Football

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How important is the kick off right after the half in football? Can the game be better served by starting a half in a different way? Would this break tradition and ruin the game?

These questions were posed to rules makers long ago as well as in the modern era. Timothy P. Brown examines a session of thought along these lines from his Tidbit, footballarchaeology.com/p/todays-tidbit-getting-a-kick-out?utm_source=publication-search" target="bbcode">Getting A Kick Out Of The Second Half.

-Transcription of the Elimination of the 2nd Half Kick with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends, this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And we are going to go in a really historic mode here and go with Timothy P. Brown and his FootballArcheology.com daily tidbits. He has one from January that we're going to talk about the kickoffs starting the second half.

Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen. Darin, thank you. Appreciate being here and looking forward to chatting once again this evening.

Yeah, it's, you know, an interesting topic that you are talking about. We know, you know, traditionally in football, I can't think of a football game where I've ever had anything else besides unless you get some exotic like the original XFL where you start the game in each half with a kickoff, and the second half is no exception. And, you know, you've got some interesting story from the past on the second-half kickoff that we'd love to hear about.

Yeah, so this is, you know, this story, and I think, to put it in context, you kind of have to start from the standpoint that football is a game, and all games are just made up. It's got a made-up set of rules that are totally arbitrary. You know, if we decided tomorrow that a touchdown was going to be worth 24 points, boom, we make the change.

And that's what it is. It's just everything about the game is arbitrary. So, you know, basketball, you could give people two steps per dribble or use a 12 foot high basket.

Baseball could be three balls and two strikes. You know, I mean, so anything is negotiable. So, for various reasons, there have been times when people wanted to get rid of the kickoff in the second half.

And, you know, football had a kickoff in the second half because soccer or rugby had one. And, you know, that's kind of the only reason we, you know, we had it. And there's been suggestions to get rid of it for safety reasons.

You know, Amos Alonzo Stag, you know, argued for it. You know, go back in the day. But so there periodically, you know, this is what is an idea that kind of came up time and again and just never happened.

So it came up in 1898. It came up in 1928. It came up in the 30s a couple of times, but it just never happened because what they were one of the ideas that people throughout there was, instead of kicking off in the second half, just put the ball back where it was at the end of the first half.

And the team that had possession just takes possession and just carries on because, you know, kind of the thinking was halftime's really just to allow the players to rest. So, just put the ball back where it was. Right.

So it's almost like ending in the first quarter, going into the second quarter, the third quarter, and going into the fourth quarter. Yeah, exactly. Right.

So that's actually a great, you know, that's a great kind of analogy. I mean, we had the quarter system come in later on, too. Right.

But anyways, so, you know, but so if you think about it, just, you know, one of the fun things to play with this kind of what how would it change the game strategy? You know, if we adopted, you know, if next year for college football, we said, you know what, we're not going to kick off in the second half anymore. We're going to put the ball wherever it was spotted at the end of the first half. So if you're if you're on offense, how does that change your thinking about what you're doing at the end of the first half? You know, if you have it on the 48 or the 38, you're probably not going to try a long field goal just because time's running out.

You know, you're not going to be as risky, perhaps in your play calling, you know, because, you know, and both, you know, in certain situations, you might also be willing to, you know, if if you turn the ball over either on downs or otherwise, you know, you still got your opponent deep in their end zone. So even if they start the second half with the ball, they're down on the two or on the 10 or 15, whatever it may be. So just, you know, some of those kinds of things.

It's just kind of interesting to think about how that would change the game. You know, I mean, like if you're trying to manage the clock. At the end of the first half, you know, there's really no reason to manage the clock very much, right? It would definitely take an exciting element out of the game because there's that panic and urgency at the end of each half, you know, the end of the game, definitely. But at the end of the first half, there's that urgency to, hey, I got to get in field goal range or go into that two-minute or four-minute offense to get down there.

And there's an excitement that really puts you on the edge of your seat, so to speak. And, you know, that would be definitely an element that would probably be taken away that I don't I think some a lot of football traditionalists would be up in arms if they said, as you said, college football is going to no second-half kickoff. You know what I think? Well, OK, but the flip side of that.

And so, I mean, we know that this whole thing, this excitement, has evolved, right? Because, you know, there were times like the whole two-minute drill. That's, you know, that didn't really come about to the late 50s, early 60s. So, you know, some of this stuff has evolved.

Also, different approaches may have evolved. The other side of it is imagine the first half ends, and I'm on offense, and I've got the ball on your two-yard line. OK, well, half ends, we go into our locker rooms, and then we come back out on the field.

And now, the whole time, you're sitting there thinking, damn, they've got the ball on the two. And I'm like, who, we've got the ball, you know? So, I mean, there would be a whole lot of other kinds of anticipation during halftime when thinking about what you're going to do. How are you going to respond? You know, what play am I going to call? What defense are you going to try to call, you know, against it? You know, so I don't know.

I think there's some there, you know, that could potentially be interesting things. But the other side of it is some of the same kind of dissatisfaction with, you know, with kind of the way how the half ended. You know, there were times when I've written an article about this, too, but there have been times when people proposed getting rid of the clock entirely.

And instead of playing for 15 minutes, they would play 20 play quarters. So whoever got the ball, you know, if they had a 19-play drive, well, then the other team would only get one play that quarter. And they were actually, you know, there were some test games, you know, using that in the, I want to say, like 22, 23 eras.

Some people argued that the teams should be given five downs inside the 20 because they wanted to give them a chance to score. Right. So anyway, and then other people even like Pop Warner argued for giving teams a point for every first down.

You know, so, you know, I don't know. These are all kind of bizarre little. Well, we think they're bizarre because we're used to a certain set of rules, but.

All three of those or and the, you know, the change in our elimination of the kickoff makes sense to it's just. A different idea. Yeah, I can remember back in my officiating days, and this is pretty recent, probably like 15 or 20 years ago, where you had the traditional second-half coin toss when it really wasn't a coin toss.

It's just the captains that come out and make their choices. But this was before they had a deferment. You could defer the first half kickoff.

You only had to take the ball or, you know, which end of the field. Those are two choices back in high school in those days. So, about the time they had a deferment, they came up with eliminating that second-half conference of the captain of the team who lost the first-half coin toss to decide what they should do.

So you would know what they do is you go when you go in the locker room to grab the teams, the officials that go in there, you ask the coach, hey, you know, you want the ball, right? And, you know, usually you don't want to give them a choice. So they make a wrong choice. And you don't really have the kids make the choices because that really goes bonkers and sometimes upside down.

Kids just didn't understand that. And that's really what happened, why they did that with a deferment rule because the first couple of years of the deferment, kids would come out there, and their coach would say, if we win the toss, we want to defer, so we can have the second off kickoff. So the kids would come out when the coin toss and say, we want to defend that goal because that's what coach told us.

And they really that's what you want to do. Yeah, the coach says, I'm like, OK, and you go to the other team. Yeah, I'll take those.

They get the ball, both halves. So that's something that came to my mind when you're talking about eliminating the second-half kickoff because there's sort of a parody and fairness to that. OK, you get you won the coin toss, and you get the kickoff in the first half.

But in the second half, the other team gets it to sort of level that out with, you know, as best you can to have the, you know, even amount of chances to score, I guess, is, you know, it doesn't really work out that way very often. But at least on paper, it sounds pretty good, sounds pretty fair. And I'm just sitting there thinking, man, if they did something like you're talking, if that would have ever taken place, how important would that opening kick opening coin toss be? I mean, nobody would. There wouldn't be deferment anymore because you wouldn't have a second-half option, and nobody would pick a goal.

You would say, hey, I want the ball. There's no doubt about it. You'd be on offense first if you won.

Right. But, you know, originally in football. You know, just like, you know, if you watch a soccer match today, the team that starts the game by kicking the ball, they keep possession of it.

And that's the way football is, too. You know, you, the kicking team, just dribbled it a couple of feet and then picked it up and tossed it to one of their buddies. Right.

I mean, the original flying wedge was what that was all about. You dribble, dribble, kick it a couple of feet, and then the wedge closes on the guy who's the kicker, and they start running down the field. You know, so, you know, that a lot of that stuff, you know, I mean, at one point, it would have been crazy to say, well, you got to kick the ball at least 10 yards.

But, you know, that took like two decades or something for that group to come into play. So, you know, the kickoff is not always what, you know, what it is today. The other thing that comes to my mind, I guess, in comparison, is sort of what basketball did with the tip-off.

I remember we used to have a tip off both halves. Every time, you know, joint possession, you'd have a tip off. Now they have the possession arrows.

You really have that one tip-off; just alternate back and forth. Again, to try to put some parody in there. But yeah, that's a that's a that's a really good analogy.

But, you know, football also used to switch directions every time a team scored. You know, really? Wow. Yeah.

That's back, you know, the 1800s. But, you know, that's what they did. Well, you scored, and you switched.

That's an officiating nightmare there, especially with us officials that they have back in. Wow. That's something very interesting stuff.

That's interesting. I'm glad it didn't happen that way. I'm glad it is the way it is.

I'm more you're just you're just I love the way it is. Yeah, I know. I got to be more flexible there.

I'm pretty rigid about that kind of stuff. But great, great stuff. I love to hear history like that.

That's something you don't hear every day. And I haven't heard heard before. So very interesting.

So, Tim, you have these tidbits that come out each and every day. And I'm sure the listeners would love to know how they can to read about your tidbits. So why don't you please share that information with them? Well, I'm going to defer that to the next podcast.

OK, well, that while we're not having a second-half one. So sorry you lost your choice. OK, so yeah.

So, you know, if you're interested, if you want to make sure you get it every day or at least see it every day, you just go to my website, footballarchaeology.com. You can subscribe. And what will happen, you'll get an email every every night, seven o'clock Eastern with basically an email newsletter kind of format with the story. Alternatively, you can go to the site and read it, or you can follow me on Twitter at Football Archaeology.

OK, ladies and gentlemen, Timothy P. Brown, footballarchaeology.com. Make sure you check out his site, sign up for his tidbits, and listen to him every Tuesday on pigskindispatch.com. Tim, thanks again for joining us. Hey, very good. Thank you, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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NFL legend Bobby Layne wasn't just a great player, he was a player who adapted to the changing tides of the game. Today, we'll delve into a pivotal moment in his career – his transition from playing in the single-wing offense to thriving in the emerging T-formation. This wasn't just a simple position change; it was a testament to Layne's versatility and his ability to excel in a rapidly evolving landscape.

The single-wing, known for its reliance on a powerful running back and a more static quarterback role, was giving way to the T-formation, which emphasized a mobile quarterback with a stronger passing presence. Join us as we explore the challenges and triumphs of Layne's position switch, and how it not only impacted his career but also foreshadowed the increasing importance of the quarterback position in the NFL. So, grab your playbook and get ready to analyze the fascinating story of Bobby Layne's transformation from wingman to T-formation titan!

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on Bobby Layne

Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And it's that time of the week again when we're going to visit Timothy Brown, the author and historian at Football Archeology, and see what he's up to with one of his famous daily tidbits.

And Tim Brown, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, thanks, Darin. Looking forward to chatting once again.

Yeah, this is a great weekly thing we got going on here. And Tim, before we get going into the tidbit, maybe you could, without giving away your secret sauce recipe here, tell us what your normal routine is for finding such interesting and off-the-wall topics for football for your writing. Yeah, you know, so I think, you know, some of it is really kind of planned out, and some of it's just happenstance or luck, I guess.

So, some of the topics are just things that, you know, I just have this the way my mind works a lot of times. I'm like, well, why is it this way? Why why do we do things this way? And so, you know, I just generally look at the game and ask the question and, you know, why do we call halfbacks, halfbacks and fullbacks, fullbacks and quarterbacks, quarterbacks? You know, I mean, just I ask kind of goofy questions like that. And so, anyways, as a result, you know, I just spend a lot of time researching football topics.

And so some of them are really kind of purposeful. I'm trying to find information on a specific thing. But oftentimes while I'm doing that, I just, you know, the article next to the one that I found, you know, for whatever I was researching happens to the headline that I noticed.

And that ends up being the more interesting article. So, you know, so and then other times just, you know, you're reading an article, and they're not just they don't just cover one topic. They talk about two or three things in an article.

And so sometimes the second or third topic is as interesting, more interesting than what I was really looking for. And so, you know, I just kind of notice them. And I have, you know, a couple of ways of tracking that information and kind of putting them in buckets. This is something I'm going to follow up on.

And once I'm done with the research I'm doing today. I just come up with judgments that are either worthy of a long article or a tidbit. Well, you really are quite the magician because I find myself quite often when you have that tidbit come out.

Yeah, I'm saying, you know, Tim's asking a question that I didn't even know that I wanted to know, but now I do want to know it. So it's something I never even thought of half the time. Like, wow, that's that's great.

This is really interesting. And it really dives into it. I think the listeners will enjoy that also.

And we'll give you a way to find Tim's tidbits here in a moment. But we're going to talk about one of his tidbits that really caught my eye back in early May. And it's on the great, legendary Bobby Lane and him switching some positions during his career.

Yeah, so this is an example of one that I kind of stumbled upon. I mean, I've always known about Bobby Lane and yada, yada. But, you know, I was I can't remember what I was looking for.

But at one point, I came across an article that said that leading into his senior season at Texas, he was going to be switching positions. And but he was just, you know, he was he played at a point when football was switching from the single wing and, to some extent, the Notre Dame box to the T formation. You know, so the T really came out.

You didn't say 1940 was really the word really bowed and then had the warrants that stopped some things. But so he's a post-war college kid, and his coach, Dana Bible at Texas, was a single-wing proponent. And so Lane was fullback slash halfback within the single wing.

And, you know, that was an offense that required. Required, I mean, the ideal was the Jim Thorpe, you know, triple threat, the guy who would who could kick, who could run, and who could pass. And Lane was all three of those.

You know, I mean, he was, you know, an absolute stud. The 46 Rose Bowl. He had three TVs rushing.

He had two passes and one receiving any kick for extra points, you know, which is, you know, 40 points every point in the game. He was a part of, you know. So, he was that kind of guy.

And, you know, some single-wing teams relied on their, most of them relied on their tailback to be the primary pastor. Some also had the fullback passing. You know, it depends on whether you have two talented pastors, and that's what you do.

But pretty much nobody had the quarterbacks pass the Notre Dame box. Yeah, they did. The Packers did that kind of stuff.

So anyway, they bring a new coach, and he installs the team. Oh, he looks around. He says, who's the best pastor on the team? Bobby Lane.

Boom. He became the quarterback during his senior year at Texas and was a total stud as a quarterback. But, you know, and it is because he was a great passer before.

You know, he's a great pastor in the single wing. So, he's a great pastor on the team. In some respects, he probably didn't utilize all his talents as well as a single wing did, but they wanted to move to the team.

OK, now I believe, you know, when he became professional, he went to the Pittsburgh Steelers, which is near and dear to my heart. And I think you even say that the Steelers were a single-wing offense at the time when they drafted Lane. I believe Jock Southern might have been the coach there and after the postwar days when they got Lane.

But then they they traded him away to the. Was it the Lions that they traded him to the Bears, the Bears, the Bears, who were a T formation team? It just seems odd to me. OK, he was a single wing in college, converted to the the the T formation and then a single wing offense drafts them and trades them to the T formation.

I'm just wondering, you know, a little bit curious about that. You know, it's part of my Steelers anxiety is part of that. But it's just a little interesting question.

I was wondering if maybe you knew. Yeah. So, you know, I think what happened there is that so he was drafted third overall by Steelers, and they were the last NFL team to be running the single league.

So that kind of tells you, maybe, you know. Maybe they should have thought it was an antiquated office at that time, right? It belonged as well. But that was the case.

But what was happening, too, is that right after the war, you had the All-American Football Conference. And so Lane also got drafted number two overall by the Baltimore Colts. So now he's in a situation where, OK, do I want to play for the Colts and the AFC, or do I play as a T formation quarterback, or do I go back single wing with the Steelers? And he basically told the Steelers he wasn't going to go play for him.

So, in order to recoup, you know, some value, the Steelers traded him to the Bears, who were one of the teams that pioneered the T formation back in 1940. OK, so he never played single-wing and professional. The Steelers traded him before he even played for him.

OK, that makes sense. OK, gotcha. Gotcha.

Because he wanted to be a T formation quarterback. Yeah, correct. Correct.

All right. That explains it. By then, you know, the NFL rules were, you know, a lot, you know, they were just more protective of quarterbacks.

They recognized the value, and they started just doing some things, liberalizing, blocking, et cetera, that just allowed quarterbacks to flourish and attract fans. And now we know what happened with NFL versus college games. Well, very interesting indeed, and a great glimpse back into both college and pro football history and one of the great players in Bobby Lane and Tim; why don't you tell people where they can find your daily tidbits and your website? Yeah, you can find the tidbits at www.footballarchaeology.com. You know, just hit the site and click on an article.

It'll give you the opportunity to subscribe. If you subscribe and you subscribe for free, you can. You'll get an email every day around seven o'clock in the evening with the tidbit or the full article.

That's what I published that day. There's also paid subscriptions that offer some additional value for those that are really into the stuff. And then or you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook using the same football archaeology name and but those, you know, potentially a few a few of my articles.

So I hope you subscribe. All right, folks, and if you're driving the car, don't try to stop and write it down or write it as you're driving. We're going to have it in the show notes.

So you can just come back later. And on PigskinDispatch.com, we'll get you right to Tim's site and to where his social medias are as well. So, Tim, thank you once again for this little glimpse into football history.

And we'll talk to you again next week.

Very good. We'll see you in seven days. Thanks.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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The 2016 AFC Divisional playoff game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Tennessee Titans was a truly exceptional event, far from being just another playoff battle. It was a rare confluence of talent, a game where five Heisman Trophy winners graced the field. This essay delves into this historic matchup, exploring the players involved and the profound significance of such a unique event.

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology discusses the 2016 NFL contest that saw four former winners of the Heisman Trophy playing in the same game.

The Baltimore Ravens boasted a potent trio. Lamar Jackson, the reigning Heisman winner (2016), was a dynamic young quarterback waiting for his chance. Mark Ingram (2009) was a seasoned running back with a Heisman pedigree and a knack for finding the end zone. Robert Griffin III (2012), another former Heisman winner, served as a veteran backup. Across the field, the Tennessee Titans countered with their own Heisman firepower. Derrick Henry (2015), a bruising running back with exceptional power, threatened to break tackles on every carry. Marcus Mariota (2016), the newly minted Heisman winner facing his first playoff test, aimed to orchestrate the Titans' offense.

This competition shattered the record for the most Heisman winners in a single NFL game. Previously, a 1998 matchup between the Raiders and Bills featured four Heisman winners – Tim Brown, Desmond Howard, and Charles Woodson on the Raiders' side, and Doug Flutie for the Bills. However, the 2016 Ravens-Titans game upped the ante, showcasing the evolving landscape of college football and the increasing emphasis on dual-threat quarterbacks.

While the individual accolades added a layer of intrigue, the true significance of the 2016 AFC Divisional playoff game lay in the clash of styles. The Ravens, led by the dynamic Lamar Jackson, represented the future of the NFL – a mobile quarterback unafraid to use his legs. The Titans, with Derrick Henry's punishing ground game, embodied a more traditional approach. This clash of styles turned the game into a defensive battle, ultimately won by the Ravens 22-21. Even though not all the Heisman winners took center stage statistically, their presence highlighted the culmination of years of college football excellence on the biggest stage.

The 2016 Ravens-Titans game was not just a simple playoff matchup. It etched a unique line in NFL history, showcasing an unprecedented number of Heisman winners on the field. It was a testament to the talent pipeline of college football and the ever-evolving landscape of the NFL, where athleticism and versatility were becoming increasingly important. This game serves as a snapshot, where college football glory converged on the professional stage, captivating fans and leaving a lasting mark on the NFL record books, a mark that will be remembered for years to come.

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Football Archaeology's Timothy Brown shares the story of an interesting field equipment predicament that occurred in a 1974 college football game.

It is an odd case of game management versus fandom and how the outcome of a game was at stake.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on the Missing Goal Post

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal for positive football history, and welcome to another Tuesday where we get to go to footballarchaeology.com's Timothy P. Brown, pick his brain a little bit, and talk about one of his recent tidbits. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Hey, thanks, Darin. Looking forward to talking again and talking about something that goes missing. Yeah, and we've been missing you since last week, but that's not the missing that we're going to be talking about today.

You're going to talk about a recent tidbit you titled, The Case of the Missing Goalposts.

It sounds like a Sherlock Holmes theater here for footballarchaeology.com. I can get that in my mouth, right?

Well, I was a Hardy Boys guy as a kid, so everything was The Case of the Treasure Chest. I think Nancy drew, too, but I wasn't into Nancy. Yeah, so this one, The Case of the Missing Goalposts, goes back to the old, I should say, Princeton and Rutgers.

They played the first intercollegiate soccer games in 1869. Note, I did say soccer there, but then eventually they started playing football, gridiron football. They're very close together geographically, and so they played 60-some times, whatever it was, over the years.

Princeton totally dominated the match or the matchups, but starting in the 60s, Rutgers started winning a lot. Then, they became the dominant team. It's somewhere along the lines in the 60s that, back then, there were a lot of... Nowadays, hardly anybody tears down the goalposts because they used to... Number one, they used to be constructed of primary wood, so they're easier to tear down.

We didn't have the same level of security, and there were a lot of those. The other thing was that a little bit later on, when goalposts got torn down, a couple of people got injured, and then they sued the universities and so on. Anyway, it's easier to get into Fort Knox now than it is to tear down some goalposts.

They just made it nearly impossible to tear down a goalpost. Back in the 60s, it was very common, 50s as well. People just tore them down all the time.

What happened in the Princeton and Rutgers series was that no matter where the game was being played, the winning team and their fans tore down the goalposts. Then, there were a couple of occasions where they tore them down before the game was over. That happened in 1974 when Rutgers scored a touchdown earlier in the game.

They didn't make the extra points. They were leading six nothing with three and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter. Princeton gets the ball and they start driving.

They drive all the way down. Partly during the time that they're driving, the Rutgers fans come onto the field and tear down the goalposts at both ends. Now the field doesn't have goalposts.

With 22 seconds left, Princeton scores. It's 6-6. They've got an opportunity to go for the extra point or the two-point conversion.

They want to go for the extra point, but there's no goalposts to kick towards. The officiating crew gets together, and then they bring the coaches in, and they're having a conversation. The Princeton AD tells the referee that they've got a spare goalpost sitting on the stands, and they can have it up in five minutes.

Somehow, that got lost in the translation, and the referee didn't hear that. He basically thought they could start building a new goalpost in five minutes. They start looking at whether they should go over to a practice facility outside the stadium. The referee didn't want to go there because they were already having control issues.

He's like, I don't even know how far away this practice facility is. Then, Princeton volunteered their cheerleaders, had one cheerleader mount and stand on the shoulders of another cheerleader, and held the crossbar in place. Then they'd attempt to kick.

I'm just imagining an errant kick, like the double doink, and taking a cheerleader out. Yeah, it's a risk to the profession. Ultimately, the ref just knows, Princeton, it's on your home field.

You're responsible for field security. It doesn't matter who tore the things down. No goalposts, you have to go for two.

So Princeton goes for two. They don't make it. So the game ends in a 6-6 tie.

But basically, after that, that game is 74. In 75, the NCAA had a requirement that facilities had to have a spare set of goalposts that could be put up rapidly if they fell down during the game. But again, it was this kind of stuff that kind of encouraged the adoption of the, some people call it the fork of a slingshot style, single post goalpost and then fortified with depleted uranium or something.

They make those things, titanium, whatever it is. Those things do not come down. Except for that Fanville commercial and Dr. Pepper commercial a couple of years ago, where Brian Bosworth is the cop, and he's looking for the missing goalposts.

One guy has a satellite dish up on it, and the other one across the street is a swing set, and he can't find the slingshot goalpost. Well, I know that a lot of people are fans of the Dr. Pepper commercials. I don't count in that group.

I just said it because I had the reference of the missing goalpost. That's actually pretty funny when you watch it. Kind of clever.

Yeah. Actually, some of them are pretty good. Yeah.

But that's just something that sounds so foreign. It sounds like something maybe would happen in 1911, but in 1974, this is modern-era football and a goalpost for two major colleges playing each other. That's just crazy.

It's unbelievable that within 50 years ago. Yeah. It's like anything else.

Until something happens, you don't make the rules, or you don't make the investment. It's just easier. Back then it was kind of like, well, yeah, the kids are going to tear them down.

So let's make them cheap because they're going to tear them down anyway. And then somebody went the other direction and said, I'm going to build me a fine goalpost. So that's what we have today.

Yeah. The next thing you know, we're going to have bands out on the field before the game's over. Oh wait, that did happen, too.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh boy.

Tim, that is some great stuff. And we always enjoy your tidbits each and every day for stories just like this and learn something new from 50 years ago or a hundred and some years ago. And we really appreciate that.

And there are folks out there who would like to get in on the action, too, and read your tidbits each and every day. Maybe you could give them some information to share. Sure.

The best way to get to the tidbits is to go to www.footballarchaeology.com and subscribe. You can subscribe for free, and then you'll get an email every day with that day's story. You can also get the Substack app or follow Football Archaeology.

You can also follow me on threads or on Twitter. And I post on both of those locations every day. All right.

Well, Timothy P. Brown, footballarchaeology.com. We really appreciate you. And we will talk to you again next Tuesday.

Very good.Thank you, sir.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Timothy P. Brown discusses the home playing fields of the Michigan Wolverines football teams. Regents Field, Ferry Field, and finally, yes, the Big House, Michigan Stadium opened by Fielding Yost in 1927.

Find out more about the den of the Wolverines and some rich history of the program and football itself.

Enjoy this presentation that airs weekly with conversations of football antiquity with Historian Timothy Brown of FootballArchaeology.com.

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There are times throughout football history when things just didn't look right to our modern pigskin eyes. You might even say they appeared "ass-backward," and in the case of our subject matter formation today, that may be true.

Timothy Brown had a great piece awhile back in his tidbits titled: footballarchaeology.com/p/innovation-or-oddity-the-reverse?utm_source=publication-search" target="bbcode">Innovation or Oddity? The Reverse Center

-Reverse Center With Timothy Brown

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 we have a Tuesday.

And once again, we are going to go down the road of football archaeology with Timothy P. Brown of that website. Tim Brown, welcome back to The Pig Pen. Hey, Darren.

Thanks for having me back. Look forward to having a little chat. Yeah, I think it's going to be a pretty interesting chat.

And this is probably going to be one where folks are going to want to go to your website, footballarchaeology.com, and go to your tidbit from September 27th of 2022. And because there's a very interesting picture that's sort of the forefront of this discussion tonight, and that's on the reverse center. Yeah, well, so here's one thing about this reverse center: it's, you know, football coaches, just like, you know, any business, probably.

They're always looking for something new. They're always trying to find a way to, you know, just improve their process, do something more efficiently, or just trick somebody. And so, you know, one of the things that has been kind of a dynamic in football forever is the difference between, you know, an innovation or an oddity or exploiting a loophole, right? So when somebody does something new and, you know, almost no matter what it is in the game, if it fits within the rules, OK, then, you know, the football world adapts by either saying, hey, that's a great idea.

We're going to start doing it, too. And, you know, others take it on, or they look at it and go, no, that's not the way we're supposed to play this game. And then they they ban it.

They change the rules and get rid of it. So, you know, any time something new comes up, you don't know which one it's going to be. Right.

So you have stuff like huddling, which was new in the 20s. People didn't know before that, you know, a couple here and there to platoon football, icing the kicker, calling plays from the sideline. All those things were not part of the game at various points in time.

But, you know, somebody came up with a cool idea, and, you know, others bought into it. But you also have things like Bo Schembechler, whose Michigan teams kept getting beat in big games that were played on grass. So he decided he was going to. He had their equipment; people put washers on the bottoms of shoes because the rules said you couldn't have, you know, spikes longer than a half inch.

So he had him put washers on and then screw the spikes in so that they extended further. But they still were only half-inch spikes. Right.

So then the next year, you know, the rule makers got up and changed the rule. It said, you know, you can't. Your spikes can't, you know, be the end of the spike, which can't be more than half an inch from the bottom of the shoe. Right.

To get away, you know, to stop people like Bo from doing things like that. Anyway, you know, I've had a couple of different topics in the articles on the site. For example, we're going to talk about reverse center tonight. But, you know, I've done one in the past on the reverse quarterback, the tower play, the 12th man on the field, you know, who was a coach rather than a play.

It was a student coach rather than a player. You know, just all these kind of goofy little ideas. But so the reverse center, just to describe it to the listener, was, you know, if you just think about a center who's going up to snap the ball, just like normally approaches the line and, you know, facing the defense.

Well, that's the norm. But in the reverse center, the center turns around. And instead of facing the defense, he's facing he's facing his backfield.

And then he squats down, reaches between his legs. And grabs the ball. And then he snaps it double underhanded.

Right. And so, you know, you kind of go, well, that's stupid. But, you know, it first came up in, like, 1912.

And then, you know, mostly what I wrote about was 1941 when when Syracuse implemented the system and his the coaches thinking and it was, you know, Ozzie Solem, he he he wanted to be able to pitch the ball or snap the ball to running backs who were further spread out. He also used what he called the Y formation. So there was a quarterback immediately behind the center.

There was another, like a fullback type, immediately behind him. And then the two halfbacks were behind the tackle. So they were, you know, a little further spread.

And so by snapping in the reverse center mode, the center could swing his arms to the right or to the left and get it to a halfback who, you know, at the snap was already heading, you know, you know, starting to sweep. So just, you know, it enabled them to sweep to send the ball in a wider arc. But he could also just put it, you know, give it right back to the quarterback.

And then they thought at the time that the center facing away from the defense also gave the center the ability to pull, you know, more quickly. And so the funny, well, one of the interesting things about it is the line coach at Syracuse that year was a guy named Bud Wilkinson, who became a pretty famous, successful football coach. You know, so anyways, he had, you know, two pretty good football minds working on this thing.

And, you know, they came up with this tactic, the reverse center. So, you know, there was some contention about its legality early on in 1941. But, you know, then some folks on the football committee said, hey, it works.

It's it's within the rules. Nothing wrong with it. We may not like it, but, you know, here it is.

Syracuse had a pretty successful season. They upset they weren't, you know, they went to Wisconsin and beat them when they weren't expected to. I think they ended up like six and three, you know, something like that.

However, at the end of the year, the football gods decided that by the time they met in early January of 42, they had Pearl Harbor that occurred. And so they basically, you know, we're going to make virtually no changes in the football rules kind of for the duration. And we will adjust some things here and there.

One of their adjustments was they require they they modified the rule to say that the seven men on the line of scrimmage have to be facing their opponent. And so with that, the reverse center. Died never to be seen again.

You know, I'm sitting here thinking about when I first saw that. You know, first I laughed and said, oh, this can't be right. And then I read your post on it. Then, I started thinking from a defensive side.

And I'm sitting here thinking, OK, you're explaining that Y formation and a good portion of the snaps are either going to the quarterback or the fullback directly behind him. Well, I'm going to put somebody, you know, in a nose guard position, a zero technique will become today. And I'm going to blow that guy up from his rear end.

And is it easy to go ahead first and blow that play up into the quarterback and fullback? So they had better be pitching to the halfbacks every time they're doing their off-tackle plays or whatever they're doing. So, yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, I can't tell you exactly how they adjusted or how they, you know, how they managed that. But they did. And, you know, it proved to be successful.

And, you know, you know, they won. They won a couple of big games doing this reverse center. But, you know, again, the football god said this isn't football the way we intended it to be.

And so so it became an oddity rather than an innovation. Well, it's interesting when you were talking about some of these innovations that people haven't seen before. I know, at least in the high school rulebook, at least from six years ago when I was still officiating, they had a rule near the beginning that was kind of a catch-all rule, which I thought was probably one of the most brilliant things they put in a rulebook.

It said that if anything happens, that is not explained in this rulebook, it's at the referee's discretion to make a decision in the fairness of, you know, football, a fair and level playing field, which, you know, not exactly in those words, I forget how they are, but that's basically the gist of it. And I read that, you know, I remember as a young official coming on. I'm like, OK, where there's so much stuff in here.

Where are the people going to come up with stuff that that's not in the rulebook? Well, when I ended up getting a white hat, it seemed to happen quite often. And one thing that comes to mind, at least in our area, is that quarterbacks at the high school level were starting to go more and more in shotgun and spread formations. So they had what was called, you know, the foot kick or the stomp start, you know, to kick a man in motion where you see it's we don't even blink at it today because it happens all the time in the pro level where, you know, quarterbacks back there in shotgun, he kicks his foot, and the guy goes in motion.

Well, back when they were first doing that, there was a big discussion. I know in officiating circles, hey, is this a false start? Should this be considered a false start, or is this, you know, part of it? A false start is anything that simulates action at the snap, and the ball's not snapped. That's the basic definition of a false start.

So this is an odd occurrence. And but he's not really simulating action to snap. So there's a lot of discussion there.

And there were some inconsistencies in particular. One team we had in our area, from crew to crew, from referee to referee, how they were handling that. And we had to get our heads together real quick and decide what we were doing.

But yeah, just some things like that that happened. And, you know, the reverse center was probably something like that. Well, and that's one of the things when huddling first came in, you know, it was just like you're saying, there were some referees that said no.

You know, this is stalling and therefore we're going to penalize you. That was a it was a two yard penalty at the time. But but they, you know, they penalized him.

And others said, no, this is perfectly fine. As long as you get the ball, you know, snapped in a reasonable time, then we're good. So, you know, they had that same kind of discussion.

But just because it was new, you know. But, you know, that whole issue of the referee having that discretion is one of the. I remember, you know, coming across it, that is at least part of the conversation when, you know, there's been a couple of times where some guy's running down the field out ahead of everybody, and a fan or a player comes out on the field and tackles.

Right. And so then, what do you do? Is it that you award the touchdown? Do you do you give them the ball at that spot? You know, and so those kinds of just bizarre situations. They are one of the reasons that they've empowered the referee as they did.

And they should. Yeah, it's as an official, I learned, though, because those are judgment calls like what you just described, the kickstart, you know, things like that. The reverse center.

That's a judgment in whoever's officiating its view if that's legal or not. And giving a fair or unfair advantage to one team over another. And, you know, that's when you would call a foul.

But judgment is the toughest thing to call a judgment call because that's something where half of the people in the stands are going to like it, and half of them are not going to like it. At the same time, we have things that are cut and dried, like an offside or a false start or, you know, things like that. Those are just plain fouls.

It's, you know, it's penalized. There's there's usually no question about it. It's not. There's no judgment in it at all.

So, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.

Interesting. It's always interesting to get the kind of viewpoint of a referee, right? Because there are not that many. You know, there are a lot more people who've played the game and watched a lot of football out there.

Wearing a zebra shirt. Yeah. Well, they're always looking everywhere for officials.

So if somebody is interested, you'll contact your local high school chapter or, you know, your local school athletic directors, and they can for sure get you into a game of officiating because it's a great way to look at the game and you learn a lot of the game and see some things from the other side, so to speak. So it's very interesting, at least from a rule's take. So, Tim, why don't you take the time right now to share with listeners where they can find your tidbits and how they can get them in their email inbox or their Twitter each and every day? Yeah.

So, number one, if you just, you know, if you want to check out some of the articles and the things that I write about, just go to FootballArcheology.com and, you know, all the archives and everything's available on there. You know, I release it today's tidbit every day. And so if you want to make sure you get it every day, subscribe and you'll get an email with the content sent to you.

You know, that's seven o'clock Eastern every evening. And then you can also, you know, I post everything on Twitter as well. So, you know, I'm Football Archeology on Twitter.

So find me there if that's the way you'd prefer to consume. But you might miss some stories that way. So that's the problem.

That's the danger. Yeah, you don't want to do that. Don't want to subscribe.

It's easy. It's very painless. So, Tim, thank you very much.

Keep up the great work of preserving football history and enlightening us on some of these great antiquities of the game. And because we sure enjoy them and love to talk to you about them. And we love to talk to you again next week.

Very good. As always, thank you again, sir.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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The preservation of football history and rekindling memories of some bygone star of the gridiron is a passion for many of us. There are few greater research satisfactions than finding a long-forgotten story of a player one knows little about.

Timothy P. Brown looks back at how six promising athletes mentioned in a pre-season article actually did. The players are Don King of the Clemson Tigers, Frank Brooks of Georgia Tech, Joe Mastrogiovanni, a Wyoming quarterback, Kurt Burris, a linebacker of the Oklahoma Sooners, Notre Dame Fighting Irish quarterback Ralph Guglielmi, and Pat Eubel, an Army Black Knight runningback.

Presaerving the history of great players has never been so much fun!

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Football Archaeology takes a look back at the history of the helmet logo in some unique places, uncommon to the conventional ones we are used to.

The evolution of logos on football helmets has been a fascinating journey reflecting both aesthetic and functional considerations. Traditionally, football helmet designs featured team logos prominently displayed on the sides, serving as iconic identifiers visible to players and spectators alike. However, as the sport evolved and branding became increasingly significant, teams and equipment manufacturers began exploring alternative placements for logos to maximize visibility and impact.

One notable shift occurred with the emergence of logos on the fronts and backs of helmets. This departure from the conventional side placements allowed for larger and more eye-catching designs, enhancing team identity and marketability. The strategic placement on the front provided a focal point during televised broadcasts and close-up shots, while the back placement ensured visibility from multiple angles on the field.

The transition to front and back logos also mirrored broader trends in sports marketing and fan engagement. Teams sought to leverage helmet space not just for aesthetic appeal but also as a platform for sponsorships, charity initiatives, and commemorative decals. This evolution underscored the symbiotic relationship between sports teams and corporate partnerships, where helmet logos became potent symbols of both team pride and commercial endorsement.

Moreover, the strategic placement of logos on the fronts and backs of helmets has contributed to the evolving aesthetics of football equipment. It has allowed teams to experiment with design elements, color schemes, and typography, further enhancing their visual appeal and reinforcing their brand identity in the competitive landscape of sports.

In summary, the history of logos transitioning from traditional side placements to front and back positions on football helmets reflects a dynamic interplay between tradition, innovation, and commercialization. As teams continue to adapt to changing trends and technological advancements, the placement of logos remains a key element in defining the visual identity and market presence of football teams worldwide.

-Frequently Asked Questions

-Who was the first to paint a logo on a helmet? The answer in the pro game is Fred Gehrke of the Rams in 1948, check out more about it in the story: First Helmet Logo.

-Who was the first player to wear a football helmet? We have your answer in our in-depth study ofFootball-Fun-Facts/Facts-about-who-wore-the-first-helmet" target="bbcode">the first to wear a helmet.

-What is the history of each college team and their helmet designs? Check out many of them with our series College Football helmet history of schools.

-How come some teams have player numbers on their helmets? We asked this question too and had a college football expert historian help divulge helmet numbers history.

-Why do some teams like Michigan and Delaware look so odd and similar? It's really uncanny isn't it that the Wolverines and Blue Hens look the same, check this out for a reason Football-Fun-Facts/Helmets/History-of-the-Winged-Helmets" target="bbcode">when helmets had wings.

-What do stickers on college football helmets mean? Some of them look really crazy but there is some goos reason for the extra adornments and we have the scoop Why all the stickers on some football helmets?.

-When did football helmets change from leather to plastic? Just after World War II saw the most abrupt changes, we have more in this in our chat with an expert:When helmets changed from leather to plastic.

-Transcription of Fielding Yost and the Fake Field Goal with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends, Darin Hayes and PigskinDispatch.com. It is Tuesday, and once again, we are going to visit with Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com. Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey, Darin. Thank you.

Look forward to chatting again. I think we've got a good one to cover this evening. Yeah, this one is a subject that I know a little bit about.

I've talked to an author that's wrote quite a bit about this famous coach, Fielding Yost of Michigan. This is probably his most famous stance or most famous position. That's where the school he's most associated with.

Let me try to get that out of my mouth. But you have a very interesting story on him that sort of takes back through his whole career and sort of settles a dispute by digging through the old newspapers and everything. It's a really interesting, great job of work on your part.

I will let you take it from here, sir. Yeah, thank you. This is one that you're kind of digging around for playing detective, reading old newspapers.

All of a sudden, you find something that I wasn't expecting, quite the ending to the story. This is one of these ideas or issues where everybody talks about football. There's nothing new, right? There's nothing new in football.

Everything gets recycled. Everything gets adapted. That's, at some level, reasonably true.

There are certain true innovations, and one of those is embedded here. It's also a bunch of these people copying ideas over and over again. Part of the funny thing about this story is that there's an instance where things got copied, and this sports writer didn't know that.

Apparently, it was the first time he saw this occur in a game. What it was is that I came across an article from a 1913 game when Michigan played Penn. During the game, Michigan attempted a fake field goal.

This writer just wrote a follow-up after the game about this fake field goal attempt and praising Fielding Yost, talking about what a great innovator he is and blah, blah, blah. When I came across that, I was like, is that possibly the first time somebody ran a fake field goal? I would have thought, even just due to a bad snap or whatever, somebody would have tried one. Then maybe said, geez, this works pretty well.

I'm going to do this again. I'm going to back up just a little bit and say that until 1886, every field goal attempt was a dropkick. There was no snap from the center to a holder who held the ball for the kicker.

It took some human beings to figure out how to do that. It turned out it was these two brothers who played at Otterbein in Ohio, a small school there. They figured out, hey, we could snap the ball, have a guy hold it, and the kicker could kick it.

We've got a better chance, especially under the right weather conditions, a place kick typically had more power and was more accurate than a drop kick because the ball didn't bounce true off the uneven turf and grass at the time. We moved ahead then to 1913 and this Penn-Michigan game. Michigan sets up for a regular field goal attempt.

They snapped the ball, but instead of the holder putting the ball down on the ground, the kicker moved forward and swung his leg forward just like normal, but the holder stood up and then went sprinting around the left end. He scored a touchdown rather than the field goal attempt. Part of what's funny about that is that the writers said, this is tremendous.

The execution of this play was incredible. In fact, the play got called back due to holding, so the execution wasn't that great. Then it was like, here was a fake field goal, obviously a planned fake field goal.

I started looking around, when did these things first occur? As I said earlier, 1886 was the first time that any team snapped to a holder and then executed a placement kick. The first fake field goal that I could find, and this is just through searching newspaper articles, was an 1897 game between Kansas and Iowa when Kansas faked a field goal. Then, the next year, the second one I found is 1898, when Nebraska ran a fake field goal against Kansas.

The guys who did it, as far as I can tell, invented it, and have it executed against them the following year. Then the key thing about that, or the interesting thing about that, is that the coach of Nebraska in 1898 was Fielding Yost, a coach at Michigan whom this writer was just effusive with praise about. So anyway, after doing additional searching and everything, there were fake field goals all over the place.

I'm not saying there were thousands a year or anything like that, but most years, once the placement kick from scrimmage got started, people were also executing the fake field goals. Unfortunately, the writer was an anonymous column, so I couldn't figure out who the writer was that came up with this because otherwise, I would have tried to reach his relatives and tell them that their grandpa was lacking in his football history skills. Okay, so Kansas did it first, and then they had it done against them the following year by Nebraska.

That's correct. Fielding Yost was the coach at Nebraska, and then he was coach again at Michigan when they did this in 1913. Well, I was trying to think about it, because I know from a previous author I had on the biography on Yost, I know he was in Kansas too, but I'm looking right now, he was in Nebraska 1898, he was at Kansas 1899, so it was reverse, where I was thinking he might have been a coach for both of those games, head coach who did it, but he was Kansas on the other side.

And then he ended up, he was at Stanford, right? In 1900? Yeah, Stanford, and then at the end of the season, San Jose State, he did a championship game and then went to Michigan. Pretty well-traveled coach. Yeah, for a little bit there.

And he was Ohio Wesleyan before all of that too. And he was a ringer when he played in college too. Yeah.

He went to West Virginia, but he played for Lafayette in the big game where they took down Penn and snapped their win streak, whatever it was, 2018. Yeah, Park H. Davis, the famous historian, was the coach of Lafayette. So yeah, there's a lot of historic ties there.

Which is why he names that team the National Champs. Yeah, he named a lot of odd ones, National Champs. You can go back and scratch your head a few times.

Yeah, that's a really, really cool story. I love how that sort of circles back around to him, you know. And what was there, 20, almost 20 years in between, 15 years in between the plays.

But I guess the credit is due to him in some respects. Yeah, well, hey, you know, he picked up something, he saw something he liked and executed it. Yeah, plus I think there was, I don't have my note here on it, but I'm almost positive Michigan ran a fake field goal too before the 1913 game, so under Gilst.

Yeah. You know, it brings back that fake field goal. And I'm sure it wasn't a rule at the time.

I'm sure it was a rule put in afterwards. But there was a rule in high school, and I think it was at the collegiate level too, that if somebody, you know how a holder was usually down on a knee to take the snap. That's the only exception where you can have a live ball with a person with their knee on the ground.

So with that exception, they have to hold for a kick or an attempted kick. So if that holder is on a knee, takes that snap, and stands up and throws a pass or runs, it's a dead ball because he was a runner with his knee on the ground with a live ball. So I'm sure, like I said, it probably wasn't back in that era.

They probably put it in. So we had a game, a high school game, where a very clever coach told us before the game, you know, usually they want to make sure we don't kill their brainstorm idea that they had all overnight or something. This guy would get down in a catcher's position.

So both knees are off the ground. He's just in a squat. And the defense, you know, is probably not paying attention to what he's doing, but he would catch the ball.

The kicker would come up similar to what you're saying, fake a kick. This kid would, the holder would pound the ball with his hand. So it sounded like there was a foot hitting the ball and then taking off.

And I think he was going to throw a pass is what his intent was. So, you know, just some clever things that they do out of these, these fake field goals, but that knee-on-the-ground exception. Well, you know, back then, both in the 1898 and the 1913 example, having a knee on the ground, wasn't yet a rule that made the ball dead.

Right. I mean, in that race, you could be tackled and still get up and run. You know, you had to be held to the ground still, but yeah, you know, the, the, the, the catcher squat that you mentioned, that was actually some of the early field goal teams did that.

I mean, those, those executing a placement kick, they did that instead of, of going to the knee. And part of that was because that was still in the time when they, when a lot of teams, still were rolling the ball sideways back from the center to the quarterback. Right.

And so the quarterback, if he was on one knee, he couldn't, you know, the ball would bounce crazily. And so, you know, the squat helped them just, you know, catch the ball properly, or at least be able to reach the ball. And I've even, I've got a picture of Arizona.

And I want to say it was like 1938 or 1936, something like that, where their, their holder is in that kind of squat position. So people continue doing that for, you know, for some time. And probably, you know, they may have just been in a situation where, you know, who knows? It might've had a substitute center, or somebody just wasn't a very, very effective long-snapper.

And so. He was a substitute center. He was also a starting catcher on the baseball team in the spring.

Yeah. Great stuff. That's very fascinating.

Just like every evening, you have these great little pieces and nuggets of information about football history that you don't hear mainstream. And you don't see in every football history book you read in, you know, just like tonight, you took, it took some digging for you to do that. I'm sure, you know, it took a few hours of research going through the old newspapers.

I can feel your pain on that sometime, but it's fun. Yeah. The problem is that, you know, half the time I'm doing these things while I'm watching some football games.

So I don't even watch half the game. I'm just looking online where those 30 points come from. Yeah.

Yeah. Good stuff as always. Why won't you share with the listeners that they, too, can enjoy your tidbits each and every night? Yeah.

So, you know, my website is footballarchaeology.com. So you can go on there. You know, every post allows you to subscribe, which then means you will get an email every night, you know, into your inbox with the story. You can also follow me on Twitter at football archaeology.

And so whichever one works for you, whichever way you prefer to consume information, have at it, or hey, you can do both. So either way. Yeah, I do.

And you get double the pleasure. You get the, the Twitter and the email. So good stuff as always.

Tim, we appreciate you sharing this with us, as well as the great research you do at footballarchaeology.com, your daily tidbits, and, you know, your great writings. Thank you very much for sharing with us each and every week. We hope to talk to you again next Tuesday.

Very good. Always enjoy it. And glad to, glad to spread the word with you on football history stuff.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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A look back at some of the early coaching clinics and educational venues for football coaches