November 1, 1909.
Army football player Eugene Byrne was dead.
The West Point tackle suffered a broken neck during a violent scrimmage and died hours later.
Typical college football history tells us that.that in 1906, Teddy Roosevelt saved the game. The forward pass was invented and everything was fine after that.
Football deaths continued. A crisis was much more severe in 1909.
They hadn't eliminated mass play and because of that the deaths of three players;
Eugene Byrne, Virginia halfback Archer Christian, and Navy quarterback Earl D. Wilson set off another round that colleges and universities were set to cancel football because it was way too dangerous.
Rules changes from 1909 to 1912, eliminated mass play. They also allowed the forward pass to be a true weapon, which was not the case in 1906.