Football History

I’m a sucker for oddball pieces of player equipment that one person or another developed along the way, and the more quickly the equipment died out, the better. Facial and eye protection is among football’s richest veins for oddball equipment. The nose guards of the 1890s and 1910s led to executioner’s masks in the 1920s, and birdcage face masks in the 1930s, and a proliferation of Lucite and rubber-covered metal masks in the 1950s. — www.footballarchaeology.com

A Tidbit published a few days ago described how American football transitioned between 1906 and 1912 from requiring teams to gain five yards in three downs to ten yards in four downs. Some prominent coaches argued that teams should gain eight or fifteen yards in four downs, but they adopted the four downs to gain ten yards approach, which remains the rule today. — www.footballarchaeology.com

The legend says that Bronco Nagurski threw the first jump pass in the 1932 NFL Championship game when he had the ball in his backfield, began running forward, and suddenly jumped straight up and threw the ball to a teammate a bit downfield. The Bears’ opponents, the Portsmouth Spartans, protested the play, arguing that Nagurski had thrown the pass from within five yards of the line of scrimmage, which was illegal then. — www.footballarchaeology.com

It is often claimed that Pop Warner’s Carlisle Indians executed the first hidden ball trick against Harvard in 1903, but that claim is wrong several times over. During the 1903 game, the last game played on Harvard’s Soldiers’ Field with the nearly-finished Harvard Stadium looming in the background, Carlisle came close to upsetting the Crimson, as the Bostonians won 12-11. — www.footballarchaeology.com

Football’s early quarterbacks aligned directly behind the center or slightly offset to receive the snap as the ball rolled or bounced back after the center snapped the ball with his foot. Since the player receiving the snap -typically the quarterback- could not run with the ball, he quickly tossed or handed it to a teammate. — www.footballarchaeology.com

Football teams practice four, five, or more times more often than they play games, so the methods and equipment used in practice are vital parts of the game’s history. Today we review an eight-page catalog released by Premier Products in 1966 that touts their blocking sleds, dummies, and a few miscellaneous items. — www.footballarchaeology.com

Every football fan today is familiar with the pick six, a term that came into use in the early 2000s after an NFL analyst found that teams returning interceptions for touchdowns won 77% of those games. Many also recall Auburn’s Kick-Six, when Chris Davis returned a missed Alabama field goal attempt 109 yards to win the 2013 Iron Bowl. — www.footballarchaeology.com

It isn’t easy to get things right on the first go-around, as shown when the forward pass became legal in 1906. The rules heavily restricted the forward pass, and the game lacked proven throwing, catching, and route-running techniques we now consider obvious. Also missing were rules concerning pass interference. — www.footballarchaeology.com

We have been on a recent kick looking at the rules affecting which team boots the ball to start the game or second half, and today we get to review another oddball kicking rule. A story from a few days ago described the NCAA rule that gave the team scored upon the option to kick or receive — www.footballarchaeology.com

Frank Hinkey played end for Yale from 1891 to 1894, earning All-American status all four years. Slight of build, Hinkey was a ferocious competitor and hitter, becoming the game’s premier shutdown end nearly one century before shutdown corners came into vogue. — www.footballarchaeology.com