Gridiron Changes in 1896

In this edition of the Football History Rewind, we discuss a great compromise of the two factions of football that helped save the game in 1896, including a touchdown catching up in value to a goal from the field.

Pigskin Dispatch's Part 17 in the Series on American Football History

Before we start looking at football in 1896 let’s review what was happening to the game at the time. The big eastern schools were divided into two factions over using mass momentum and mass interference plays. One group headed by Harvard and Penn supported the use of the mass plays while another lead by Yale and Princeton opposed the concept and made new rules to outlaw it. The result was chaos in 1895 as the sport saw two distinct and different sets of
rules being used. What made the situation worse is that teams in other parts of the country started resenting that all the changes were being made in the East and they had no say so. This resulted in even more variations of the football code being played! Football could not survive in this fashion and all involved knew this. The two opposing sides decided to sit down and hash it out again in the spring of 1896.

The Spalding 1896 Football Rules book cover, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The great compromise of early football

The meeting was successful as concessions were made by both sides of the controversy. The big compromise was in the rule revision which made it mandatory for at least five players of the offensive team to be on the line of scrimmage at the snap. The other six could group together but two of them had to be five yards in back of the ball or further. Another new rule stated that
no player on offense could take more than one step towards his opponent’s goal before coming to a complete stop before the ball was snapped. This did not stop the mass momentum altogether but it did slow it down considerably. A scheme that used the mass interference concept in conjunction with the new stipulations, was developed by Phil King the coach of Princeton. King’s offense was called the "revolving-tandem" formation which had five players on the line but moved the ends into the backfield with the backs and used a variation of the "turtle-back" style of mass momentum. The key to this formation was that the right end played back and blocked inside the right tackle and he was accompanied by a pulling left tackle and the tandem made a hole for the runner to pass through. This blocking scheme in conjunction with
the confusing turtle-back play confounded defensive opponents all season long. The turtle-back remember was an oval-shaped formation of mass interference that slowly unwound blockers until the runner appeared at the end of the whirlwind. It was an extremely difficult task for defenses to get discover who had the ball let alone maneuver through the entourage of interference. 

Another great outcome of the 1896 rules modifications was the place kick supplanting the drop-kick for score. The drop kick still has its place in the rule books of most modern football but is seldom seen. A January 1, 2006 NFL game saw then Patriots QB Doug Flutie perform the first drop kick for points in the NFL since 1941 to pay homage to the ancient kick for point process. 

Other rules changes adopted

The compromise of 1896 also saw football adopt the heel mark system for fair catches as explained in the last edition of this series. This rule along with new ones that prevented the defense from touching the ball till after the snap and the prohibition of the snapper-back from running with the ball till it touched two other players were adopted by football as well. The following year even more rules innovations were introduced by the rules committee that helped shape the game. The big meeting took place on February 19, 1897 and featured representatives Walter Camp as well as folks from Cornell, Harvard, Penn, Navy and Princeton. The big news was the scoring values were altered as a result of a suggestion by Walter Camp. A touch down would be increased to five points from the previous four point value and a field goal would also score five points if successful. This would be the first time in history that a touchdown score would be at least the same value as a goal kicked from the field, this in itself was a very large turning point in the strategy of the game. A safety was given the credit of two points for the opponents of the team tackled in their own goal while the points after a touchdown was reduced from two points to one.

Official given more timing authority

The rules committee also addressed the growing issue of games not being completed due to darkness. There were many cases of controversy in close games that ended prematurely due to lack of daylight. Games could only be played during daylight as field lights were a long way off. This posed a problem in many games as darkness ended games long before the prescribed seventy minutes had expired. The rules committee empowered the Referee to shorten halves as he saw fit in the case of impending darkness or other natural causes.

Football had overcome adversity in the past few years and the game and people behind it were enjoying the lack of turmoil. They could now spend their resources on ways to improve and tweak the rules. Please look back soon as we will watch football finish out in the 1890's and delve into the new Century. Right here on PigskinDispatch.com, your place for the good news about football.

The picture in the banner above is from the Wikimedia Commons collection of the cover of the 1896 Foot-Ball Rules. It is pretty cool to see such old publications.