Football History

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Eddie Dooley was many things, including a journalist and a politician: A sports reporter and columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He also had some radio broadcasts that Football Archaeology covers in the gist of the feature story.

Here are some other accomplishments of Dooley that led to his popular name in the gridiron realm of the era:

-Edwin Dooley: A Dartmouth College football star and All-American quarterback nicknamed "Death Dooley" for his killer instinct on the field. He later served as a successful businessman and public servant.

-Eddie Dooley (football coach): Head coach for the University of Kansas football team from 2009 to 2011.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on Eddie Dooley

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to another Tuesday where we get to talk to Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com about one of his famous tidbits, some daily little factoids of football that make you think and appreciate the days gone by in the realm of the gridiron. So, Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Thank you, Darin. I look forward to chatting again today and seeing what we come up with.

Yeah, Tim, I want to attend one of the entertaining ones. It takes you back to a different marketing era and using football. You titled this tidbit back in September 2022.

Can you believe it's been that long since you wrote this? It's called Eddie Dooley's 1936 All-America Team Contest. So why don't you explain to us what that is and what Eddie Dooley was doing? Yeah, so I think anybody who reads or listens regularly probably knows that I collect old.

Well, they're composite schedules, but, you know, they're these little giveaways that used to be available. They're just like the little pocket card schedules we get today. But they were available at least from the 20s and probably a little bit earlier than that.

And I'm talking 1920s, not, you know, 2020s. So, you know, it would have listed all the games, and for every team that's in the play, it would have listed their schedule for the year. And then it would have just little things about, you know, the teams they expected to be, you know, great teams this year and who the All-Americans were last year, things like that.

These were just little things you carried around. And, you know, they didn't have the Internet then, so you wanted to see who's playing this coming Saturday.

Boom, you looked at the schedule. And so this particular one was put out by Royal Typewriters. So, you know, if you went into a typewriter store, you could potentially pick up one of these little booklets.

Then, their star was a guy named Eddie Dooley. So he was a quarterback at Dartmouth in the 20s, then became a newspaperman, and then became a radio announcer. So he had a syndicated radio show that basically ran on Thursday nights where he would make predictions about that Saturday's game.

And then, on Saturday, Saturday evening, he was based out of New York. So Saturday evening, he's running through the scores, who won the big games, and that kind of stuff. And I'm sure at the time, the West Coast fans got all PO'd because they may not have finished their game yet.

So he couldn't report on him. And, you know, so they felt like they were getting shat upon East. But anyway, strikes again.

Yeah. East Coast bias back in 1936. So.

So anyways, so so this is a 1936 season. And so one of the things they did, you know, I mean, it's no different than what we do today to try to engage our our followers or to try to. And, you know, if you're selling something, you're trying to get people involved in the brand.

And so what they did was in the booklet, there was a little form that you could fill out at the end of the season that where you'd list the what you basically what you try to do is Eddie was going to name an All-American team. Then, you submitted your list of names for the All-American team. And there was a seventy-five-dollar third-place prize. There was a hundred-dollar second place and a five-hundred-dollar first-place prize.

So for whoever could. Come the closest to matching Eddie's All-American. So, you know, it turned out that Eddie's All-American team.

Kind of had East Coast bias, so there were four Ivy Leaguers, some of whom I'm sure made sense, including one who won the Heisman Trophy, Larry Kelly. And, you know, there were still five guys from New York and further to the Northeast who made this team. So he wasn't quite as bad as what Walter Camp did, where almost everybody was.

From the Ivy League. Yeah. I mean, Camp one year had all eleven Yale players.

Right. The first, second, or third All-American team, but they were good. So anyway.

So he held this contest, and then it turned out that this was my favorite. Just there were guys, and I forget, you know, I don't really care about them who were first and second place. But third place was Mrs. Eva Lou Edwards of Hammond, Louisiana. So she picked up seventy-five bucks for coming in third place.

That's like a week's payback, then to seventy-five dollars. I still have a chump change. That's good.

Good money. Yeah. That was some serious cash.

Then, each of the players who were named to Eddie's All-American team got a Royal typewriter, too. So nice. I mean, that would be like, you know, it's like getting a computer or whatever today.

One of the other fun little things about that was that Eddie, the guy who came in third in the Heisman that year, named him to the team. And I don't know how you pronounce his name, but Ray Buivid, Buivid, something like that. It's B-U-I-V-I-D.

And he played for Marquette. So, it's not a school that we associate with, you know, football All-Americans. And he's in the Midwest.

How do you make that team? Yeah, well, he made it. But he did. You know, he came in third in the Heisman.

So he was nationally recognized, and Marquette played in the Cotton Bowl that year. You know, so they were, you know, considered a pretty top team. And so that was Marquette's first and only football bowl that they played in.

And then, you know, they eventually dropped football in, like, 1960. But so, you know, this Eddie Dooley was, you know, he was like it, you know, he would have been whatever the Kirk Herbstreit or somebody like that of his age, you know, nationally prominent guy. And then, you know, he announced for a number of years.

And then eventually he ended up getting into politics and he served three terms in Congress. So I forget exactly which state he served with, but or for. But so anyways, you know, even back then, former football players or coaches or whomever or media stars, you know, got themselves elected to Congress.

So, some things never change. Yeah. And you have a great image of Eddie. It must be in one of the promo ads on the football archaeology dot com story on this.

And folks, you can follow that in the show notes of this podcast. Go right to Tim's site to see this. And Eddie has a great face for television.

He probably would have been great at the television, too, because he just has that look, you know, the hair's, you know, perfectly parted, and you sort of got the shit-eating grin on his face, and he's ready to go and talk some football. So he's got me pumped up. So a great story.

Love it. I love the typewriters. Eddie would have played.

I'm just thinking about that. Eddie would have played for Jess Hawley because Hawley was the coach at Dartmouth at the time. And he was, you know, I mean, they had a really good team.

They were national champions. He's six, you know, and Hawley had coached Iowa before before Dartmouth. So he was.

Now, like I said, he's kind of a Herb Street only is probably a better quarterback in college, you know, but that's kind of the nature of the person, you know, the the media star that he was. Yeah, you could tell he's got a little bit of personality to him, I guess, is what I was trying to say in the image of him, too. So great, great stuff.

You know, you have these things from your collection, and you share and dig up the story and the research. And you do this, you know, on a daily basis, which is amazing and a real tribute to what you're doing and for your tidbits. People love to read this stuff and love to hear you when you come on the show, and you get great responses from it.

But maybe you could share with the audience how they, too, can enjoy your tidbits on a daily basis. Yeah, so the easiest thing is just to go to footballarchaeology.com and subscribe. You know, there are a bunch of different ways you can subscribe there.

It's free. You can also do paid subscriptions, which is perfectly OK with me. But, you know, it's available to you.

And if you don't want to get the email every day, which, you know, just ensures you're going to get it. You can also just follow me on Twitter, where I reach about three people every day. Or, you know, that's not true, folks.

He has good following on Twitter. Yeah, but only three of them see it every day. But anyway, that's another story.

And then I'm also on the Substack app because that's where I publish and then threads, you know, or just bookmark the site and pop in whenever you're in the mood for old-time football stuff. Well, excellent job as always, and we really appreciate you sharing with us each week of some of your great stories. And we would love to share with you again next Tuesday.

Very good. Look forward to it.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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Some football seasons stand out for the reasons of championships or amazing play. Other like the one we will discuss in this edition is for reasons of happenstance or some otherworldly event that affects football.

The tale of the very odd season of 1905 where there were very few Seniors eligible to play football due to a new guideline in college football. Timothy P Brown breaks it down and tells the details.

Based on Tim's Tidbit EThe Year of Living Seniorlessly.

-Transcribed A Year With No Seniors with Timothy Brown


Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes, PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, and welcome to another edition where we get to talk to Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology.com about some very interesting and unique features of football history. And Tim's got a real dandy tonight. Tim, welcome back, and glad to have you here.

Thank you, sir. Darin, look forward to chatting once again. Let's see where we go.

Yeah, this one, which is tonight and we're going to go to, is one of your recent tidbits. It really concerns the college game, and I guess eligibility is the general scope of it.

And I'll let you take it away from here. Yeah, so this one is called the Year of Living Seniorlessly. It's supposed to be a takeoff on the movie A Year of Living Dangerously, which was from the 80s.

So, if you didn't get that really clever little play on words. I was in high school and college during the 80s. I don't remember much of them.

But yeah, we'll talk about that some other time. Okay. So anyways, so the gist of this is that you know, I mean, everybody's familiar.

There was this big crisis in football in the early, early in the, you know, after the turn of the century, it kind of culminated in 1905. You know, demand for new rules and, you know, dramatic changes to the game. And so I think generally people think of that and talk about it in terms of changes to the game as played on the field.

And while, you know, there were certainly a lot of changes that occurred from 1906 through 1912 in that regard. Part of that struggle and issue was not just on the field of play. It was also the commercialization of the game and eligibility standards.

And so, you know, these had all been things that had been, you know, issues that had been addressed since probably the mid-80s or early 90s. But, you know, they just hadn't. They were still, you know, it was still out there, and it was still an issue that not everybody was satisfied with the solutions that had been presented. But, you know, it's like we've talked before about the IFA rules started in 1876.

And, you know, those were rules only made up by, you know, at most six or seven schools. And but everybody followed their rules. You know, I mean, it wasn't even like a formal thing.

Everybody just followed, those were the football rules. And, but the IFA also had a whole set of, they had a constitution that set out commercialization and eligibility rules. And most other schools didn't follow that.

That was kind of a separate gig. So, you know, in the late 90s or so, when the Big Ten or the Western Conference and what's Big Ten got started, they developed a lot of rules along the same lines. And, but the whole 1905 crisis, you know, kind of brought things to a head, and they were looking to make things stricter.

So, the Big Ten adopted rules. You know, one of the rules was that for 1906, Big Ten teams would only play five games a year. And that athletes would only have three years of eligibility.

Okay. It now seems like, okay, well, freshmen are eligible again. But, you know, if you're old enough, you remember when, you know, freshmen weren't eligible, you know, for football, basketball, and maybe another, maybe baseball.

So they adopted that rule, but when they did it, they made it retroactive. And so what that meant was that going, at least they did it in like early, say January of 1906, that meant that seniors who were planning to play baseball and run track at those, at the Big Ten schools, if they had done so as freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, suddenly they weren't eligible. It also meant that the freshmen weren't going to be eligible, assuming they wanted to compete as sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

So you were in a situation where you were only going to be represented by two classes. And so that's actually what happened that spring, but kind of, you know, cooler heads prevailed by the time fall rolled around, and they allowed it. They kept the three-year eligibility rule, but they did not make it retroactive. So those who were already in school were kind of grandfathered.

So, seniors did get to play in 1906, but freshmen typically did not. And so, you know, the year of living sensorless really only applied to the spring. And by fall, you know, things kind of turned around, and they were eligible to play, but, you know, they just did a lot of, but by 1907 or for the 1907 season, they said, okay, you can play seven games a year.

Then, they made the three-year eligibility apply only to football, baseball, and track. Basketball was not, you know, a big deal at the time. And they had a couple of other rules.

I mean, one of them that I thought was really silly was they did not allow their scrub or reserve team to play. Previously, they could play two games a year against outside opponents. And they scrapped that, which to me, of all the people, you know, freshmen need to play somebody else, you know, and the reserves and scrubs.

So, anyway, that's kind of just one of those things you can't imagine. Now, I mean, a rule that was retroactive, you know, as far as eligibility concerned, just craziness, you know, but that's what the faculties wanted. And so that's what they got back in 1906.

Now, was it that, refresh my memory, was it that that made Michigan leave the Western Conference or the Big Ten for a period of time? Was it the fire game? You know, that, you know, that was just one more thing, one more log on the fire. Michigan had, Michigan had a very successful program prior to that. And they pissed off a lot of people.

They, you know, they stopped, you know, back then, teams would have these feuds; Harvard and Princeton had a feud where they wouldn't play one another, you know, for like a dozen years and things like that. Harvard or Michigan had that kind of situation with a bunch of different schools. All of a sudden, they said, oh, we're not gonna play you because X, Y, or Z. So, it was just one of those things or one of the things that certainly didn't help the situation.

And so they left the conference in 1907 for the 1907 season. And they got back in, in either 17 or 18. So they were gone, you know, for 10, 11 years.

Yeah, it's, it's still shocking when you, one of the first teams you think about, when you think about the Big Ten, it's probably Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, you know, Michigan State, having one of those big guys leave, you know. Well, you know, it's funny you mentioned Ohio State because they were nothing, you know, at that period, they were nothing. They just, they were like a, you know, they, they were late, you know, getting into the conference.

And they just weren't very successful until, you know, mid-teens, then they started having some, you know, some really good teams. But, you know, that's one of those teams you, you just kind of assume Ohio State has always been there. They've always been good because, in living memory, they certainly have been right.

And, but, you know, they were kind of a little bit of Johnny come lately, you know, to the Big Ten. Nothing like a Penn State or Nebraska, and now the West Coast teams, but nevertheless, even Michigan State, Michigan State was, you know, after the war. So.

Well, that is good stuff, as always, Tim, and we definitely appreciate it. Now, you have your daily tidbits that come out each and every day. And you have some other great posts that you put up on your website.

Maybe give some information to folks on how they can find you and get your information daily. Yeah, it's really simple. Go to footballarchaeology.com. Just subscribe; that'll lead to you getting an email in your inbox every night.

And, you know, pile them up, let them gestate for a little bit or read at that moment, and, you know, kind of whatever suits your fancy. If you don't want it, if you don't want emails, and, you know, the only other thing you can obviously visit the site whenever, or follow me on Twitter. And with Twitter, you have a one in 4 billion chance of ever seeing anything I post there because that's just the nature of Twitter these days.

It's like the lottery. So, if you really want to read any of this stuff, subscribe because Twitter is probably not going to do you any good. Well, I can make a recommendation.

If you want to follow Tim on Twitter, or you want to follow us on Twitter, you can set the notification bell. So every time that something posts, unfortunately, when you reply to things that other people post or retweet, you're going to get that notification as well. But so you can pick your poise in there, different ways to get the information.

So, Tim, we really appreciate you coming on and talking about this great subject from football history once again, and we'd like to talk to you again next week.

Well, enjoy it as always, and I look forward to the coming week.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

The football fields on which modern games are played have undergone many transformations over the years. The field has been morphed almost as many times as the rules of the game have been changed.

Our guest, Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology, has admired and brought to our attention the work of a historian who has really captured the evolution of the American Football Field.

James Gilbert has put together an impressive research study on the evolution of the American football field over the years of rules revisions and modifications since 1876, complete with graphics. Enjoy this Substack post that he put out recently.

-Transcribed Conversation on Football Field Evolution with Timothy Brown and James Gilbert

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 wow, we have a great episode coming on tonight.

We have Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology joining us, and we're going to be talking about the football field and some evolutionary changes that have happened to it over the years. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen. Darren, good to see you again, as always.

Thanks for having me. Never want to take it for granted that you're going to let me come onto your show. The invitation is always there, my friend, and I'm never going to take it for granted that you join us each week because it's quite a treat for myself and the listeners.

We get to learn about something new with football or be reminded of something maybe that's been long forgotten. And I think that's kind of typical of what we have tonight. You know, something that we see every single game that we watch, and it's so obvious that we probably take it for granted.

That's the football field itself. You know, without it, there's not much of a game going on. And you came across a friend of yours that you guys wrote a piece together a few years ago on the evolution of the football field, and it's really quite interesting.

And maybe you could talk about that a little bit tonight. Yeah, so this is, you know, the friend that you're mentioning is James Gilbert. And, you know, kind of longtime readers or somebody who's gone back through the archives might remember that back in November 2021, he and I co-authored a story about the University of North Carolina team from 1893.

They were the first Southern team to go to the North and play a game because they played Lehigh towards the end of the season in Manhattan. So, you know, he and I kind of worked together on that. And I forget, even now, how he and I first connected.

But, you know, he's in the kind of old football and just general sports, you know, arcane information, you know, like me. And I had, you know, like in my How Football Became Football, I documented at least the major sequences of how the field and markings changed. You know, goalpost locations, all that kind of stuff.

So, I mean, I took it to a certain level. And, but now, James recently launched a Substack newsletter or blog called James's Newsletter. And one of his first articles is an article about the evolution of college football field.

So basically, he's what he did, and he's been doing this for quite some time. He's been creating, you know, graphics, images of the football field and all the markings at each point in time. So, going back to 1876.

And then, you know, each time that it changed, either the dimensions or the markings, location, this or that on the field, he basically created all these graphics to show this information. And then what he's done now is mirror it in a Substack article. So he's got kind of the description of what was happening, you know, why it changed what was happening, the game led to the change, and then just the detailed description of the change.

And, like, when I did mine, I stopped at 1960, but he carried on to really to the present. So all the different changes that, you know, we sometimes don't think about the things like the size of the coach's box, the size of the team, team's box, how far off the sideline to get back, you know, they get back coach has to get back, you know, all that kind of stuff. You know, he just he's outlined, outlined, he put in detail all this information.

So this is one of these where, you know, normally we talk about my tidbits or an article, but this, I just wanted to make sure there's some attention brought to him and the effort he's gone through. Because it's just, you know, it's a great resource. And I don't know anybody who has documented how the field has, has changed over, you know, 147 years of football history, like he has, you know, so it's just a really neat effort.

He's done a couple of other things as well. Yeah, that's. I know exactly what you're talking about. I did a piece similar to you, where I covered the football field probably two or three years ago. Actually, it was an adaptation of an article I wrote back in 2003.

And I had my son, you know, throw some graphics up there. And but James's article, you know, I had the grid field in the early 1900s, but I had it going, you know, goal line to goal line, which it did. But I had forgotten about the aspect of the back in, and I believe it was 1903.

And we were just talking about it. I ran across an article the other day in newspapers.com, where they went from a 25-yard line to a 25-yard line with the grid. And then it was the normal stripes, you know, outside the 25s or to the goal line. Anyway, so just the detail, he's doing that.

And I can tell you from officiating, you know, the 27 years I officiated at the high school level, there was a field change every single year, you know, as you said, the coaches box changing by the yard or, you know, the teams were allowed to the 20s. And it was a 25s or boundary lines or a hash mark is now, you know, instead of three inches, it's four inches wide or whatever, you know, so I can imagine what the collegiate field has been doing over those years. It's probably every year; there's something small.

So, this is really a Galathian chore that James is doing, and it's much appreciated. We'll have a link here in the show notes, folks, to James's site and Pigskin dispatch.

So you can appreciate his work. You know, that's really going to take a lot of effort on his part. And that's appreciated.

Yeah, you know, the thing about it is like there's so, you know, there's a bunch of times when, um, yeah, there's, well, you and I go on a particular site that sometimes they post a pic, you know, these unidentified, you know, people can't figure out where's this, you know, who's this team in this picture? You know, there's a game in a stadium. Where is this? Who's playing? What's the period? So, a lot of times, you can tell certain things just based on the uniforms or the formations, and you have a pretty good sense of what's going on. But there are other times where, you know, if depending on the angle of the shot, you can see the field markings, and that tells you a tremendous amount.

In some cases, like 1903, it tells you exactly what year the game was played. You know, if you have the right kind of angle or the right kind of shot. So, so anyway, so just anybody who enjoys doing that kind of thing, or sometimes finds themselves looking back at an old photo and trying to figure out, well, when, when was this thing from, you know, his site will be really a great reference, you know because it just collects all that kind of information in one place.

You know, the other, the other thing that, another thing that he does that is interesting is, and he, some of his posts on it, on the, on his newsletter reflect this, where he's a, he's a North Carolina, you know, UNC graduate and fan. One of the things he's done is go back and try to figure out where every North Carolina football game was played. And I don't mean that at a very casual level; I mean out of detail.

And so, you know, like, you can go back, and there are all kinds of sites where there's a site called jhowell.net that I use all the time to find the old scores and where games were played and that kind of stuff. And so it might say the game was played in Milwaukee or New Haven or wherever it was, but it doesn't necessarily tell you the exit or the field. Well, a lot of the old football, you know, especially going further back, you know, in the 1800s, you know, maybe up till 1920, sometimes these games were just played in some local park, you know, and they slapped up temporary stands or the games were played in a minor league baseball park that got torn down 80 years ago.

And now there's, you know, an expressway is sitting on top of it or, you know, a shopping mall or whatever it is. There are all kinds of these past stadiums that just are no longer there. And in a bunch of cases, kind of people have lost track of where they are.

So he goes in, and I don't really understand all the resources that he uses, but I know he uses like these old, there's a bunch of online through like Library of Congress, there's these online insurance maps that used to document, you know, the streets and major cities and all that kind of stuff and which buildings were where. And so I think he uses those kinds of things and all kinds of stuff from, you know, the newspapers telling you, well, it's at the intersection of 42nd and Western or wherever. And so then he finds where this game or where this field was and then plots the field atop, you know, what it looks like today, like in Google Maps.

So it's just really kind of fun. And then he's created some databases that, you know, dig into other information. You know, it's very UNC-specific.

So, I don't necessarily care about UNC, but I really appreciate his digging into it. It's just, you know, just getting the details of a particular topic. But just think about all the fields that it covers, you know, everybody that UNC traveled to play over the years, where their stadium is, you know, you're going to know where Duke played their games when they were, you know, Trinity College or whatever, you know, at the time. So that's some really interesting stuff.

I'll have to add that to my bookmarks and check that out because, you know, you have like the uniform sites, you know, the gridiron uniform database, and you have the helmets, you know, sites that you can go to and see where helmets are from here. Now that having a resource to look at fields of an era and where football stadiums were, you know, that's pretty cool too. So that's why I'm sure a lot of people will be interested in having that information too.

So good job, James. Yeah, no, it's just kind of fun stuff. And, you know, just the, you know, again, as I said, I don't know the method that he uses to get there, but, unfortunately, he couldn't join us tonight.

Otherwise, you know, he wouldn't would have done so. But so anyway, it's just interesting stuff. And, you know, if you're enough of a geek, like you and I are, you know, you can really, you just, you know, it's like you see somebody who's got an interest in this sport or this aspect of the sport, and they dig into it, or they collect, you know, certain things.

It's just one of those things. There's nothing I had thought of, but I just have a really deep devotion to the particular aspect of the game. Yeah. Well, let's use a little bit of James's information.

Okay. Now, you just recently saw this and appreciated it. What's something that jumped out at you that either you didn't realize, or maybe you forgot, and it brought a different light on what James did in his fieldwork?

Yeah. You know, I think the, I don't know that for me it's, it's any one thing. I know he just did it, just did an article.

I think maybe it was today or the other day where, you know, he's pointing out that North Carolina is going to play a game in Charlotte. You know, I think they're playing at the Panther stadium. And so he's, the articles about, Hey, they played, you know, it's the eighth most frequent city that they played, you know, but for them, it's kind of like, you know, they played, they played at a lot of intermediate cities, you know? So, I mean, teams used to do that all the time.

I've got an article that's my Saturday tidbit is about this, where, you know, teams traveling, you know, we've got this big thing about the West coast athletes are going to be traveling to get to the Big 10 schools and all that kind of stuff, you know, with the conference modifications. But back in the day, when people traveled by train, they spent a lot of time on the train, too. And so a lot of times, they find these cities halfway between one another, and both teams would meet there and be a bigger city, especially if they were kind of rural schools.

So they played in all kinds of locations, you know? And so, but in North Carolina in particular, it just seems like they played a lot. They played in a lot of places, you know, a lot of different intermediate towns. And maybe it's just the geography of, you know, where they were in the transportation network at the time. But yeah, it's just kind of interesting, all the different places that they played.

Oh, very cool. All right. Well, why don't you go ahead and if you have James's information, if you want to call it out now, so people can do it.

But again, you know, if you're driving or something, you can go to the show notes and get the link there. But Tim, go ahead and let us know where we can find James. Yeah.

As I said, he's on Substack, which is just a platform. You can find him at jameslegilbert.substack.com. And I checked beforehand, just Googled James Lee Gilbert Substack. And, you know, it's one of the first things that comes up.

Then you'll have the link, you know, the actual link in the show notes. But James Lee Gilbert, Substack, should get you there. All right.

And folks, the graphics are really splendid. You're going to be really pleased, I think, when you see these graphics, especially of the football field evolution that we started talking about. I got to go and check out all these coordinates of where the fields were. I have to go. I appreciate that here when we get done.

So I can't wait to do that. You just added another thing to my to-do list tonight. So, thanks, James.

So far, he doesn't have a lot of those on this site. But you know, he's done a bunch of them in the past. So, I hope you know that he recycles them and republishes them on Substack.

Well, Tim, wow, that is great stuff. Thanks for bringing this to our attention so we can appreciate his work and your work.

Why don't you tell us how folks can get your daily news? Yep, just go to footballarchaeology.com, and you can subscribe. You'll get an email every night at seven o'clock Eastern with today's article. Otherwise, you can follow me on Twitter, Threads, or the Substack app. All right, Timothy P. Brown, footballarchaeology.com. We thank you once again for joining us, and we will talk to you again next week.

Very good. Thanks.

-Frequently Asked Questions About an American Football Field:

-How long is a football field? A football field from goal line to goal line is 100 yards long with two ten yard deep end zones. Want to know more about the evolution of the playing field, you are in the right place as we covered it here:Field Size Evolution.

-How wide is a football field? Most levels of American football play on a field that is 53.3 yards wide.

-What are the hash marks for? The hash marks are used for a few different things during a game, but most importantly they are the inbounds spot for the ball to rest fo the next play adjacent to where it became dead on the previous play outside of the hash marks or out of bounds. Here is a great piece explaining the has marks and their history and evolution: The Fumble Fiasco Out-of-Bounds Oddities in Early Football.

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Ever wondered why quarterbacks wear the number 12 and running backs rock the digit 28? Today's episode dives into the fascinating origin story of American football jersey numbers. We'll travel back in time, uncovering the surprising reasons these numbers were first stitched onto jerseys, and how they evolved into the iconic system we know today. Get ready for a journey through gridiron history, filled with unexpected twists, forgotten rules, and the stories of the legendary players who cemented the tradition of numbered jerseys in the game we love. So, buckle up, grab your favorite jersey (with its number!), and join us as we unveil the fascinating tale behind football jersey numbers!

The early beginnings and origins of the uniform numbers on players are explored in this Football Archaeology feature.

-Transcribed Conversation on Player Number Origins 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 welcome to Tuesday. You know what it is. It's footballarchaeology.com day. And Timothy P. Brown of footballarchaeology.com is here to talk about another interesting tidbit he's had out recently. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Darin, how are you? Good to see you. I hope I've got your number tonight.

Well, you got my number. I don't know what the origin of that number is, but I think we're going to find out some of the origins of some player numbers. You had a recent tidbit on that very subject.

And it's something, you know, again, we've talked about this before in other episodes that we've talked about. Some things that we just don't appreciate all the time. You know, what the player number does on the jersey, you know, it's it's identifies the player.

It's almost like their name, you know, for a lot of places. For example, when you see the number 12 out there on a New England jersey, you're probably thinking of Tom Brady. First thing, you know, just but we associate that number with the player.

But it goes back into some things that are beyond that even. And I'd sure like to know the origins of these player numbers. Yeah.

So so some of this this one, you know, I've written about the origins of player numbers a bunch of times in the past. And but I was trying. Well, I was I did an article recently about the the hidden ball trick that the Carlisle executed against Harvard in 1903.

And just in doing that research, reading an article, there was a comment made. And so just to kind of reset the stage on that, you know, what happened is that the. Carlisle.

So, you know, brown patches on the front of their jerseys that match the color of the ball. And so that they could, you know, have their back, who didn't get the ball or whomever else kind of hunched over, act like they're carrying the ball. And, you know, the defense would be confused.

So and so, then they did that. But then they also, in that game, you know, they basically executed this play where there was a. On the kickoff, they were receiving a second-half kickoff, but anyway, they're receiving the kickoff. The Carlisle players go back to form a wedge, and the guy who gets the ball or, you know, who caught the ball.

You know, he kind of gathers the wedge in that web and stuffs the ball in the back under the shirt in the back of one of his teammates who had this elastic band at the bottom of his jersey. So the ball would stay there, you know, under the shirt. And so then they then they boom, they all scatter in different directions.

And this guy who's a was a guard or a tackle who doesn't look like a guy who you would give the ball to starts running upfield, acting like he's going to block, you know, for one of his teammates. And so because he's acting like he's blocking, all the Harvard guys are avoiding him. And he just takes off, runs down the field, and scores a touchdown.

So, you know, that's kind of everybody, you know, I'd been aware of that story and all that kind of thing. And he probably looked like Quasimodo running down the field, too. That's right.

The guy had no idea what to do. But there was a comment made in one of the articles about the game where the guy said, you know, the reporter said it would be great if all the players had numbers; we would have known who this guy was as he was running down the field. And so I thought, OK, I'd never come across that before.

And this is a 1903 game. So it's just got me to go back one more time to look at, OK, when, when did, as I had previously come across Amos Alonzo Stagg calling for numbers in 1901. So, two years before this Harvard-Carlisle game, I just figured, OK, I'll go again.

Can I find anybody else mentioning player numbers? And so then I ended up finding a 1904 reference. And I'm sorry, an 1894 reference from the Harvard-Yale game where some guy along the sidelines must have been some influential alum who said that you know, the players should be numbered. His comment was that the average observer finds as many differences in individuals as in a flock of blackbirds.

So, the first time I heard that reference. But, you know, but the point was that you know, you couldn't tell players apart half the time back then because they didn't have numbers. You know, they, they all kind of, the nature of the game, everybody bunched together.

It's hard to tell who was who, you know, who got the ball, who advanced it, who made the tackle. So, you know, people then, you know, people like Stagg started promoting using numbers. But the challenge and the pushback that they got was people saying, you know, there were basically three main challenges.

One was that they said if you number the players, which they'd started to do in baseball, and I think at first, it actually occurred in rugby in New Zealand. But if you number the players, then that promotes individualism. Football is a team sport.

And so we don't want to promote individuals. So it's this idealistic argument. There was also, from a coaching standpoint, a lot of coaches said, I don't want to number my players because that makes it easier for scouts or for the opposing player to identify who was who.

And to quickly figure out, OK, this is Smith's best running back. You have to watch out for Smith, and you have to make sure you know where Smith is lining up in the playoffs. Now, that all seems kind of dumb. I mean, I get it, but especially from the opposing player's standpoint, no one was wearing numbers on the front of their jerseys; it was only on their backs.

So the opposing players couldn't see them when they lined up anyways, you know, so, so that, you know, but that was, you know, that was the main challenge. And then there was also, you know, people also would say, well, football is for these college players, it's a college sport, you know, there's none of this pro stuff yet or very little of it. And so it's not for the fans.

We don't want to change the game, we don't want to do things in the game to make fans happy; everything should be to make the players happy. Now, you know, as money increasingly got involved in things, and the fans were paying for the players, there are professional marketers of the gridiron just running off the podcast right now.

But, you know, that was a very common sentiment. So anyways, so then it. You know that, as far as I've been able to research, the earliest game in which players have war numbers, and it was a picture in the newspaper, and I published the picture a bunch of times, was a 1905 Iowa State at Drake game on Thanksgiving Day, and both teams were numbers and then, you know, over the next four or five years pit.

As far as I know, Pitt was the second team. They like to claim they were the first because they ignore the night, the Iowa State v. Drake game. Wichita State in 1908. Pitt was the first team in 1909. As far as I can tell, they were the first team to wear them for all games because a lot of times, the team would say I'll wear them, but only if the opponent wears the pit was like no, we're wearing them.

Part of their motivation was that they loved selling scorecards. So there's money involved, right?

Right. And then, in 1909, Michigan and Marquette formed, and then the same year, Cincinnati was too late for them, so those were, as far as I know, the whatever six or seven earliest examples of teams and/or games were. You know, players were numbers.

Yeah, you've done a great job of telling us that, and as you said, you've had a bunch of other fascinating posts on the numbers and some of their intricacies. We'll try to throw some of those links into the pigskin dispatch for this episode. So people can go back and enjoy some of that work with the alphanumerical and all the other crazy Roman numeral numbers. Yeah, four-digit numbers, and we'll put some of those up to so people can enjoy because there's a lot to do with the numbers on jerseys, and it's a lot of fun, so we appreciate that you're doing that and doing the research on it.

You do research on some aspects of football, like every day. It's what you have: plucking things out of the air all over the place and taking us on a wild ride. Sometimes, you have themes like these numbers, but they usually spare my part. Where can people enjoy your tidbits each day? Just go to football archaeology calm.

You can subscribe there. If you subscribe, you'll get an email every night at seven o'clock Eastern with that, you know, that day's episode, and you know there are people who read them five minutes after I publish them, there are other people who, you know, I can just tell by, you know, certain patterns that I can see in the data. Some people like storm up, and they read them on the weekend, so at least you know you have them. If you get the email, you have them. Otherwise, you can follow me on Twitter, Threads, or the subject platform.

All right, Timothy Brown of footballarchaeology.com we thank you very much, sir, for joining us here and we will talk to you again next Tuesday. Very good. Thanks as always.

Love the football jersey designs and evolution wait till you check out the History of American Football Jersey.

-Football Jersey Frequently Asked Questions

-What are American football jerseys made of? Modern jerseys are a mix of synthetic fibers such as polyester or a blend of different materials such asspandex, for more check out our in-depth study ofThe Make up and Materials of Football Jerseys.

-What are some of the unique football jerseys in history? Gridiron jerseys with logos on the front were some what of fad once upon a time. Check this story titled Football Jerseys with Emblems.

-Whose college football jersey was the first to be retured? Red Grange's Number 77 Ilinois Illini jersey was the first college uni to be shelved in 1925. There were a couple more about the same time and we chatted with a college football expert historian help divulge College Football and its First Retired Jerseys.

-Who are some of the most famous NFL players at each jersey number? From Red Grange's jersey number 77 to Tom Brady's iconic number 12, a slew of NFL players made their digits proud. Want to know more? You are in the right place as we covered all 100 jersey numbers and the best to wear each:About Football By Numbers.

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Ever seen a penalty flag thrown and wondered, "Wait, why'd they move the ball THAT far?" Well, friends, get ready to dive into the strange world of "half-the-distance" penalties in American football!

These penalties, often triggered by infractions inside a team's own territory, can result in some truly eye-opening yardage assessments. Today, we'll be tackling some of the longest half-the-distance penalties in NFL history. We'll be dissecting the plays, the penalties, and the impact they had on the game. Were they backbreakers for the offending team? Did they create crazy scoring opportunities for the defense?

So, buckle up, football fans! Let's get ready to analyze some of the most unusual and potentially game-changing penalties the NFL has ever seen!

Let's listen to some of the most extended half-the-distance penalties in Football History by Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology.

-Transcribed Conversation with Timothy Brown on the Longest Half-Distance Penalties

Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. We also have another great episode where we get to talk to Timothy P. Brown of FootballArcheology.com. Talk about one of his most recent tidbits. Some of those unique aspects of football history.

Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Thank you, Darin. I Look forward to talking about the penalty situation in football.

Yeah, this is a very fascinating tidbit you had back in late May. It was titled football's longest half the distance penalty. Now we're we're sitting there, you know, in our modern times, we think of a half a distance penalty.

You know, somebody gets penalized and gets the penalty, gets walked back towards their own goal line. And usually, maybe they're at the nine-yard line, and it's, you know, a holding call, and they got to walk back to the four and a half or whatever. That's what we're doing.

But you're talking about something entirely different here as far as yardage. It's not a four-and-a-half-yard walk-off. These are some of the massive jaunts for the teams to travel.

So please do tell. You know, I mean, so early football didn't necessarily have distance penalties as we think of them today. Typically, the penalty for the fouls that were called was the loss of the ball.

You know, it was a turnover. But then they, you know, kind of recognized those were too severe. So then they started, you know, especially after the field got marked with yard lines, and they started doing distance penalties.

And so in 1889, there were they created that was the first half the distance penalties, and that was for, you know, intentionally tackling below the knees because you couldn't tackle below the knees, then budding, tripping and throttling, which was choking. And so that penalty was 25 yards or half the distance. And then, you know, later on, they started doing some things where it was.

Like in 1908, they kind of bundled all the unsportsmanship penalties together, and they made it if you committed an unsportsmanlike penalty, then you were disqualified and your team was penalized half the distance. And that that stayed in place till like 1947. And then then they limited the half distance to to 15 yards.

Right. So you couldn't be more than it was, whichever was 15 yards or half the distance, but Max was 15 yards. And so that's, you know, like you said in the open, it was, we think of a half a distance, half the distance penalty is applying when you're inside your own 30.

Right. If you're at the 45, either either 45, it doesn't matter. It's just whatever the normal penalty is.

And, you know, we cap them at 15 yards nowadays, but 25-yard penalties used to be pretty common. So, you know, before we kept them, there was the opportunity in a half-the-distance world for some really long penalties. And now, I mean.

I'm kind of limited by the way I can search in these newspaper databases, so I'm searching for keywords and strings of words. So I can't say that I found the longest. It's what I found that was the longest that I found, but it's still pretty long.

So the longest one that I came across was in a 1901 game Northwestern against Minnesota. Northwestern was in the red zone. They were on Minnesota's eight yard line.

A Northwestern player jumped off the side and slugged a Minnesota player. So they called the penalty. So they were on the eight.

This was in the days of the 110-yard field. So that meant that you know, 110 minus eight was 104 or no, I'm sorry, 102. And so they walked off a 51-yard penalty against Northwestern, which took the ball, as it turned out, it took the ball all the way back to Northwestern's 51-yard line.

Right. And then, in 1906, I found Vanderbilt got nailed for a 32-yard penalty in the same year Penn State got hit with a 30-yard penalty. And then, at that point, I stopped looking.

You know, I mean, I found a couple of instances, and then, in 1912, they reduced the length of the field to 100 yards. So there's no way you were going to have a 50 another 51 yard penalty. So anyway, it's possible that there was a 52, 53, or 54-yard penalty at some point out there.

I didn't find it. But if somebody else wants to go look at it and let me know if you find it. But, you know, it's still it's just kind of, you know, really fun.

And that that these existed. And then, but even after the field was reduced, you know, the thirty-three Pittsburgh Pirates running back was heading into the head, headed towards the end zone. Stiff arms the opponent but stiff arms him in the face.

And he gets called for an unsportsmanlike penalty at the two-yard line. So, there is a forty-nine-yard penalty as they walk off half the distance. Right.

So that's likely the longest or at least ties for the longest. So in the hundred yard NFL officials have been against the Steelers even before they were the Steelers back in the Pirates days in the first year. Yeah.

Thirty-three. I'm not going to play your game there with the officials who do not understand your Steelers. But the other thing that's just kind of funny is, OK, so now this half-the-distance thing is capped, you know, at 15 yards.

But you mentioned your favorite Steelers and now I grew up a Packer fan, but I've lived in Detroit long enough that there is a certain amount of lioness that has become part of my body. So I can appreciate, given the Lions history, that in 2015, a cornerback to the Lions incurred a 66 yard pass interference penalty. Because, you know, in the NFL, pass interference is a spot foul, right? Right.

So 66 yards downfield, he committed a little P.I. And so it was the Packers, which was OK by my standards. So, you know, 66 yards on a penalty. Yeah, those are astounding facts.

I did an article last year. I did some of the NFL's longest fourth and yardage to go penalties. It was it was fascinating.

I mean, we had a fourth and twenty nine that was converted by Ray Rice in 2012. The Oakland Raiders had a third and forty eight against Kansas City that I think they end up getting first down back in 2013. But in 1971, the Patriots had fourth and sixty three against the Cowboys.

And the biggest one, though, was my Steelers had fourth and seventy four against the Raiders in 1970. And they punted and the punt only traveled fifty five yards. So they were still 20 yards behind the sticks after the fun.

There were no half-the-distance penalties. I was going through that earlier to see if I could find something in there that helps your story, but that's just part of the thing. Like before, like in college football, you really don't have much in the way of there are no consistent statistics until thirty-six or thirty-eight, which it is.

But even then, it was just a subset of all the major colleges. So so, you know, the things so looking for like the longest half the distance penalty, there's no source. You know, there's no database that has that.

You know, you can only search for it using like newspaper databases and, you know, those kinds of things. But the other thing that it brings up and I wanted to ask you about it as a former official. Is, you know, one of the one of the problems football had over the years was.

The lengthier the penalty, the more reluctant officials often were to call the penalty. Because, you know, they you know, they didn't want to be the ones deciding the game. I mean, they would if need be.

But on things like, you know, a lot of the early clipping calls, they weren't, and they didn't want to call clipping. You know, it's kind of just the nature of the game. People accepted it.

So things like that, you know, that. So, that was one of the reasons they got rid of those 25-yard penalties. You know, it just was too much of they felt like it put too much power in the hands of an official who often were overworked back then, especially, you know, they you had three or four men, four-man crews trying to figure out what, you know, watching everybody on the field.

You know, it just wasn't possible. Yeah, I think it's a lot of human nature. I mean, most people, and I will put most before that, don't want to inflict the ultimate sentence upon their fellow man.

So, I mean, it's just human nature. You don't want to do it. I mean, one of the things I guess we could compare in modern times is somebody getting a little loose with their arms against another player.

It's taking a swing at them. And, you know, in high school football, even a swing and a miss is an automatic ejection. And most states have it where you will not play the next game after if you're ejected in a game, you're disqualified not only for that game but for the following game.

So you're really punishing him. So so that goes to the back of officials minds. I mean, it's got to be something very blatant to to get ejected from a game for the most part, especially when you know you're going to get dequeued for the following contest.

But I think that has some merit to what you're saying. A 25-yard penalty. That's that's pretty substantial.

You know, that's a quarter of the field. And could definitely change a game in a heartbeat. Well, you know, but if you think about, you know, back to the origins of penalties, penalties were turnovers or fouls, you know, were turnovers.

The penalty was the loss of the ball. So, you know, forward passes until 1906 forward passes the turnover, you know, on sportsmanship on sportsmen like, you know, conduct until 1889 was a turnover. So, you know, and then dequeues were, you know, much more common.

I mean, people should get up in arms about targeting disqualifications now. But, you know, hey, to me, if, you know, if you if you're going to endanger, you know, if you're going to endanger another player, then that's not good. And I personally love what college football does with the targeting.

And, you know, it's called on the field, and they really take a great look at it to make sure that the official on the field was calling it on the spot to get it right, says it is going to be an impactful thing. It might be the star linebacker getting ejected or staying in the game. You know, it's so many times you see that happen in the last couple of years since they've been doing that and enforcing it and even getting rid of the penalty.

Sometimes I think it's a great thing for football. And I'm glad that they do that. Yeah.

And I mean, people go, and people make a lot of arguments against it. And, you know, hey, you know, when I played, I was aggressive with Bob about, you know, whatever, go ahead and tell your story. But it's like.

You know, you just have to learn not to hit that way in that situation. You know, they all know where the sideline is. They all know, you know, things like when the ball's coming and you can't hit the pass receiver until he gets a ball, all those things.

They're aware. And so, to me, I don't buy the argument that, you know, it can't be controlled. Right.

Go lower. Go higher. Don't hit the guy in the head.

A good legal tackle has just as much impact, I think, as somebody crushing somebody in the head or whatever. And the guy's probably not going to be hurt, you know, by a good tackle on the midsection. You know, just a good wrap-up.

So, yeah, I think that goes a lot to teach the teaching technique of modern coaches. You know, just teach them to hit and wrap up and take a guy down instead of trying to take him down with a blow. Yeah.

You don't need to decapitate. Right. Right.

Well, Tim, great stuff. Great discussion. You know, I know we got a little bit off-topic with the half-distance penalties, but it brings up so many great elements of football, of the game of yesteryear and today.

And you do that each and every day with some of these tidbits, just like this one, where you bring up something that's maybe not the mainstream talk of football history or even modern-day football, but you bring it into a new light and a story of its own. And we'd love for you to share with the listeners how they, too, can enjoy these on a daily basis. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, I just try to find things that I think are interesting every day and that shed light on past practices and hopefully illuminate something about the current game, at least something that we can compare ourselves to. And so, you know, if you're interested in following, just go to footballarchaeology.com and subscribe.

You'll get an email every day in your inbox at 7 o'clock Eastern that has that story. And otherwise, you can follow me on Twitter at football archaeology. Either way, if you're interested, consume it however it is that makes you happy.

Well, Tim, we thank you for once again joining us here. And I'm going to throw this out here, Tim, and hopefully you won't get angry with me. But these are such interesting things.

And I'm sure there are a lot of listeners who may have questions about where something started in football. And maybe we could get them in contact with you. And maybe on a future show, we could answer some of those questions.

So either you go on to Tim's website, footballarchaeology.com, or you can email me at pigskin-dispatch at gmail.com. And send in your questions about where something started. And maybe Tim has it in one of his multiple books or on one of his tidbits. And if not, he loves to put on that research hat and hit the library hard and the newspaper archives.

And we'll try to find something for you. So, Tim, thanks again. And we will talk to you again next week.

Very good. Darin, thank you very much, as always.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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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, 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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Penalties are a regular occurrence in football, a constant tug-of-war between offense and defense. But sometimes, amidst the yellow flags and frustrated shouts, a penalty emerges that defies logic and leaves everyone scratching their heads. Today, we delve into one such oddity – the curious case of the two-yard penalty in American football history.

This podcast episode and article explore a specific instance where a very unusual penalty enforcement resulted in a mere two-yard loss. We'll dissect the situation, analyze the rule that led to such a peculiar outcome, and explore the reactions of players, coaches, and fans to this bizarre moment on the gridiron.

Was it a simple mistake by the officials? Did the specific situation create an unforeseen loophole? Perhaps it was a turning point in the evolution of penalty enforcement. Join us as we unearth the story behind the two-yard penalty, a historical footnote that serves as a reminder of the unexpected twists and turns that can occur in the ever-evolving world of football. So, buckle up and get ready for a lighthearted yet fascinating exploration of a truly odd penalty in football history!

-Transcripption of Football's 2-Yard Penalty with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends, Darren Hayes and PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. It is Tuesday, and we are going to go into an archaeological dig that is a part of the great history of the gridiron. And our friend Timothy P. Brown of football archaeology is leading the way.

And we're going to talk about one of his recent tidbits on penalty enforcement, which is sort of an odd yardage. Tim, welcome to The Pig Pen. Hey, good evening, Darren.

Good to see you as always. And to hear your dulcet voice. Dulcet.

Well, that's one of the higher compliments. Usually, people say something else about my voice, especially family members. I don't know what's going on with that.

So I'll take that. I only have to listen to you a couple of times. That's true.

That's true. Well, Tim, you had a really fascinating tidbit back a couple of months ago, and it's on a very odd penalty yardage and under some special circumstances in football history that I think maybe we'd like to hear about this story. Yeah, so this is, you know, everybody knows that 1906 is a big year in terms of changing football rules, introduced forward pass, forward progress, you know, really is kind of fully, well, not fully developed, but pretty well developed that year.

You know, the onside kick from scrimmage, you know, I mean, there were just a host of different rule changes. However, one thing that people don't pay much attention to is the rule that limited captains to calling three timeouts per half. Until then, captains could call as many timeouts as they wanted.

There was no rule. But by kind of tradition and practice, and, you know, people did the right thing, they didn't call many timeouts. I mean, they basically called a timeout for injury.

And then occasionally, if they needed, if they needed, you know, just they needed a rest. You know, and this is, again, back when coaches couldn't coach the players during the game, their teammates couldn't yell instructions to them, nothing. It was, you know, you're out there on your own as a quarterback.

So, when they introduced that rule in 1906 if a team had called three timeouts or had had those timeouts called for them by the referee if they called a fourth timeout, they incurred a two-yard penalty. So, you know, this is one where, as far as I know, this is the only two-yard penalty in football history. And there was a caveat that you could, if you had called three, and you had a player injury, there could be another timeout without penalty.

So there could be a fourth due to injury. So, you know, it wasn't called very often, but it was called in 1906 in a game in Indiana that was beating Notre Dame, you know, 12-0 late in the game. And Notre Dame called a fourth timeout due to injury, but the referee penalized.

Now, you know, it's unknown at this time, you know, based on newspaper reports, was it because the ref just made an error, just didn't understand the rule, or because he thought the player was feigning an injury, right? So, one way or another, he calls it. And then it kind of, you know, I mean, at least in terms of newspaper reports, there's not, there's virtually no mention of these two-yard penalties for another 15 years or so. But then, in the early 20s, teams started huddling between plays.

And there were a lot of referees who didn't like teams huddling. They wanted them to keep, you know, immediately lining up on the line, calling the plays at the line, and, you know, executing. So, some of the referees started penalizing teams for huddling.

And again, this is one of these things; it's a little bit unclear exactly how they justified it, but it is likely that what they were doing was, you know, a team could huddle three times if they wanted to, but if they huddled a fourth time, in effect, the referee was interpreting that as you're taking a timeout, whether you call it or not. I'm basically treating this as a timeout when you huddle. And so the fourth time they huddle, boom, they get a penalty.

And so, you know, so that kind of sucked. And, like, you know, Penn got penalized six times against Alabama in 1922. So, in one game, they got six two-yard penalties.

So then you sit back and go, how big a deal is a two-yard penalty? You know, it's just not that big of a deal. And so what teams started doing then is to just say, if I need a break, I'm calling an extra penalty. I don't care.

You know, what am I going to do? Lose two yards? Yeah. Hell yeah. I mean, especially if you're down, whether you got to go two yards or 22 yards, what's the difference? Yeah.

So then, obviously, the refs and the rule makers didn't like that. So in 1924, they gave teams four timeouts per half, but then the fifth one would be a five-yard loss. And you know, same with six, seven, eight.

So, you know, that was the end of the two-yard penalty. But other than in 1930, 31, and that period, at that point, if there was a penalty on an extra point, it was committed by the offense. The offense lost the ball, and, you know, you went to the kickoff process.

They didn't get a chance to score, but the defense committed a penalty. Then the offense was credited with having made the extra point. And so they changed that in like 31.

And so they just changed it so that whatever penalties were incurred, the refs walked off whatever the typical, you know, whatever penalty yards they would have done during regular play. So, halfway to the goal line, or you had a 15-yard penalty, you got moved back to the 17, you know, whatever it was at the time. So yeah, the two-yard penalty led to a fairly short life.

Yeah. I always wonder because usually the penalty is that it fits the bill for whatever the foul was, you know, and they try to balance that out, and they've tweaked things around a little bit. You know, maybe they over-penalized certain things over the years, but a two-yard penalty, as we said earlier, is really no. There's no penalty to it.

You know, it's a big deal. The other thing I found interesting when I started officiating in the late 80s was when teams were just now starting to go to no-huddle. You know, Jim Kelly and the Bills were having some success at the pro level, and it was going right down to levels. And there were some older officials, especially umpires, who like to have time to set that ball, get, you know, set, you know, seven yards off the ball behind the linebackers.

So they're in a safe place. Well, they have these teams going up the line. They're having to drop that ball down and beat feet and get out of there before they get smoked, you know? And if the referee wasn't, was blown ready for play too early, that ball's getting snapped and things.

So, I can remember people and officials standing up at meetings. You know, when you have big rules meetings with the local coaches and all the local officials, when you have all the new rules, you have the same interpretation. So we're all on the same page; at least, that's what we did in Pennsylvania at the time. And, you know, there's, there's referees saying, Hey, you know, there should be a penalty for this.

You know, what do you mean? No, you aren't huddling. So it's funny how, you know, what is it 50, 60 years later, you know, we're, we're looking the exact opposite way. We're expecting teams to huddle.

And when they don't, we get mad. Yeah. Well, you know I've got a, I haven't written it yet, but I'm going to do a tidbit on I'm sure you've seen the, it's a 1903 two or three minute film of Yale and Princeton playing.

And so it's the first instance in which a football team has been captured playing football. And so it, it, that little film document, and you can find anybody can find it on YouTube. If you just put in a 1903 Princeton, Yale football movie or something like that, you'll find it right away.

And, like, the first part of it just shows guys running around and coming out of the locker rooms or whatever. But once you get into the actual play, you know, they execute a play and immediately get on the ball, running the quarterback call signals, boom, and run another play. And so, you know, that's just evidence of how they did that at the time.

And that's because that's what they did in rugby. You know, you, somebody, you know, got tackled or whatever, they set the ball down and boom, you just get going again, you know, you line up and play. And so there was no rule about that.

You know, the rule about 25 seconds or 30 seconds didn't come into play until 1926 or so because of huddling. Right. I mean, they wanted to make sure that the pace of play remained somewhat normal.

But until then, it was all just tradition. You know, you, that's how you play football. You got up and you, you know, you played, you know, it's kind of like pitch count or, you know, the pitch clock kind of a thing, you know, it's gotten so crazy that now they need to, you know, they need to have a timer to stop players from, you know, rubbing their nuts for, for two minutes up there at the plate.

All right. So it's, if you think about it, those are really two kinds of interesting, it's an interesting parallel, the pitch clock versus the, you know, the ready for play and, you know, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, whatever it is, you know, depending on the league. You're right.

There's another early film. It's got to be that same, and I think it's 1903. Also, there's a Michigan film out there.

Right, right. Same thing. But of course, that's the point a minute team of, you know, of Fielding Yoast going on there too.

So, but I can remember there's one play in there where the guy gets hurt, and he's at the bottom of the pile, and they're in such a hurry to keep the game going. They just drag him by his legs off the sideline, and he goes off a second later. And that happened all the time, you know, just because, you know, because there was no substitution at that point, you know, guys would be laying there on the side of the, you know, in the backfield just, you know, they could, they'd lay there for a minute or two and played, continue, you know, just nuts.

Yeah. I keep meaning, I got to load up some of those, those YouTubes of that, that we'll put them on the site here in the next couple of weeks. So they're interesting to see.

And so listeners, you can, you can check them out there or, you know, go to, I know Library of Congress has them, YouTube has them. They're public domain. So they're real easy to get to.

So well, Tim, that's a that's a fascinating story on this two-yard penalty and the history of it. And you know, it's evolution, and thank God it's riddance out of the game of football. And you know, you have a lot of different little stories like this that are sort of off the beaten path, but really vital parts of football history that were important in the era that they happened.

And we sure are glad that you're going back and looking at these, researching them, and giving all the facts each and every night on something. So if you could, maybe you could share with the listeners how they could, you know, share in these tidbits that you put out each night also. Yeah, sure.

Thanks. Yeah. I mean, it's my site is footballarchaeology.com. You can also follow me on Twitter at footballarchaeology.

So, you know, on Twitter, it's going to be kind of hit or miss whether you see what I post or not. Whereas in, you know, if you subscribe on the website, you'll get an email every night with that night's post. And then obviously you can always just go to the site and there is a search function there.

If there's a specific topic in football history that you're interested in, just go in there and put in the keywords. See if you find anything. If you don't, shoot me in the message and I'll, you know, maybe it's out there and you just didn't find it or it didn't get, you know, it didn't enter the right words, but happy to always looking for topics, always looking for new things to or old things to research.

Right. The new and old things. All right.

Timothy P. Brown, footballarchaeology.com. Make sure you check out his site and his tidbits each and every day and listen to him each and every Tuesday right here on pigskindispatch.com. Tim, thanks a lot. And we will talk to you again next week. Great.

Thank you again, Darin.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

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The brand of football played North of the border is closer to the original football formation than our American game. Rugby's very roots are still evident in the game, even in some of the scoring, such as the "single" or "rouge."

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology joins us to explain the history and scoring of the Rouge and the two-point conversions of North American football. This discussion is based on Tim's post from over a year ago titled The Rouge and the Two Point Conversion.

A podcast version of our conversation can be found at Rouge and Two-Point Conversion History with Tim Brown

A Brief History of Canada's Unique Scoring Play

The Canadian Football League (CFL) is known for its exciting, fast-paced brand of football, featuring more expansive fields, three downs, and a unique scoring system. One element that sets the CFL apart is the "rouge," a single point awarded under specific circumstances. Here's a look at the history of this fascinating scoring play.

The exact origin of the Rouge remains a mystery. Theories suggest that in the early days of Canadian football (derived from rugby in the mid-1800s), a red flag might have been used to signal the awarding of a single point. Unfortunately, concrete evidence for this practice is scarce.

While the red flag may be a matter of speculation, the official definition of the Rouge in the CFL rulebook is clear. It is awarded when:

-The offensive team advances the ball into the opponent's end zone, either through a punt, a missed field goal attempt, or a kickoff that goes out of bounds in the end zone (without being returned by the receiving team).

-The receiving team does not attempt to recover the ball in the end zone.

The Rouge adds a strategic layer to the CFL game. Teams often employ intentional punts or "coffin corner" kicks to force a rouge if they believe a touchdown is unlikely. This can create exciting situations where the receiving team must weigh the risk of attempting a potentially game-changing return against the guaranteed single point awarded by a rouge.

Full Transcription of conversation with Timothy Brown

Darin Hayes
We have a great episode for you tonight. It's Tuesday and we have Timothy P. Brown of footballarcheology .com joining us to talk about another one of his tidbits on football history. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Timothy Brown
Hey Darin, look forward to chatting once again about the Rouge or the single.

Darin Hayes
Rouge or a single! We have some Canadian football terms coming at us that many of us Americans are not as familiar with as the Rouge is in a single, and maybe you know some of that explanation will come in here with your article that you wrote a little over a year ago I believe Rouge and two-point conversion was the title of it and boy we'd love to hear your tale.

Timothy Brown
Yeah. So, uh, following up on what you just said, I would encourage people to watch Canadian football. Um, I mean, I think it's a really fun brand of football, very talented athletes. And I give in arguments with some Canadian folks online from time to time; they are not as good as the NFL players. That's all there is to it. But they're supremely talented, you know, athletes, they're really, they're really good. And it's just a fun, open game. It has played in an atmosphere that, to me, feels more like a college atmosphere than a pro atmosphere than an NFL atmosphere, which means I like it. So

Darin Hayes
It's fun, and you get to see a lot more. There are a lot of Americans at play; I think they're allowed to have, like, one -one-third of their team or something.

Timothy Brown
They have, kind of.

Darin Hayes
Go for it, but I know just from my area, you know, we had a couple of, uh, I think, uh, Trevor Harris is still quarterback, he, he quarterbacked at Edinburgh or my Alma mater, which was a few miles from here and Jovan Johnson is originally from Erie. I officiated when he played, and he was a cornerback for multiple teams up there and had a successful Canadian career. So that's a great game; it's wide-open, with three downs and a lot of passing. So it's, it's fun.

Timothy Brown
Well, so what's interesting is that you mentioned the Americans playing there, and it's the fact that I wrote this tidbit in reaction to a mistake made by an American player playing in Canada. So he's relatively, you know, a rookie, and relatively, you know, his early season game may have even been a preseason game. But so, you know, in Canadian football, when the ball, when a live ball goes into your end zone, that you know, the end zone or the end zone that you are defending, you have to get that ball out of there. Or else, the opposing team scores a point, which is kind of similar to safety. But Canadian football doesn't have a touchback. You know, they have safeties. However, what we would consider a touchback is the Rouge or the single; they get one point instead of two. And so it's kind of a, now, there are other rule changes that help that, you know, they've got the five-yard circle around somebody catching a punt. They also still have the return kick, which you don't see that often. But American football had the return kick until the mid-60s; at least colleges did. The return kick is any time a team gets possession of a ball; it could be from a fumble, it could be an intercepted pass, but most often, it came on a punt return. If you caught the punt, you could turn around and immediately kick the ball back to the team that punted it because it was all just a field possession kind of thing. And it was all a remnant of rugby. And so American football got rid of it because people stopped using it. But, you know, Canadian football hung on to it. So anyways, one way to get the ball out of the end zone is to boot, you know, pump it out. So anyways, so, again, the Rouge or single is scored when a live ball goes into the end zone, on a punt kickoff, field goal attempt, extra play attempt, and you know, you're responsible for getting it out of the end zone. If it goes into the end zone, it rolls out of the sideline, then the Rouge is automatic, or the single is automatic. But so it's really, I mean if you think about it at the core, it's a way to reward a team for gaining favorable field position. I mean, that's really what it's about.

Darin Hayes
Now, just to make this clear, this does not apply to a fumble recovery or an interception in the end zone, correct? Just the kicking game?

Timothy Brown
Uh, no, it's it's possible. I'm showing my ignorance, but no, I think anytime the ball enters the end zone.

Darin Hayes
OK, all right.

Timothy Brown
So yeah, so it's possible, and I could be wrong about that, but you know, that's.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, I'm not sure either.

Timothy Brown
As I've watched that, you know, sometimes somebody asked me a question like that about Canada. It's like, I'm not sure. I got to look it up. But so, so then let's switch to two-point conversion, which is why I'm trying to make a connection here that, like, you could add the Rouge to American football. And Americans would say, No, you can't add the Rouge. That's silly. Do you know why we would add the Rouge? We don't need it. But, you know, back in 1959, Fritz Kreisler was on, you know, he was a coach, and then he was AD at Michigan for years. He had been on the rules committee, you know, for at least 15 years by that time. He had been pushing for American football or for college football to add a two-point conversion because he thought the extra-point kick was just boring. He thought playing football was the most boring thing. So he was trying to end, you know, there were too many tie games back then he had he had it. So, you know, he thought it made sense to add the two-point conversion. Now, the two-point conversion actually originated in American football with six-man football. Because what? It was kind of the opposite. So, the two-point conversion is supposed to be a reward for doing it the hard way, right? So, supposedly, running or passing the ball into the end zone is harder than kicking. And so, in six-man football, it was the opposite. If you kicked it, you got two points. If you ran or passed it, you got one point because that was supposed to be harder. You know, you just had fewer players, less skilled players, you know, you had to have somebody who could snap the ball, somebody who could hold it, and somebody who could kick it. So I guess that's three things you need. So anyway, Chrysler finally convinced everybody to add the two-point conversion in 1958. And here's the crazy thing. This is how much football has changed, at least the kicking side of things. So, if you want, here's a quiz for you. In 1958, what percentage of kicked conversions were good? Or, you know, we're. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that.

Darin Hayes
So, so kicked conversion percentage, successful kicks in a college game in 58. I don't know. I'd say 50%.

Timothy Brown
Well, that's a pretty good guess, 48.6. So, what was the two-point conversion percentage?

Darin Hayes
Uh, I'm going to say maybe 25%.

Timothy Brown
51 .8. Really? Yeah, so teams were able to convert the two points at a higher rate than the kicked extra point.

Darin Hayes
Now, were they going from the three-yard line back then or from the two-yard line?

Timothy Brown
I'm not sure. I think it was the three.

Darin Hayes
Three, OK.

Timothy Brown
But what it really points to is how bad kicking was. I mean, I think in the late 50s, there were times, like in the entirety of college football, when there were less than 100 field goals made, at least among what we'd consider divisional on-team sound. I mean, mostly, they just didn't attempt to kick field goals very often because to kick a field goal, you needed a snapper, you needed a holder, and you needed a kicker. And all of them had to be on the field. This is before a lot of open substitution. So they had to all be on the field when you scored, with limited exceptions. And there were times when teams would substitute. But so teams just sucked at the extra point conversions. And at field goals, so they didn't try them very often. So anyway, it's just one of those things that now with specialist long snappers, and typically, it's the punter that is your holder nowadays. And you've got specialist kickers who are also soccer-style kickers, which very few were in 1958. The game is just the kicking game in particular. It's just changed so dramatically since then. So I don't know; it's just part of the reason I think the two-point conversion is great. In part, the Rouge is great because it forces coaches to make decisions. There's a strategic element to it. It's like pinch-hitting in baseball. There's an element of coaches having to make a choice. Then, the players have to be able to execute it. And so if you get the American rookie, he doesn't understand; he's got to get all out of the end zone. Then, the best lead coaching plan sometimes just doesn't work out.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, it's interesting that you say, you know, the specialist of the long snapper. I had a conversation; I had the honor of talking to Craig Colquitt. He was a punter for the Steelers in the late seventies and won a couple of Super Bowls with them. His two sons have both recently won Super Bowls in the NFL. And he was telling me we were talking, and he was, you know, he being the punter, he was first the holder for Roy Gerella and Matt Barr during those Steelers teams we played. And I asked him, I said, well, who's your long snapper then? And Mike Webster, you know, the Hall of Fame center who he was the long snapper and the center. And we forget, you know, that's not that long ago, you know, 40 years ago, that those guys were staying on the field and even doing special teams snapping the ball, whereas today, that's unheard of. I don't think there's any starting center that is the long snapper. And that's just odd how that's changed.

Timothy Brown
Yeah, well, I mean, and so it's even so when, you know, when I was in grad school, I had a chance to coach a couple of different colleges. And, and we didn't, you know, this is like, the early to mid-80s, we didn't have long snappers, you know, it wasn't an offensive tackle, or, you know, whoever it was, you know, sometimes you had a fullback who had learned to snap in high school. And so he was a snapper. It wasn't like, you know, you didn't have extra guys do that. Yeah. And so, you know, it's just one of those things.

Darin Hayes
But you would think today, I mean, there's a lot more shotgun and pistol formations where they're, they're long snapping on regular scrimmage plays. So these centers are used to putting everything back there.

Timothy Brown
It's a whole different thing. Tossing on a short snap on a shotgun versus a long snap. Long snap, both for a place kick or for punts especially. That's a whole different animal.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, that's a funny thing.

Timothy Brown
It's really a specialized technique, so I'm glad these guys make money doing it.

Darin Hayes
Yeah, that's for sure. They're making a lot of money doing it.

Timothy Brown
Yeah. Give me the NFL minimum salary any time you want. I'll take it.

Darin Hayes
Right? Yeah, I don't believe.

Timothy Brown
a

Darin Hayes
They don't let middle-aged men go into a fella and snappy specialist anymore. Tom Brady was pretty much that.

Timothy Brown
and NFL history.

Darin Hayes
right. Go back to what was the guy who wrote paper lions when he went back. He was a little younger than us, I think, when he did it. But George, that's a George pumpkin. Tim, you know, fascinating stuff, a very enjoyable, very interesting. And, you know, thank you for that explanation and give us a little look at Canadian football but also talking about the history of our game, which is always fascinating. And you do a lot of this in your tidbits and some of your other posts on your website. And if you can share with the listeners how they can take a look at your stuff and maybe, you know, subscribe to it and become a regular reader. We appreciate that.

Timothy Brown
As you know, my site is footballarchaeology.com. It's a Substack site. And so you can just go there and subscribe. If you subscribe, there are free and paid versions. You'll get an email every time I send out a new story. Alternatively, you can follow me on Substack app on threads or on Twitter. So on Twitter, I, you know, I post, you know, or respond to other people who are talking football. So there's some benefit to that, at least if you think I have anything to say. But, you know, I don't, yeah, that's it. I don't; everything I post is about football.

Darin Hayes
OK, well Tim, we really appreciate you coming on here and sharing this information and sharing the knowledge and preserving football history and we'd love to talk to you again next week.

Timothy Brown
All right. Very good. Look forward to it. Thanks.

---

Join us as we delve into the fascinating tradition of handing out game balls in Gridiron football. We'll explore its origins, how it's evolved over time, and why it's become such a coveted symbol of victory. From legendary quarterbacks to surprise heroes, this video will uncover the stories behind the pigskin. So, buckle up and get ready to learn the history behind the iconic game ball!

Football Archaeology.com's Timothy Brown explains as he tells us about one of his recent Tidbits titled: A History of Game Balls

Here is a full transcript of the conversation with Tim Brown

Darin Hayes
It is Tuesday and football archaeology is on my mind. And we have the founder of that great website, Timothy P. Brown with us. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Timothy Brown
Hey, Darin, this should be an awarding podcast to participate in.

Darin Hayes
An awarding podcast? You're, segueing into our subject nicely, I think. And we're going to find out a little bit more of that. Your title of your tidbit that you had just a few months ago, or maybe a few weeks ago, is a history of game balls and a pretty broad topic. But it sounds like you have some direction for us on that.

Timothy Brown
Yeah. Well, so I took a very narrow view in this case of game, game balls, you know, more in terms of the awarding of the game ball, you know, the, the game ball being, you know, trophy value, you know, kind of a game ball. But, you know, I kind of started that article talking about, you know, for an NFL game, at least nowadays, there are 36 balls prepared to be part of the game. So 12 submitted from each team. And then I think each team also submits six kicking balls. Right. And so, or no, no, I'm sorry. The kicking balls come directly from Wilson because the league, you know, too many people are manipulating the kicking balls. And so they, they get those directly from the league. The teams do get a chance to like massage them and whatever beforehand. And if Tom Brady's playing, then four of them have to be at eight pounds. That's right. Well, so, you know, the inflate gate thing is a whole other story. Um, but so, but the game ball, one of the, one of the coolest things about, I published that article on March 29th. And since then, I have uncovered a whole other slew of information that tells me that I was wrong, or at least, you know, that I didn't find as early information as I thought I had. So at the time, I was saying, look, you know, that game balls, you know, that whole awarding of game balls at the time that I wrote it, as far as I could trace it back to was like 1882. No, 1886. When, you know, just, it was mentioned in an article about a Princeton commencement, you know, ceremony. And they were mentioning that the game ball from the game that they had played when they had beaten Yale was on the, like, the rostrum or whatever, you know, for the commencement. So it kind of tells you how important, you know, what the football game was to those guys. But so, you know, through, because of another path of research that I'm doing, I was trying to, trying to dig into, you know, what all is, you know, what all is going on, or, you know, kind of the background of game balls. And, and, and part of it was that, you know, for, for a long time, like from when American football began, and, you know, to my liking, it began in 1876 with the IFA, you know, the funding of the IFA, when, when American football first got started, they only used one ball per game. You know, that was it, you know, rain, shine, snow, sleet, whatever, they played with one ball. And those balls weren't anywhere near as, you know, the leather wasn't as well protected, etc, as, as they are now. So, you know, these balls get water logged. And in the days of drop kicking, you know, you drop it on the ground, and thing was barely bounced off, you know, so, but then as a forward pass came in, you know, into favor, then in 1917, they allowed the referee to decide on a wet day, if he would allow a second ball to be used for the second half. And then eventually, you know, things spread. But you know, so there was this whole thing of, you know, you played with one ball. And so then, this whole tradition developed around awarding or presenting the game ball to the victor. So, you know, back in the day, the home team provided the ball. And then, if they lost, you know, the right thing to do was to award the ball to the visiting victorious team, for them to then go home, go back and paint the score on it, or whatever, put in the trophy case, whatever they were going to do with it. And so, so that was the tradition, you know, for some time. And So then, you know, since then, I found out a couple of new things. So one was that I, you know, recently acquired a copy of a book called The Gilbert Story, which is a story of the Gilbert Firm, which is one of the two main oblors and rugby ball makers in Rugby England, where the primary provider of rugby football, you know, rugby balls for like the World Cup and, you know, those kinds of things. So anyways, I got a, you know, copy of their ball, and it goes back through the history. And they talk about at the rugby school, there was a tradition of having two balls available for each game, and they got switched at half. But then I got ahold of Tony Collins, who, you know, has been on this podcast. And if anybody hasn't heard that one, that is you know, a fabulous podcast to listen to, because of Tony. But in any event, and he, you know, he basically confirmed that, you know, that that rugby never really had the tradition of multiple game balls. So it was a rugby school thing, but it didn't spread to rugby more generally. You know, they didn't really have a one ball or two balls, they didn't really have a standard. So somehow in the Americas, this one ball tradition came about. And then it turns out that there was an earlier awarding of a game ball came about when, you know, I think most people are aware that Harvard played McGill in 1874 in a rugby match. And that is really what led to Harvard playing rugby, and which is what led to American football developing from rugby. Well, in 1875, maybe the second and 1876, there was an all Canada team that played three games against Harvard. And in one of those games, all Canada, they lost all three, all Canada lost all three to Harvard. In at least one of those games, they awarded the ball to Harvard. So that then becomes at least best as I can tell, so far, the first awarding of a game ball in at least the football tradition. But the fun thing about that is that, you know, there just weren't a lot of rugby balls paying around the US, because people weren't playing it. But you know, they were starting to make that transition. So, you know, the IFA meets in November 1876, and they agree to play rugby instead of, you know, whatever soccer and other games they're playing. And, and so the, the weekend after that meeting, Princeton was the home. team for a game against Yale, but they didn't have a rugby ball, and yet they were supposed to play under rugby rules. So somewhere in that whole process, Harvard gave Princeton this ball that all Canada had given them, and then Princeton loses, so they give the ball to Yale, and that ball now sits in a trophy case at Yale in their gymnasium. So, you know, it's just kind of cool that it's literally probably the first game played under the IFA rules, IFA rugby rules. So in my mind, it's the first real football game, and yet that ball is still around sitting in a trophy case at Yale, because it was the game ball. You know, so I just think it's just kind of a cool... you know, kind of the way this whole story ends up that the game ball tradition preceded American football, you know, because the Canadians are the ones that, you know, gave it to the, you know, started it as far as we're concerned. And, and that and yet that first ball is still around sitting in a trophy case at Yale. I just think that's, for me, there's something magical about that. You know, now that you say that you make something a tour of, I took a veil probably about 10 years ago, makes some sense because I got the had the opportunity to with my wife's cousin was assistant coach at Yale.

Darin Hayes
And I got to got to tour the Yale Bowl and the locker rooms and just see all the tradition and, you know, the Walter camp, sort of, I guess not really, it's a monument, I guess, it's what looks more like a facade to the White House from the White House. But I got to see that. But we also got to go through the gymnasium you're talking about with all the the halls of trophy. And it's a very great place. And I there's one ball that really stood out that just didn't look like a football at all. And very tattered old, you can tell. And I wish now I wish I would have took a photograph of it because that's probably that ball that you're talking about. Yeah, so I mean, let me describe the ball to you.

Timothy Brown
I've not seen it myself, but you know, I've images of it. So it's it is a classic melon ball. I mean, it is almost round. And there's a big silver plaque embedded into the ball now, with, you know, what basically tells the story of, hey, this is awarded by the all Canada team, we gave, you know, it went from Harvard to Princeton, Princeton, Yale, and now it sits here. So it's there's, I think, I think I put the link in, you know, I've added a postscript to the story on the website. And I think I think I have a link to it. Cause I found it on a site called, is it College Antiques? But anyways, there's a, another guy kind of lays, went through this whole thing, which is where I kind of picked up on this story. And then I found other stuff on it. But anyways, I think it's just a cool, yeah, a cool story. And to my knowledge, the oldest, the oldest existing ball in, in American football. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's an awesome story. And I didn't realize, you know, it went back that far of exchanging that game ball. Now, wasn't there sort of a, in that era and all the way up into the, maybe early 20th century, where teams didn't have but one ball? Cause I can, I could recollect there's a story, I think of the big game, Stanford and Cal, like a 1901 or 1902 game, where they forgot to bring that one ball to the game. The home team, the visiting team didn't even bring a game ball. It was the only, the home team had that one game ball. Yeah, you know, and I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember the story. And I think you're right about, you know, Cal Stanford. And so it was one of those things where like they they sent people into town to go get one, you know, and they couldn't find one. And the same thing happened with when McGill visited Harvard in 1874. They didn't bring a rugby ball. I guess they thought, you know, Harvard would have one, but they didn't. Harvard just had a round ball, so they played. They played the first game under Boston rules, which is somewhat rugby ish, because you could carry the ball. And then they played the second game under rugby rules, but they used a round ball. So. Yeah, and there's a whole other thread that I'm working on about. There was a thing called the American ball, which best as I can tell, is actually developed by Charles Goodyear. He probably built created the first one because he created vulcanized rubber. It was like a canvas ball that was kind of covered with vulcanized rubber can canvas ball that was inflated. I don't think it had a separate bladder. But so a lot of the round balls that people used in America in the 1860s and 70s were these American balls. So it may be even that the Harvard Princeton or the Harvard McGill game, they could have played with an American ball or and then also even like the Princeton Rutgers game or games in 1869. Those were played with a round ball. It could have been an American ball. And that's that's what everybody called the American ball. As compared to an association or soccer ball or a rugby ball. No, no, that that ball that Charles Goodyear invented. Was it the color of a black, you know, I've seen descriptions of it being red and then and also black. So could I sit there and I know I have an old book on Walter camp and it starts off as him as a boy playing, you know, he had a black rubber ball that he just kicked around the yard and, you know, kicked over his mother's clothes line into the clothes and everything. And that's how he, you know, trained to get become a football player eventually. And I wonder if maybe that was one of those Charles Goodyear balls, because that would have been right around the time frame. I think his rubber was in the late 1830s. So probably, I think 40s and 50s is probably the ball. His stuff, maybe a little bit later than that. But anyways, yeah, I think so. Basically, if it was leather covered, it is probably an association sort of ball. But even their balls were like, you know, it wasn't real. you know, they didn't agree on a certain ball until 1872. So, you know, things are kind of, you know, it's kind of whatever you could get your hands on, frankly, you know, back in the day. And they had all kinds of different sizes, you know, I mean, rugby, American in and association balls all came in like multiple sizes in like three inch increments. And so like, size number five had a 27 inch circumference. And so if you think about one of the most popular balls in American football has been that the J5V or and proceeding that was a J5. Well, that J was the model, the Spalding model was a J. And before that it was a lily white rugby ball from England called a J. And the number five was the 27 inch circumference. So that J5 name goes all the way back to the beginning. Okay. So as you said, the number five, I was going to ask you if it will respond to the J5. So I'm glad you cleared that up. Yeah, yeah. So the letter was the model. And the number was the size because they were selling size two, size three, size four, five, and six. So like a 33 inch, 30 and 33 inch balls were, you know, whatever. And I know they don't do footballs anymore size and I was like junior and whatever pro and whatever, you know, an FHS, but soccer balls still have their sizes on them. I know you have like my daughter when she was playing, used a four. And then I think the pros in high school and colleges are number five. So well, so it's the same. It's the same sequence. And, you know, there's still junior footballs because, you know, my kids played with them, but I don't remember it being, you know, a number based system for identifying them.

Darin Hayes
I think they just called it a junior, but, you know, whatever. Yeah, maybe they still use a numbering system. And I have a junior ball right here and I don't see a number on it I have a Wilson TD and I don't see a number on it. So it's just the Wilson TD Junior Yeah, so I mean, it's just one of those cool cool things about the old balls that you know Here's something that carried out from literally from the beginning that we see every day and never think about Oh, I they call it a J5. Well, that's why you know, yeah fascinating Great stuff The Tim you have great stuff like this, you know a lot on your website and your posts And maybe you could introduce the listeners who haven't heard or read your before How they can you take part in what you're writing?

Timothy Brown
yeah, so best thing to do is just go to Football Archaeology.com and You know find the site just subscribe you can subscribe for free You can there's a paid version as well. You can also follow me on Twitter And on threads and on the substack app. So, you know, you can find me on any of those four methods or just Go out and search the site whenever you want to

Darin Hayes
Great stuff as always we really appreciate it and it's really enlightening About the the ball, you know and some of the history of it and we really thank you for that and Love to talk to you again next week about some more great football history

Timothy Brown
Very good. Look forward to it. Thanks

---

In the fledgling days of professional football, long before the million-dollar contracts and Sunday night spotlights, there was the American Football League, a league that dared to challenge the dominance of the NFL. But within the AFL, there existed another layer of hopefuls – the redshirt freshmen, or in this case, the redshirt sophomores. These weren't the star players drafted with fanfare, but the grinders, the backups, the players fighting for a shot at gridiron glory. Today on the podcast, we dive into the archives to hear from the red-shirted renegades of the AFL, the men who toiled in the shadows, and the stories they have to tell about a league that dared to be different. So, buckle up and get ready for a journey into the forgotten trenches of the AFL, where dreams were chased one grueling practice session at a time.

Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology joins us again this week to educate us on another aspect of football. This week we chat about the a n event called the 1965 AFL Redshirt Draft, a group called LESTO and how they both may have been the stepping stones towards the modern NFL Combine.

-Transcription of the Red Shirted Players of the AFL with Timothy Brown

This is Darin Hayes of pigskindispatch.com. Welcome once again to the pig pen, your portal to positive football history. And it is Tuesday. And once again, we have a friendly visit from our friend Timothy Brown of football archaeology.

Tim, welcome back to the pig pen. What's your name again? Darren. Did you play a couple of games without the helmet on, Tim? You know, more than a few, more than a few.

Okay. All right. Hey, good.

It's good to be back, as always. All right. Well, let's get to the topic at hand.

And one of your tidbits really caught my eye from mid-October and it was on the American football league from the 1960s. And as a matter of fact, the 1965 AFL red shirt draft. And you talk about a couple things.

And one of them was the Lesto organization as well. And I'd like to see if maybe you could have some discussion on that tonight. Yeah.

So, you know, this is one of those where I think in order to kind of set up the 65 red shirt draft in the AFL, there's just a whole lot of history behind that. So I'm going to double back, you know, decades or so. And so, you know, so part of this is just like, I'm always scouring eBay and some other places for scores, postcards, images, books related to football history.

And, but I'm mostly, I'm not necessarily looking for like this great item. I'm mostly looking for some kind of item that provides some context, some information or an image that tells me something about football at a different time. And so one of the great sources is the Spalding's football guides, right? And so I've got like boatloads of those, both PDF versions that are out of copyright.

So you can get them for free. Then, the NCAA offers free ones from 2000 onwards. So I've got those and then I buy the books, you know, in between.

And so I never spent much money. I buy them. And so recently I was able to buy this 1965 AFL guide, similar to the old Spalding kind of guides.

So I bought it really not knowing what's going to be inside that thing. And so when I received it, I said 1965, but it was a 1967 guide, but it had information about the 65 draft. And anyway, so I'm, you know, leafing through the thing and here it says 1965 redshirt draft, which at that point I had never heard of before.

I am now familiar with the NFL, which has a future draft. And I understood what that was all about, but I hadn't heard the redshirt version. So, you know, what the AFL did was, and even, you know, going back into the NFL, back in 1925, the Bears signed Red Grange right after his season.

So the day after he completed his last game at Illinois, he was playing for the Bears and that violated the norms of the time. And so, you know, created all kinds of turmoil. So the NFL agreed, we're not going to draft any, or we're not going to sign anybody until their graduate, until their class has graduated.

Right. So you get to sign them for their senior season. And so everything was fine until about six when all of a sudden, what we now think of as the redshirt process came into being.

So a redshirt, and, you know, get four, you know, basically be in college for five years, but played in four, which then changed the dynamic of your signing, you know, your original class versus your graduating class. Right. So, so everything, nobody paid attention to it until like in the early sixties, I think it was, maybe it was late fifties.

NFL team started signing what they call the futures contract. So, a guy who redshirted would draft him in a normal draft order, just the normal draft. They'd sign them, or they draft him and basically stake a claim to a guy like Donnie Anderson or some top-notch junior who they knew they wouldn't be able to sign for another year because he was going to keep playing.

You know, he had another year of eligibility. The AFL, on the other hand, ended up doing what it said: instead of just having integrated with the normal draft, we're going to have a separate redshirt draft. So they drafted their normal guys, and then they drafted, then they had a separate draft of redshirts, right?

They could basically stake their claim to these players. But the other, you know, I mean, two other cool things about it was just one was that they, at the time in 65, the draft occurred on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. You know, now it's like April 23rd or some crazy date.

And, but it gets later every year, I think too. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's going to be in December pretty soon.

But back then, it was like, neither the NFL nor the AFL, because they were still rival leagues, wanted the other one to get ahead of each other. So they held it on the same day, right after the college season ended, so that, you know, if they had the chance to sign somebody the next day, they did it. So anyway, it's just one of those things we just it's not even part of our thinking anymore.

But with two rival leagues at a time who both had money, you know, it was a big deal. Yeah, so anyways, I mean, it's in this list just, you know, had a bunch of guys, most of them, I have no idea who they were. You know, maybe in 1966, I would have recognized their names, but not anymore.

But there were still, you know, there were a handful of really pretty top-notch guys, which I guess brings me to this whole Lescoe issue, right? So, you know, until about that time, each team scouted independently. So they'd each send their guys out, and some of them didn't do much scouting at all, and they were terrible at it. And others, you know, they were pretty proficient at it.

So send their guys out to the colleges, measure them, weigh them, time them, all that kind of stuff. And a couple of teams, the Lions, Eagles, and Bears, so Lescoe, or Lions, Eagles, and Steelers. So, you know, they combined their scouting resources or part of their scouting resources.

So that's where we get the word combine. They combined their early scouting resources, and it became more like those were the guys who went out and did all the preliminary work to evaluate who should even be considered. And then the serious examination of who's who, that, you know, came more, you know, that was left to more higher-end scouts within each individual team.

And then, you know, there were other combines that came together, and eventually, they all joined into the one combine, which we now know today, right? So yeah, that's kind of the origins of this future draft, which kind of existed around the same time as the combine got started. So all that, and it turned into the Underwear Olympics. That's commonly what they call it.

Yeah, I mean, it's really amazing. You know, I've written about this elsewhere, but there was, you know, there's been times like the Redskins, I think it was, they drafted the same guy two years in a row. He was a USC or Cal, you know, named Russo.

But, you know, a lot of these teams, they would just draft guys based off of what they read in the newspaper, or like, not the Street and Smith's, but you know, some version of that of their time. And they drafted this guy, and he was a junior. So he wasn't eligible for the draft, but they used a first-round draft on the guy.

So then they draft him the second, the next year. He says I don't want to play NFL. I'm joining the Navy.

I mean, it's just the level of scouting and insight. I mean, so much of it was just based on, hey, I've got this buddy who's a coach out at Pacific Lutheran or Texas A&M, whatever school, and he says this kid's a player. So you trusted that, rather than like on-site physical evaluations.

And, you know, then you had Paul Brown bringing the 40-yard dash and, you know, to really more technical evaluations and cone drills and all that kind of stuff. So, I mean, it's just, it's a different world. Yeah.

It's, it's interesting when you, when they publish some of them, like the radial charts that they have on these guys where they have, you know, radial charts, sort of a round chart and the points go out in different directions, almost like a clock. And you see where these guys are rating on it. And it's, I mean, really kind of a unique monitoring and calibrating system to try to judge a player's proficiency.

It's kind of a cool thing. So, yeah. Well, you know, one thing I commented out in the little article about the redshirt draft is that the heaviest player in the redshirt draft was 270 pounds, you know, and, you know, that's just kind of unimaginable today, you know, because, you know, that 270 isn't going to get you very far on a defensive line or especially an offensive line.

But back then that, you know, that was a huge man because very few teams did any lifting at all. Right. Yeah.

So it's amazing. We were just talking to Os Davis, who's a fellow podcaster. We were doing a program on the 1924 game with the University of Chicago and with Illinois, including when and how Chicago was going to defend Red Grange.

And he was Alonzo Stagg, and he was going to put two of his biggest guys at him. And one guy was 199 pounds, and the other guy was like 204 pounds. And that was how they were going to stop range.

That's just amazing how, you know, mankind is sort of grown, and through nutrition and exercise and genetics and the size of people we have playing football today, It's amazing. Yeah.

And I mean, a lot of it is also just, you know, kind of a selection process and the different techniques, you know, if, if you, you know, when teams played when you play single platoon, there's a way you could have 300-pound people, you know, I mean, half the guys in the NFL could not survive in that game because they just, they're too big. They're too heavy. They're not; they're not in shape.

And so, I mean, even like you look at rugby, international rugby players, top-end athletes, and the biggest guys by, you know, huge guys in that sport are 270, you know, and they're kept, but they look more like a tight end, the end, you know, sort of guys, not like offensive tackles, right. Because they got to run the whole game. Right.

So, you know, but anyways, I mean, it's, I mean, take nothing away from the athleticism of, of an NFL offensive tackle, you know, but it's just, it's a selection process. It is not; it's enabled by the rules that are in place today, not the rules that were in place in the 1940s or twenties or whatever. Well, definitely some fascinating stuff.

And we really appreciate you digging into that. It's a little bit more modern than what we've, we've talked to you about before being in the sixties, but back and think about how long ago the sixties was. It's a kind of shocking time period that I was alive in, but don't remember much, but I was alive.

Tim, why don't you, while we're talking about your tidbits, why don't you give us, the listeners, an idea of how they can enjoy your tidbits on a daily basis? Yeah. So, I mean, if you're interested in listening, then subscribe to this podcast. If you're interested in reading, then, you know, I'm at footballarchaeology.com. You can find me there.

It's, it's a Substack, you know, application and you can, at least for now, find me on Twitter. We'll see what happens in the long-term with her. But anyways, for now, I'm on Twitter, but I don't know the same name, footballarchaeology.com. And so however you prefer to consume, have at it.

All right, Tim Brown, footballarchaeology.com. Folks, we have that information on the show notes of this podcast. So you, if you can't get to a pencil and write it down right now, it's not convenient. Don't worry.

Come back and check out the show notes or go to pigskindispatch.com or footballarchaeology.com and you'll find out how to join that. Tim Brown, thank you very much. And we'll talk to you again next week.

Hey, thank you again, Darin. Thank you.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.