Most football historians agree that the first organized football game took
place on November 6, 1869, when teams from Rutgers and Princeton
universities met in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In the early games, each
team used 25 players at a time. By 1873 the number was reduced to 20
players, and by 1876 it was further reduced to 15 players. In 1880 Yale
coach Walter Camp set the number at 11 players. He also created the
quarterback position and the system of downs.
In the early 1900s college football games were popular sports spectacles,
but the professional game attracted limited public support. College games
were extremely rough, and many injuries and some deaths occurred.
Educators considered dropping the sport despite its popularity on
campuses, and United States president Theodore Roosevelt, an ardent
advocate of strenuous sports, declared that the game must be made safer.
As a result, football authorities revamped the game, and many of the
rougher tactics were outlawed.
College coaches such as Amos Alonzo Stagg, Pop Warner, Bob Zuppke, and
Knute Rockne developed many of the early offensive techniques and play
formations. Following very few historical precedents, these men invented
unique strategies that changed the nature of football forever.
Stagg was instrumental in developing the between-the-legs snap from center
to quarterback, the player in motion in the backfield before the snap of
the ball, the onsides kick, the early T-formation, and many other
innovations. In 1906 Warner unbalanced his line, placing four players on
one side of the center and two on the other side, while shifting the
backfield into a wing formation. The quarterback functioned as a blocker,
set close behind the line and a yard wide of the center. At the same
depth, but outside the line, was the wingback. Deep in the backfield was
the tailback, who received most of the snaps, and in front and to the side
was the fullback. This formation became known as the single-wing, and it
remained football’s basic formation until the 1940s.
Coach Zuppke ran single- and double-wing formations at the University of
Illinois, often sending four or five receivers downfield in pass patterns.
At Notre Dame in 1923 and 1924, Rockne instituted his famous Four Horsemen
offense. Rockne set up the backs in a four-square, box alignment on one
side. Then, in what was called the Notre Dame Shift, the backs would shift
out of the box and into a single or double wing. |
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