The Notre Dame Box: A Tactical Revolution in Football History

Here just in time as we go back in time and cover one of the greatest offenses in all time, the Notre Dame box offense with Timothy Brown of FootballArchaeology.com has studied, and it's coming up right after this.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another exciting evening of talking about some great football history.

And Timothy P.

Brown of Football Archaeology joins us here each Tuesday to help us preserve and, and look back at some of this great history.

Tim, you're with us tonight.

Thank you again, and welcome to the Pig Pen.

Hey, look forward to chatting, Darren.

And I know that you are a Notre Dame fan and I heard your team is doing well this year and so we can talk about some things that they did in the past.

And maybe there's a tidbit out there related to this.

Okay.

You know, by the time this segment airs.

Yeah, folks, we are recording this before the national championship game, so of course you're watching this afterwards.

So we don't know the outcome.

But we can talk about some games 100 years earlier when some very famous people played for the Fighting Irish and did some very unorthodox things at the time.

And one of those is what we're going to talk about tonight with our topic.

And it's on the Notre Dame box offense.

And Tim, maybe you could tell us a little bit about the history of the Notre Dame.

BO yeah, so, you know, it's probably in the 20s, 30s, 20s and 30s, it was one of the, probably the, one of the two major offenses that people ran.

You know, the other one was the single wing and, or double wing, you know, both Pop Warner offenses.

And in, you know, people sometimes call the, say that the, the Notre Dame box.

Sometimes people call it the Notre Dame shift.

But, you know, they basically mean the same thing.

Sometimes people say it's an offshoot of the single wing.

Well, actually, it existed before the single wing.

Right.

So, so it really, it has its origins in, at the University of Chicago under, you know, Amos Alonso stagger.

And there's a guy that played there named Jesse Harper.

Well, he, you know, he ended up coaching It, I think it was at Wabash first and then, then Notre Dame.

But, you know, he, he led Notre Dame for seven, eight years.

Something along those lines.

And they beat army in, kind of famously beat army that year.

So, so, but then, so Rockne kind of took that core offense and then adapted it.

And so it, it's kind of, it's a little bit different.

I mean, for the most part, if you, if you don't really know the difference between single wing and Notre Dame box, you might look at them and say it's the same thing.

But the, the big, there were a couple big differences.

One was that the, the single wing tended to be an unbalanced line and then, then you over shifted the backs as well, whereas the, the Notre Dame box tended to be using a balance line and then you over shifted the backs.

But it started like when you, when they came out of the huddle or if they didn't huddle and they just lined up, they would, they would start in the traditional T and then on a signal so there's a rhythm to the snap count.

They would, the backs would shift so that the, there would be basically the right half would be kind of just, you know, behind the, the right end or maybe outside of them a little bit.

And then the, the, the quarterback and the fullback, which shifts so that they were kind of stacked behind one another a couple yards in between them, but kind of in the, in the guard center gap.

And then the tail back would be directly behind the, the center.

And he, he was typically the, the guy who was farthest back.

Like the single wing, you know, had a similar kind of situation, but again, everybody'd shift it at once and then the, the and it could go to the right or to the left.

The end on the side of the shift would also move and like half the time he would kind of do a little bit split out maybe, you know, a couple, couple of yards, and then that wing guy would be in between big tackle in the, in the end.

But a lot of times he would just fake a shift.

He'd like get up, kind of step out a yard and then go right back to where he was.

And then typically he aligned like a half yard off the ball.

So still legally on the line, but off the ball a little bit.

So anyways, they, they did all that stuff.

And it was, you know, when, when this was happening, football didn't really have rules yet about how long you had to stop after you shifted.

So part of the whole benefit of doing these shifts was you could move and, you know, defense wouldn't know if you're going left or right.

So you could move and then they wouldn't really have time to shuffle themselves over and, you know, reposition themselves.

And so it worked best if you did like, one, two, everybody shifts, and then, boom, three, you snap the ball right as.

As everybody gets positioned.

And so then that, you know, and the early huddling.

Now, some of the benefit of breaking the huddle was you went right into your position and snapped the ball right.

So that was.

And so then people were complaining about that.

And so then they eventually, I mean, they tried a couple different ways, but by like 27, 28, then they implemented rules that said, you know, you have to pause for a full second.

And so now that that's become the norm and we think, you know, of course that's the way it is.

But, you know, if you look at it, if you look at films of that, like the 19, 26 or 20.

28.

Yeah, 28.

Notre Dame army game, you know, then you see, you know, people still moving around at the snap.

You know, they're not moving forward, but they're moving around a little bit.

They're shifting.

So, you know, the game just looks.

Looks a bit different because that.

So with all that flexing, one of the other things that, you know, a couple of other benefits of the Notre Dame box is that you.

They would rotate the players around.

So if you were going to pass, you might put your best passer in that tailback position.

If you were going to run a sweep, you might put your fastest guy in that tailback position.

And so they, you know, they moved him around a fair amount.

And, and even like, you know, Don Hut's this is later on with the packers, you know, Curly Lambeau, who played it Notre Dame under Rockne.

He.

The packers used the.

The box.

And so when they started splitting that end, you know, everybody says, well, Don Hudson was the first true split end.

Okay, well, yeah, that's what we're talking about here.

He split off from the Notre Dame box, and then he went further, you know, further out than people traditionally had.

So anyways, you know, it was a.

Is an offense that because you had these wings and, and the backs kind of positioned towards the edge, they could get out into pass patterns.

And so it's a passing friendly Offense, when you look at film, it's not a very pass blocking.

Friendly offensive pass blocking is actually horrible most of the time.

And you know, they could also do things like just the way that this, the quarterback was positioned.

You know, if you could do like quarterback sneaks by snapping the ball kind of, kind of laterally to the, to the quarterback and then he'd run it up the gut.

They used a lot of misdirection.

So if you, if you see films of those, that era, there's guys kind of crossing back and forth.

They did some of the, you know, spinner type things out of, out of the offense as well.

So I think that's where people maybe get the confusion of the single wing and double wing, because that, that's some elements of that offense where they would do the crossing and the, the fake handoffs and the handoffs and misdirections.

But yeah, you could definitely do that out of the box.

I just love watching the box.

It's.

It's so mechanical to it.

There's a mechanical element that's like really appealing to watch this.

These four men sort of shift in unison and sometimes the end.

And the other thing I think is really unique about it is when we think about men in motion, usually they're moving laterally.

There's sometimes that tail back would be moving backwards to take the snap.

I don't know what the.

So he had a.

More of a running start once he got the ball or, you know, it could run into the ball and have that momentum.

It was kind of unique how it, it motions, you know, and it's fun to watch.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, if you, if you read, you know, you read stuff about.

So like one of the first.

Supposedly the first people that were doing the spiral snap, you know, so deep snap with a spiral, supposedly that was Springfield, you know, the YMCA training school, Springfield College.

And so.

And one of the things that I've been reading, they were pretty early on in the development the forward pass as well.

And so the guy who was the coach there, McCurdy, you know, he was always big on.

You had to have a center who could hit the man as he was running left or right, you know, the tailback running left or right because, you know, it just gave him the running start like you, like you mentioned.

But like with Notre Dame, a lot of times you see them snapping the ball to the tailback on a pass play and he starts backing up so they're dropped.

The, the tailback is dropping back as the snap occurs and then he Continues dropping back as these guys are rushing at him because like the, the old line, it like hits him once and that's it, and then it's whoosh.

I mean, they, they, they.

Half the time they're backpedaling, they can't.

You know, I mean, it's not like a quarterback whose feet are planted and they're thrown at the same motion time after time.

It's like, it's a mess.

And so it's no wonder they complete like 40% of their passes, you know.

Yeah, but I mean, passing back then was what a mess.

And centers were.

I mean, they're important now, but like you say, they were so important back then.

You know, some of research and I remember a little bit about his brother, but one of the Stein brothers.

Herb Stein played for Pop Warner at Pitt, and that was one of his claims fame.

Of course, you know, Pop Warner, you know, many say he's, you know, the real.

I don't know if he created the single wing, but definitely innovated off and made the double wing out of it.

But Herb Stein was so popular because he could, he could snap to any of those backs back there with great accuracy.

And, you know, know, a project I'm working on right now is a lot of centered around Herbstein.

And, you know, he did that same thing in the professional level and made him a very popular man to have it center.

So it's kind of, kind of cool thing what they could do with the ball.

Well, I mean, you think about it, it's like, you know, if, if you didn't have a center who could aim the ball properly and lead a runner, then you took that out.

You took it out of your package.

Right.

I mean, if you had that, great.

And then you.

Then you can.

There were new, more options available.

So, I mean, it really did make a center that much more valuable, you know, if, if they had that skill set.

So.

Yeah, but even that, you know, I mean, like, you watch these Notre Dame box plays, and it's just like a bunch of guys running it up the gut.

I mean, despite the misdirection, a lot of times the plays are still going in between tackle or at least in between ends.

Right.

So it's all close formation plays.

Yeah, they sweep from time to time, but the bulk of them, it's still, you know, in between the tackles on misdirection or it's a snap to like the, the tailback of the quarterback, and boom, they run it right up the gut.

Kind of like a QB draw nowadays.

Right.

So it's I would have loved to see Notre Dame run that, that offense this year with, you know, having Riley Leonard and Jerem Love and some of the other, you know, really strong backs that they have.

I think that would have been kind of entertaining if they just pulled that out in a short yardage, you know, because everybody knows that Riley Leonard's probably going to go on third and one.

He's probably going to take a shotgun snap and.

And, you know, find a gap some, you know, on either side to run it.

But running out of the Notre Dame box for Notre Dame, that would have been something with the running quarterback.

I mean, I mean, it just looks like a QB draw, right?

I mean, it's really no different than that or, you know, even like a wildcat sort of.

Sort of thing.

But, you know, so, I mean, it's one of those places where, you know, there's.

There's nothing new under the sun as far as that particular play goes, right?

But a modern defense having that come out, you know, that they weren't preparing for it.

And you see these guys in a box all shifting together and you're like, what the hell is going on here?

Why.

Why are they like that?

Yeah, well, and then.

But even then, you know, nowadays they're still all inside the box, right?

I mean, there's all the, all the backs, maybe the wing is a little bit further out, but otherwise they're all in a closed formation.

So it's still.

You're not spreading the defense.

Right, Right.

So I think modern defenses wouldn't have a difficult time, you know, wouldn't have time with that.

But a little bit more gap integrity, I think, on defense alignment these days.

And there's a couple of plays where he's pass blocking, right?

And like nowadays we expect a back to be stick his face right into the defender who's rushing the quarterback.

Right.

He didn't, you know, I mean, now part of it is you couldn't use your hands and blocking, but like, he was not looking to hit anybody when he was, when he was the back Blocking for the quarterback.

You know, they didn't have pocket, you know, pockets back then yet, but it was just like, I mean, it's one of these things we think of how tough those guys were and, you know, boom, boom, boom.

Didn't.

Didn't look like on those blocking play when he was asked to block, he didn't look like the toughest guy in the.

On the field.

Maybe that's why they more referenced it more of interference than.

Than blocking.

Just getting away for a couple seconds.

Yeah, I mean, you know, there's others where, you know, there's, you know, I just watched it today, so it's fresh in my mind.

But, you know, there's other situations where, like, somebody goes up the gut and a, you know, defensive back comes up and just nails them.

So I'm not saying they weren't hitting back then.

There was plenty.

There's plenty of that going on, but there's other times where it's just like, well, you know, you're playing for, you know, Notre Dame and you're not the most aggressive human being on the field.

Yeah, I think the defense was more of the hammer than the nail back then, where maybe it's a little bit more, you know, both ways in today's game.

So, yeah, very, very interesting offense and very great look at history.

And, you know, Tim, you.

You talk about history of football quite a bit, and a lot of formational things and jargon and evolution of equipment and players and.

And positions.

But how can folks get into to seeing what your daily tidbits are?

Yeah, just go to footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site, so if you already have the substack app or, you know, you've got a profile there, just subscribe.

If you don't, you can just put on your email and subscribe, and then you'll get.

Every time I publish something, you'll get an email about it.

You know, about a third of the email, about a third of stories are free, and the other two thirds, you know, you need a paid subscription to read the whole thing.

But otherwise, just go out and, you know, check out the site, see what you think and take a look at the free archives.

All right.

Well, Tim, we appreciate you coming on once again and sharing your knowledge of his football history with us and enlightening us some more, and we'd love to do it again next week.

Very good.

Look forward to it.

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