The Pioneer Years - Trial and Error
The Pioneer Years is a series chronicling the development of American Football in the pre-forward pass era. Click here for Part 1.
Now that the Rugby scrum had been abandoned in favor of the line of scrimmage, American football was on it’s way towards morphing into the game of the future, marrying the brutal displays of violence that rivaled bare knuckle boxing with graceful lateral and backward passing and open field running as each team of eleven men fought to advance the ball into their opponent’s territory.
Before it would ascend to the ranks of a “scientific game,” however, the forefathers of American football would be confronted with an array of challenges and criticisms as the sport was finding it’s identity, undergoing a series of trial and errors before the players and the public recognized what was on the horizon.
Following the Intercollegiate Football Association’s meeting in October of 1880, Yale and Princeton would meet on the Polo Grounds in New York City on Thanksgiving Day in November of 1880. The field, partly covered in snow and complimented with falling sleet and aggressive winds, favored the defensive efforts of both squads as the game concluded in a 0-0 draw.
Although the IFA declined to declare a champion, Walter Camp proposed that in the event of a tie, “two additional innings of fifteen minutes would be played. The side which makes four or more safeties less than their opponent’s shall win the game.” Because the safety during this time was not worth any points, teams on their own goal deliberately gave up a safety so that the ball would be placed 25 yards from their goal line. With this proposal that would be passed before the start of the 1881 season, teams would not be so quick to allow a safety.
Camp’s rule proposal, however, would not solve the issue of tedious play condemned by the spectators. Exactly one year later, Princeton and Yale would meet again at the Polo Grounds. Princeton, receiving the opening kickoff, had possession of the ball for all except four and a half minutes of the first half, gaining less than ten yards total in that time. Yale emulated this strategy and maintained possession of the ball for the entire second half. Again, the game ended in a scoreless tie, and came to be known as the “block game.” The IFA would award Yale the championship title based on Camp’s safety rule.
This hyper-conservative style of play was possible due to the fact that there was no rule that mandated the change of possession between teams. As football historian David M. Nelson explains,
Before the block game strategy in 1881, there was no limit to the number of downs allowed to the team in possession of the ball or any requirement for the yardage to be gained. The ball frequently changed hands with punts and field goal attempts. It was common practice for players within field goal distance, after deciding they could not advance the ball any further, to attempt the dropkick on the run.
Scrambling for a solution at the IFA meeting in April of 1882, Camp and his fellow delegates could not come to an agreement of how to remedy the situation. Inspiration would not strike until an unlikely suggestion was submitted in a letter written to a newspaper. Titled “Letter of an Englishmen,” the writer called for “allowing team four scrimmages…then to change opponents, who may put it down or put.” Another proposition appeared in Princeton’s student paper: “The players should be assigned places and made to keep them. It might be agreed that when one side has had the ball twice in succession the half back on third down should be compelled either to kick or to forfeit the ball. A game decided by safeties is merely a negative victory.”
The pressure mounting on the IFA to revise the rulebook from the spectators and the press was powerful enough to expedite their decision. At the next meeting, the three downs rule would be voted in, reading:
If on three consecutive fairs [putting a ball in play from out of bounds] and downs a team shall not have advanced the ball five yards or lost ten, they must give up the ball to the other side the spot where the fourth down was made. Consecutive means without leaving the hands of the side holding it.
It was this down and yards systems that furthered the progression of football’s anatomy. With the rule also came lime-line stripes marked every five yards on the field, and gave football field the nickname, “gridiron.”
With the downs system in play, the strategy and tactics of football would now begin to take shape in the 1882 season, beginning with the use of signals to call plays. Early signals came in the form of sentences, such as “What’s the matter?” For some schools, the sentence was specific to a certain play, while at other universities, the first letter of the sentence would indicate which player would receive the ball on that play.
It was also at this time when player alignment and positions were coming about. Although player positions would not become legitimate until 1909, players unofficially labeled positions that were the same on both offense and defense. All men on the line of scrimmage were known as “forwards” and later referred to as “rushers” before being known as lineman.
At the center of the scrimmage line was the snapper, and the two men next to him were called “guards” for they guarded the snapper from defensive interference before the snap, a common practice before the neutral zone was introduced. Next to the guards were the “ends” as they were positioned at the end of the line. The “next to end” would come to be known as the “tackle” since he made most of the tackles. The “fullback” and “halfback” positions were adopted from the English game, and the “quarterback” came at the advent of the scrimmage.
By the 1883 season, the IFA Rules Committee introduced the role of the “referee” in the game of football. Prior to having an official, a team captain from each university would call penalties, clearly creating conflicts and bipartisan judgements. As the game grew more complex, the Rules Committee felt that the game was getting out of hand under the supervision of the players, as more penalties were being committed yet few were being penalized. The role of an official would prove to be a substantial impact in the game football.
Furthermore, the 1883 season revised the scoring system: A safety was one point, a touchdown worth two points, goal after a touchdown (the modern day extra point) was four points, and a field goals was five points.
As evident in the scoring system, the kicking game was of much greater value to football than any other dimension of the game. Placekicking, drop kicking and punting were utilized by all members of the offense, allowing teams to craft a strategy centered around field position as well as aggressive yet precise kicking while on the run or after the touchdown. Additionally, any member of the offense that was behind the kicker at the time of the kick was eligible to recover and advance the ball, much like that of the up-and-under kick seen in Rugby football.
The kicking game, however, would not capture the imagination of the fans or players the way that the passing and running game would. In his book, Football: The Intercollegiate Game, Parke H. Davis describes the gameplay as such:
Up to this time, rush-lines on offense had stretched across the field so widely that players could touch one another only with outstretched arms. Occasionally the distance would be greater. The backs played as far back and as far out as their ends, taking the ball on long side passes.
These lateral and backward passes became more synchronized as the game developed, with some plays featuring up to four or five laterals from scrimmage. Just as important as the passing and running game was the act of “guarding” a runner, meaning two teammates, one on each side of the ball carrier, would block oncoming tacklers. Although the rules for guarding prohibited players from running ahead of the runner by virtue of being offside (being between the ball and the opponents’ goal), the infraction was seldom penalized, and gradually the referees declined to enforce the ruling, allowing the forwards to precede the runner. Thus, guarding became “interference.”
The concept of interference would be essential to introducing a new approach to football that would usher in a new decade and provide a foundation for the modern American game. In an 1884 contest between Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, Richard Hodge, the Princeton quarterback, describes his account of how the formation came about:
In the middle of the game, Captain Bird, of Princeton, had called upon Baker, ‘85, a half-back, to run behind the rush line, which charged seven abreast down the field. It as an old play and gained little ground against Pennsylvania the second time it was used. It suddenly struck me that if the rush-line would jump into the shape of a V with the apex forward and with Baker inside, the formation ought to gain ground.”
The formation was indeed used to great success, as the wedge carried Baker from midfield to the five yard line on the way to a Princeton 31-0 victory. This “V-trick” was possible not only due to the lack of enforcement of the interference rule, but also due to the fact the ball was technically kicked off by being touched to the toe and ground simultaneously, but without being released (an illegal kick by today’s standards). The mass then started running forward, with ten men interlocking their arms, encircling the runner at the apex of the V, and charging at full speed down field, forcing defenders to throw themselves in front of the mass.
Though the V trick formation would eventually become the respected and preferred tactic in college football, the 1885 season, however, the topic of conversation focused on the brutality of football following the disbandment of Harvard football program at the recommendation of the Harvard Committee on Athletics.
The committee claimed that the game put a premium on unfair, brutal and dangerous play, adding also that the game was so complicated that the referee would not be able to take note of all the violent infractions that occurred in the game of play. When commenting on the nature of football’s violence on that time, David M. Nelson states, “Football was a brawl without the rules of the boxing ring…” The Harvard faculty unanimously agreed with the committee’s proposal.
At the 1885 IFA meeting in New York, potential solutions were being discussed to find ways to minimize the brutality of the game. One such proposal suggested that the snapper have the ball at one five yard line with his team five yards behind him and the defense five yards in front of him to create a ten yard gap between teams in order to reduce offside infractions. They also suggested disqualifying a player for an offside penalty.
The Rules Committee instead voted to award points to the opposing team for a player being offside or for “slugging” an opponent. The first penalty awarded the opposition one point, and the second offense resulted in two point, plus the disqualification of the player for the remainder of the match. The committee also ruled that the first man to receive the ball from the snapper (usually the quarterback) shall not carry the ball forward under any circumstances.
To alleviate extracirrulicar mayhem, the IFA meeting also ruled to clarify the definition of a touchdown, and by doing so, eliminated the “maul-in-goal.” This Rugby device was retained in the early years of American football meant that even if a ball carrier crossed the goal line, he was not awarded the point unless the ball touched the ground of the end zone. Thus, an opponent could tackle the runner and prevent him from touching the ball to the ground, and could even wrestle the ball away from him. Only the man with the ball and those who had their hands on him as he crossed the goal line could fight for the ball. These grappling sessions, however, would last up to fifteen minutes at times. Now, once the ball carrier crossed the line, the touchdown was awarded.
Though the offside issue would continue to challenge the game, the IFA at the 1886 meeting would implement a rule that read, “The center rush was allowed to snap the ball without interference.” A neutral zone, however, was still absent for the reminder of the scrimmage line, even after Camp had proposed a five yard neutral zone that was rejected by his peers.
Aside from Harvard’s return to college football, the remainder of the 1886 and the following 1887 seasons featured no major rule changes or controversies. Once 1888 arrived, two major rule changes in favor of the defense: players on the rush line were now prohibited from blocking with extended arms, and tackling was permitted between the waist and the knees.
These rules severely limited the open field running game, forcing offenses to contract their linemen until they stood shoulder to shoulder, while the backs moved up closer to the line of scrimmage. The days of four and five lateral passes per play were now a distant memory, as short bursts up the middle of the line was the new standard approach to move the ball downfield. Defenses, meanwhile, moved players from the line and moved them back, creating a “secondary defense.”
While these elements of the game were certainly a product of response to growing criticisms and apparent necessities to create an equally balanced game, the members of the IFA Rules Committee were able to adapt to keep the game relevant and developing. Although the open and graceful style of play was exchanged for a congested and uneven one, the game of football was on the verge of becoming the tactical and complex game that would attract not only fans from all over the country, but also innovative minds that would make it a “scientific game.”
REFERNECES
The Saga of American Football, Alexander M. Weyand, The Macmillan Company, 1955
Football: The Intercollegiate Game, Parke H. Davis, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911
Anatomy of a Game, David M. Nelson, University of Delaware Press, 1991