and even unmanly.

It took decades for helmets to become mandatory, and even longer for the sport to fully reckon with the long-term impact of head injuries. What started as a bloodsport has evolved into a billion-dollar game with cutting-edge safety equipment and medical protocols.

Still, the legacy of those early, helmetless days lives on in the culture of toughness that defines football to this day. It’s a reminder of just how much the game has changed—and how much it still wrestles with its violent past.