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We Trace How Early Techniques Changed Modern Kickoff Rules · Sports History Network

• 1:43
  You know, I mean, we don't always think about.
• 1:45
  Well, why do we have this rule that requires a kicking team to kick at 10 yards?
• 1:49
  Well, that's why the flying wedge is the reason why.
• 1:54
  Hello, my football friends.
• 1:54
  This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.
• 1:59
  And welcome to another Tuesday where we get to visit with our good friend Timothy Brown@footballarchaeology.com Tim.
• 2:06
  Welcome back to the Pig Pen,.
• 2:08
  Darren.
• 2:08
  Look forward to chatting.
• 2:09
  And I hope this episode doesn't create a wedge between the two of us.
• 2:14
  I.
• 2:15
  I hope it doesn't too, because I.
• 2:16
  I got some of those wedges when I was in high school and they locked me in the locker room.
• 2:20
  Freshman.
• 2:21
  Oh, oh, you're talking about a different kind of wedge.
• 2:22
  Okay, okay.
• 2:24
  Yeah, those are wedgies.
• 2:25
  Oh, okay.
• 2:27
  Well, not when you're stuck in a locker with one, I can tell you that.
• 2:33
  Anyway, Tim, we're really going off topic here to segue into this one, it's a tidbit that you wrote a while ago, and.
• 2:40
  And I'm kind of mad at myself.
• 2:41
  I haven't had asked you to talk about it before, but we're going to talk about today.
• 2:44
  You titled it Shooting down the Flying Wedge.
• 2:47
  What can you tell us about this story?
• 2:50
  Yeah, so flying wedge is really, you know, it's.
• 2:57
  It's a really interesting aspect of football, and it was really one of the first slay designs to be outlawed, you know, as a safety measure.
• 3:09
  And so the thing you got to recognize with the flying wedge was that back in the early 1890s and prior to that, the team that was kicking off could kick it down the field, but more often what they
• 3:27
  would do is they would dribble kick it.
• 3:31
  So, you know, you think about, like the start of a soccer game today, one guy just kicks it a foot or two and to somebody, to his teammate, and then that teammate starts to play.
• 3:41
  Right.
• 3:44
  So football is basically the same thing.
• 3:46
  One guy would kick it like two feet and a teammate would pick it up and start running with it.
• 3:53
  Now, the problem with that was that, you know, he's running there by himself and he's got nobody blocking for him.
• 3:57
  So this guy, Lauren DeLand, who was a coach and mostly kind of a play designer for Harvard, he came, he kind of borrowed some ideas from the V trick, which I think the V trick was Princeton's play.
• 4:14
  Princeton or Yale, but one of the two.
• 4:18
  But so what he did was he said, okay, instead of just Letting this guy pick up the ball and run with it.
• 4:24
  What we're going to do is we're going to will dribble kick it, one of the guys will pick up the ball.
• 4:31
  But prior to that kick, we're gonna set up two lines of like, like four guys on one side and five on the other.
• 4:41
  And they're gonna start running forward, basically meet right near where the kick is occurring.
• 4:48
  And then they basically create a.
• 4:52
  Like a phalanx.
• 4:54
  Felix.
• 4:55
  Felix, whatever.
• 4:56
  However you pronounce it.
• 4:57
  But you know, like a.
• 4:59
  They create kind of an arrow or a.
• 5:01
  Roman legion type.
• 5:03
  Yes.
• 5:03
  Yeah.
• 5:04
  Defensive position.
• 5:06
  And.
• 5:07
  And then, you know, so one guy would pick up the ball and, you know, run, you know, along with those guys.
• 5:13
  And, you know, he'd have, you know, eight, nine guys, you know, running interference or blocking for him.
• 5:21
  And so it worked.
• 5:24
  I mean, it was.
• 5:25
  It was really effective, but it also just was dangerous because you'd have these, you know, I mean, then everybody started.
• 5:33
  They did it like at the end of the 1990, 1892 season.
• 5:38
  So they did it again in 93 and then.
• 5:44
  But like, people are getting injured because, you know, these guys are running full speed.
• 5:48
  And then you'd have like one guy try to get in front of the wedge and, you know, break it up and they just get trampled.
• 5:56
  So that was when.
• 5:59
  So then they said, okay, how do we stop this play?
• 6:03
  And so rather than outlawing the wedge itself, which is what I call a direct rule, where you say you can't do that, you know, you can't hit a guy.
• 6:16
  Like targeting.
• 6:17
  You can't hit a guy.
• 6:18
  You can't lead with your helmet and hit a guy in the head.
• 6:23
  They use the indirect approach.
• 6:25
  And they said the kicking team has to kick the ball at least 10 yards before they can recover it.
• 6:33
  So our rule that requires the kicking team to kick the ball 10 yards comes from.
• 6:41
  That was their way of disabling the flying wedge.
• 6:46
  Right.
• 6:46
  Because it made no sense to have that whole thing go on if you're.
• 6:49
  If they have to kick it at least 10 yards anyways, because now you're not assured of getting the ball.
• 6:56
  Now, I guess when, when they were doing this before that rule where the teams like, was there like a 10 yard neutral zone or were they right up against each other, just like scrimmage?
• 7:05
  Yeah, so.
• 7:06
  So they still had to be.
• 7:08
  They had to be 10 yards back because that was, you know, 10 yards has been kind of the typical situation when there's a free kick, you know, the, the restraining line.
• 7:23
  You know, if you look at the old rule books, they talk about the restraining line and you know, the punt out had that same kind of thing.
• 7:29
  I mean, you know, fair catches, there was a restraining line, you know, 10 yard restraining line, you know, things, things like that.
• 7:37
  So, so yeah, they had to be 10 yards back, but you know, depending on whether they thought they were going to kick it deep or not, you know, if you, for a long time.
• 7:46
  And then even after this rule, if you look at the kick return formations, very commonly there'd be one guy like up at the, you know, so if it was, you know, back then they were kicking from, from midfield,
• 8:01
  the 55 yard line, but you know, there'd be one guy 10 yards away and then everybody else would be further back because then they could form a wedge, right?
• 8:10
  If you kick the deep, the guys who are deep could form a wedge to run it back at the kicking team, which is one of the reasons why they didn't always kick it.
• 8:21
  Right.
• 8:24
  So again, you know, it's just one of those really basic, you know, I mean, we don't always think about, well, why do we have this rule that requires a kicking team to kick at 10 yards?
• 8:33
  Well, that's why the flying wedge is the reason why.
• 8:38
  But, but like I said, okay, so then once they, once they had to kick at 10 yards, then generally teams would try to kick it as far downfield as they could.
• 8:48
  So then the return teams oftentimes would have the one guy sitting there and then everybody else would be back there and they'd form up and they formed flying wedges coming back the other way, or at least wedges where
• 9:02
  they're interlocking arms, you know, so the blockers are interlocking arms as they're running forward and then the guy with the ball is coming behind him.
• 9:10
  So that went on and same kind of thing.
• 9:13
  A tremendous number of injuries as a result of that play.
• 9:17
  So in 1910 and kind of the whole series of safety orient oriented rules that football instituted, 1910 is when they stopped, you could no longer push or pull a guy, a guy on your team.
• 9:35
  So, you know, if the running backs in the line, you couldn't have the guard or tackle come behind him and push him from behind, right?
• 9:44
  I mean, now we've got the tush push thing back.
• 9:46
  But that was gone from football for a long time.
• 9:51
  And then they also blocked the ban, the interlocking arms.
• 9:56
  So then once they banned the interlocking arms, then teams would still run wedges.
• 10:04
  I mean, I remember in college we were still on kick return, we were still running wedges.
• 10:10
  We just weren't interlocking arms.
• 10:12
  So.
• 10:14
  So, you know, what you do is.
• 10:17
  So in order to limit the wedges, in 1932, they instituted a rule that said you have to have five.
• 10:26
  The return team has to have five yard, five players between.
• 10:32
  That time that it was between the 50 and the 40.
• 10:36
  Right.
• 10:36
  So 10 yards back from between 10 and 15 yards from the kicker.
• 10:41
  So you had to have five guys in there because that would limit the ability to form wedges.
• 10:48
  And I think that's still the rule.
• 10:49
  I know at the high school level, you have to have five within five yards of the restraining line.
• 10:53
  Yeah, yeah, that's still the rule.
• 10:55
  But then they've.
• 10:55
  They've taken that further and at least NCAA, you could not have more than three guys form a wedge as of 2012.
• 11:08
  And in 2019, no two guys can come together on a.
• 11:15
  On the return.
• 11:16
  So basically all wedge type, you know, so those were direct rules.
• 11:23
  Right.
• 11:24
  So because they said you can't do this.
• 11:26
  You can't form a wedge.
• 11:27
  You can't have two blockers next to one another on a kick return.
• 11:33
  So anyways, you know, again, it's just that whole thing, you know, if you think about a kick today, the reason you, you know, you can't.
• 11:43
  You got to kick at 10 yards.
• 11:47
  The return team have to have five guys, and they can't form any kind of wedge.
• 11:52
  And that's all, you know, ultimately a consequence of, you know, trying to.
• 11:57
  Trying to eliminate those kinds of dangerous plays that originated back in 1892.
• 12:03
  Yeah, so some fascinating stuff.
• 12:05
  You know, a couple things to think about.
• 12:07
  You know, so you talk about Coach Deal and.
• 12:09
  Or, you know, the innovation he did with creating that wedge.
• 12:12
  Now he created that wedge basically to combat, you know, the two rivals of Princeton and Yale.
• 12:19
  And, you know, Walter Camp was at Yale about the same era, and those two are bitter rivals, plotting against each other like crazy.
• 12:27
  And then they wrote one of maybe the most famous books in, you know, antiquated football history together.
• 12:34
  So I thought that's kind of interesting.
• 12:36
  Yeah, yeah.
• 12:38
  I mean, it's amazing.
• 12:38
  Yes.
• 12:39
  I mean, another one like that was Harry Williams at Minnesota and Stag at Chicago.
• 12:44
  Bitter Rivals.
• 12:46
  They were both Yalies, you know,.
• 12:48
  But.
• 12:48
  They were bitter rivals and they played one another all the time.
• 12:51
  And yet they, you know, they wrote a book together too, you know, so.
• 12:55
  Yeah.
• 12:56
  You know, which you probably wouldn't see a whole lot today.
• 13:00
  Yeah, I can't see, you know, I can't Think of two coaches that dislike each other like that anymore, but like Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh, I don't see them writing a book together or anything like that.
• 13:11
  You know, that's kind of crazy stuff.
• 13:14
  So.
• 13:14
  Yeah, but, you know, that's a fascinating piece of football history and it was like the major thing of early football when that flying wedge came out.
• 13:22
  It was the.
• 13:23
  That was the cat's meow for football.
• 13:25
  And everybody was trying to replicate it and it was successful and we still read about it and, and see quite a bit of rules that came of that that are still in today's game.
• 13:35
  And you give it an original story, you tell us why those are, which is great stuff and it helps us appreciate the game more.
• 13:42
  You do this a lot in your tidbits and maybe you could share with FOL where they can catch some of these and read up on some of these things that you've written.
• 13:50
  Yep.
• 13:51
  Just go to footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site, so if you sign up or subscribe, you'll get an email.
• 13:59
  Every time that I publish a new story, which typically is a few times a week, and included in that is the, you know, I send out a.
• 14:06
  A notice that these stories or these, you know, YouTube stories and everything have been published, you know, with the links and beyond that, you know, I've got five books out there on, are available that you can find out
• 14:23
  there on Amazon or the Internet.
• 14:24
  And then I'm working on number six, but won't be available by Christmas, unfortunately.
• 14:31
  So.
• 14:32
  All right.
• 14:33
  Yeah, well, we'll wait.
• 14:34
  We'll wait for it.
• 14:35
  Good things come to those who wait.
• 14:37
  So we're appreciating you putting the effort in it and getting it right and making it another great read.
• 14:42
  So thank you for joining us here, Tim, and thank for preserving our football history and we'd love to talk to you again next week.
• 14:49
  Very good.
• 14:49
  Thank you.
• 14:50
  And likewise,.
• 14:52
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• 14:54
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• 14:59
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• 15:11
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• 15:33
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• 15:38
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