The 1922 Pitt Panther football entourage returned from its victorious west coast trip and was feted at a gala banquet on January 10 with more than a thousand students and alumni in attendance.

"[7] On January 18 the Athletic Council of the University of Pittsburgh approved the contract with Dr. John B. Sutherland to coach the varsity football team for three years (1924-1926).

"[10] Graduate Manager Karl E. Davis booked a nine game schedule for 1923 that Coach Warner described "the hardest any football team in the country had ever attempted.

[12] Pat Herron, after a one year stint as Indiana head coach, returned to Warner's staff as an assistant[13] and Reginald French Boulton was appointed student manager for the 1923 season.

"[16][17] The Pitt Panther eleven ventured to Lewisburg, PA, for the first time ever, to open the 1923 football season against Bucknell led by fifth year coach Pete Reynolds.

Substitutes appearing in the game for Pitt were Thomas Murdoch, Milo Gwosden, Andy Gustafson, Noble Frank, Marsh Johnson, William Haines, John Harding, James Brown and Ralph Evans.

[34] On October 13, undefeated Mountaineer second year coach Clarence Spears brought his squad to Pittsburgh for the nineteenth edition of the "Backyard Brawl".

[40] Max E. Hannum of The Pittsburgh Press reported: "West Virginia University's football team ...was good enough to make it two in a row over Pitt, setting the Panther back upon its haunches at Forbes Field yesterday by a score of 13 to 7.

[41] The next game on the schedule was a road trip to New York City to meet the Syracuse Orange led by fourth year coach Chick Meehan.

"[52] "Chick Meehan's Syracuse team gained a measure of revenge on Pop Warner's Pittsburgh Panthers..winning by 3 to 0 in a bitterly waged ..game.

"[53] "The game was won in the third period when John F. McBride, great plunging fullback, carefully took aim with his eye and then shot his trusty right foot against the oval and sent it spinning as straight as a bullet from a gun directly over the center of the Pittsburgh crossbars.

[58] Coach Steffen spoke with the Post-Gazette: "Warner's resourcefulness and his ability to use his reserve material to advantage, in which department he has Carnegie at a great disadvantage, should win for Pitt.

"[59][60] Max E. Hannum of The Pittsburgh Press reported: "Carnegie Tech's fondest dream came true yesterday at Forbes Field, when her gridiron warriors downed the blue and gold of Pitt for the first time in history.

"[61] After a scoreless first quarter, which saw Pitt stall on two drives deep into Tartan territory, the Panther linemen, Harold Akins and Lloyd Jordan, blocked a Tech punt by Anderson in the end zone.

Next play, Robertson "started around the Pitt left end; his path was blocked; several enemy tacklers brushed him, when suddenly he reversed his direction far behind the line of scrimmage and sprinted around the opposite terminal for the score, not a hostile player laid a hand on him."

[65] Penn had never beaten the Panthers and Gordon Mackay of The Inquirer wrote: "Pitt, on the strength of the Blue and Gold's performances on the past three Saturdays, does not loom as formidable as of yore.

But if the Quakers lose today then the undergraduates and alumni have a right never to expect another victory over Pitt – as the gods of war and fortune have built everything that should conduce to a triumph for the gladiators across the Schuykill.

The ball see-sawed back and forth between the two elevens in the second half and the Penn defense was able to hold off the desperate Pitt aerial attack to secure the victory.

Substitutes appearing in the game for Pitt were Ralph Chase, Carl Sauer, Nick Shuler, James Brown and Frank Byers.

"[74] The Panther backfield was composed of substitutes since Jake Bohren and William Flanagan were nursing injuries and Nick Colonna was attending his mother's funeral.

James Brown completed a short pass to John Harding and he "took the ball on the dead run and started off down the field on an ankle excursion that only ended when he stepped over the goal line."

Early in the third quarter Grove City end, Clees, "jumped into the hero role by spearing a toss from Harding and carrying it to the (Pitt) 15 before a mass of blue jerseys cut him to earth."

[77] In 1923 in Pittsburgh, "there is no game that commands more attention than that between the Panthers and the Presidents...the old rivalry is always there, and the meetings between them stir up enthusiasm that is not matched by any other contest on the western Pennsylvania program.

The Haskell Indian team had a stopover in Pittsburgh on Tuesday on their way to New York City and engaged in a beneficial forty minute scrimmage with the Panthers.

"[83] Chester L. Smith of The Gazette Times reported: "The long, bitter trail, leading down into the valley of defeat, which the Panther has followed through the autumn, took a turn upward in an hour of tense football at Forbes Field yesterday, when a Pitt team – the reincarnation of Pitt teams of yore – swept Washington & Jefferson down into the depths of a heart-breaking 13-to-6 whipping.

[86] "Never before in the history of Forbes Field was there such a moment of sheer ecstasy of delight as that of Pitt students, alumni and followers when that final whistle sounded assuring the Panther of a victory almost too good to be true...The second the field judge shrilled his blast, the mob surged forward, heeding not the adhering mud, and fairly engulfed the triumphant eleven.. Then along came the band, blaring forth joyously that ancient paean of achievement, 'Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here'.

Nittany coming to the Thanksgiving Day tussle with a 6–1–1 slate,[88] the likelihood of sending Coach Warner off to Stanford with a final game victory looked slim.

Early in the second stanza Pitt's offense sustained a 60 yard drive with Karl Bohren and William Flanagan alternating receiving and throwing passes.

[95] Coach Warner wrote in The Gazette Times: "It was a great victory, that of Pitt over Penn State yesterday, and I was delighted more than words can tell at the way the boys played.

"[97] The following 19 players and Manager received their "P" from the Athletic Council – Captain Lloyd Jordan, Ralph Chase, Paul Templeton, Marsh Johnson, William Ashbaugh, William Flanagan, Harold Akins, Franklin Byers, Tom Murdoch, Nick Shuler, Milo Gwosdan, Zoner Wissinger, Harry Seidelson, Noble Lee Frank, Andrew Gustafson, Karl Boren, James Brown, Nick Colonna, Carl Sauer and Manager R. French Boulton.