A natural replacement for Warner was Dr. John Bain "Jock" Sutherland, Warner's former All-American guard on the 1915 and 1916 national championship teams and 1917 undefeated team. A native of Coupar Angus in Scotland, Sutherland had graduated from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Dentistry, where he later served as faculty. Sutherland had served a tour in the Army and later achieved success as the head coach of Lafayette College from 1919 to 1923, leading the Leopards to the 1921 Eastern Collegiate Championship and shutting out Warner's Pitt teams in 1921 and 1922. So it was in 1924 that Sutherland returned to his alma mater to assume the head coaching duties with the goal of constructing dominant teams built on power and speed. After a 5–3–1 record in his first season, Sutherland's second season kicked off the Panthers' first in the newly constructed Pitt Stadium and saw the team achieve an 8–1 record and win the 1925 Eastern Championship. The following year, the Panthers featured Gibby Welch, who led the nation in rushing in 1926 and helped Pitt to the Eastern Championship and its first bowl game, the Rose Bowl, in 1927. Pitt, ironically, lost the Rose Bowl 7–6 to a Stanford team headed by the Panthers' former coach, "Pop" Warner. In 1929, Pitt went undefeated in the regular season, the first of four undefeated regular seasons under Sutherland, and won the Eastern Championship, but lost its second appearance in the Rose Bowl to USC. Bowls at the time were still considered by many to be exhibition games, and the loss did not prevent football historian Parke Davis from naming Pitt as that season's national champion.