Football 1874 to 1882

In this edition of the Football History Rewind, we discuss early football development from 1874 to 1882, along with some legendary stories than commenced.

A New Authoritative Organizational Body and Leader for Football

Pigskin Dispatch's Part 5 in the Series on American Football History

A Princeton influence on the game

It would be a travesty if this blog failed to mention that in the 1820’s a group of students at Princeton began playing what was then known as ‘ballown’.  This game used an oval shaped bladder filled ball and the rules transformed as time went along. At first players used their fists to advance the ball, and then their feet, this game consisted mainly of one goal: to advance the ball past the opposing team. 

From Parke H. Davis book Foot ball: The Intercollegiate Game.

The IFA and Harvard rules collide

In 1875 Harvard again challenged Yale to a game only this time they agreed to play a combination of soccer and rugby rules, much like McGill had played in 1874. Yale agreed to these rules but they included the use of a round ball rather than the oval one Harvard normally used. Harvard won this game of agreements versus rival Yale in front of 2000 fans. The spectators and players from both schools loved the game and decided to make it an annual event.

According to author Timothy Brown in his book How Football Became Football,  students from Harvard, Columbia, Yale and Princeton met in 1876 to define what the rules of this game were that they were all interested in playing against each other. The group called themselves the Intercollegiate Football Association or IFA.  It was at one of these early meetings Brown tells us that the critical decision of which rules to follow were discussed. Should they choose the Association rules or those of Rugby. The Harvard contingent put a most compelling case together and the rugby rules won out. 

The 1876 meeting put together a set of 61 different rules to define this version of football. Most of them were an exact copy of the English Rugby Union set of guidelines. How Football Became Football, once again tells us the differences of the IFA rules from the ERU:

1. A referee and two umpires, supplied one each from each team, were settle disputes ratehr than the team captains as in the ERU code.
2. Touching the ball down in an opponents goal was called a touchdown and not a try as in the ERU code.
3. The winner was the team that scored the highest number of touchdowns rather than the highst number of kicked goals.
4. There were standard field dimensions for IFA games rather than a maximum size playing surface. 

Timothy Brown sates that the rule of 1876 are confusing to us today partly because of the terminology of that era was so much different than what things are called today and that there were so many revisions to the rules in the past 140 some odd years. He says that only 3 of the 61 rules of 1876 are basically unchanged in the modern game. Many of those rules tweaks were to come from one innovator of the game.

 Yale Bulldogs football team. Left to right, back row: Clark, C. Camp, Hatch, W. Camp, Wurts, Taylor. front row: Davis, Downer, Walker, Baker, Bigelow, Thompson, Morse Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

During the next few years though a new figure entered the Yale football scene, yes you guessed it, Walter Chauncey Camp. Walter Camp arrived at the New Haven campus in 1876 and enjoyed the game that the Yale and Harvard clubs were playing. Camp so loved the sport he joined the Yale team in 1877 and basically became its first head coach. as at the time the label of Captain served as the role. Camp not only coached the team he was a player too. He played on the varsity teams of Yale from 1877 to 1882, serving as Captain in 1878, 1879, and again in 1881. Camp’s leadership gave Yale 25 wins, one loss and 6 ties over his playing career. He was a sure tackler, a great kicker and an elusive runner. Camp attended the 1878 IFA rules meeting and may have been there in 1876 as well.

Courtesy Wikimedia.com

Camp though as great of a player he might have been is not famous for his feats as a football athlete, but is the main innovator that changed rugby into American football. It started in 1882 after his playing career was over and his term of serving on the IFA rule committee started.

The story of Camp the innovator will be in the next installment of this football history expose in part 6 titled, “Settling the Score in Football." Right here on PigskinDispatch.com, your place for the good news about football.

We are able to give this in depth look from so long ago in history by careful research. Using someone who was contemporary to the period is the best source. So a very special shout out to our main source of reference information for this article is from Parke H. Davis in his 1911 book Football-The American Intercollegiate Game.