Sports Illustrated

May 6, 2020

"The possibility of holding some form of the 2020 college football season during a pandemic has sent folks scurrying to research the 1918 season. That's when the Spanish Flu outbreak ravaged the World. The flu, which came in multiple waves from 1918-1919, killed more than 675,000 in the United States..."

(Since the US had approximately 103 million citizens then, that's roughly equivalent to 2.2 million deaths today. And they were dealing with WWI.)

"While there were some who felt college football should completely shut down because of the pandemic, President Woodrow Wilson felt that football added to the overall morale of the country. As a result, football teams were created at various military posts around the country and actually played against established college teams."

Most fans wore masks (photo).

https://www.si.com/college/tmg/tony-barnhart/spanish-flu