Timothy P. Brown's Blog, page 70
July 11, 2023
Today's Tidbit... Setting New Standards For Goal Posts
A few days ago, I wrote about college football's adoption of the two-point conversion in 1958. In that article, I mentioned that college football increased the width of its goal posts in 1959 from 18 feet 6 inches to 24 feet 4 inches, which led to a reduced use of the two-point conversion. However, as often happens when researching a particular topic, the research on two-point conversions uncovered information about alternatives the rule makers considered other than widening the goal posts.
A pre...
Tony Collins: The Emergence of Rugby and Gridiron Football
TODAY’S PODCAST IS A MUST LISTEN!
Tuesdays normally bring an episode of the Pigskin Dispatch podcast in which Darin Hayes and I discuss a recent TidBit. Today’s episode is different, featuring a conversation Darin and I have with Tony Collins, a social historian and emeritus professor of history at De Montfort University in the UK.
Tony is the world's foremost authority on the emergence of the world’s football codes (rugby union, rugby league, soccer, gridiron football, and others) in the 19th cen...
July 10, 2023
Today's Tidbit... Carriages and Cars Along The Sideline
Last year I wrote about the days when cars lined the sidelines at football fields until stadiums grew larger, eventually encircling the fields. Initially, football fields did not have stands, or the stands were only on one side, so fans stood on the other sideline and at the end of the fields. Well-controlled locations kept fans behind ropes or in their cars, with the local constables enforcing those rules. Of course, before fans watched games from automobiles, they did so from within or atop ca...
July 9, 2023
Today's Tidbit... The Carlisle Globetrotters
College football remains a predominantly regional game despite the geographic barriers breaking down in recent years. The major conferences have geographic cores; with limited exceptions, teams at lower levels play in conferences covering one or a few bordering states. Travel time and costs have driven the game's geographical orientation since the beginning and continue to do so today.
Those teams that traveled outside their region in football's early days typically made one trip every few years,...
July 8, 2023
The Rouge and the Two-Point Conversion
It may be the social media circles I ride in, but I've enjoyed the attention received by Saskatchewan earning a rouge in Thursday's game and the potential rouge in Friday's Winnipeg-Calgary game. Canadian football does not have touchbacks. Downing the ball or being tackled in the end zone following an opponent's kick results in a rouge or single, which scores one point for the opponent; it is akin to a safety. (Punting or kicking the ball into the opponent's end zone that then goes out of bounds...
July 7, 2023
Today's Tidbit... 1876 IFA Rule #38: Change Goals
This is #37 in a series covering football's original 61 rules adopted by the Intercollegiate Football Association in 1876. We review one rule each Friday.
(Robinson, Rugby Football, 1896)The IFA's original rules had teams switch directions following each made goal, though they could ignore the rule based on the prior agreement of the captains.
Rule 38: The sides shall change goals as often as and whenever a goal is obtained, unless it has otherwise been agreed by the captains before the commenceme...
July 6, 2023
Today's Tidbit... Two-Day Football Games
Football does not do weather cancellations. As they say, neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night stays these mighty ballcarriers from the swift completion of their appointed runs. However, football games are delayed occasionally due to scheduling conflicts, lightning, faulty lighting systems, or other issues that cause games to stretch across two days.
The idea for an article on two-day games came from a reader, Aaron Cromer, who read the story about St. Mary's of Kansas and the dispute result...
July 5, 2023
Sideline Plays and How We See the Past and Future
Studying history helps us understand that each of us understands the world through a unique perspective that results from the time and place we were born, educated, and all our life experiences. For example, as someone living in 2023, it isn't easy to see the world through the eyes of someone living in the 1920s and 1930s because we bring a worldview informed by the events of the last 100 or 90 years. Likewise, try as they might, those living in the 1920s and 1930s struggled to see the future, r...
July 4, 2023
Today's Tidbit... Fourth Of July Football In 1895 Butte
From football's beginning in America's Eastern colleges, the game was played almost exclusively in the fall. Only on the West Coast and in the Rockies did 19th-century teams play football at other times of the year, with some playing football year-round.
One team that played year-round at times was the Butte Football Club Miners, who primarily played West Coast club teams and college and club teams from west of the Mississippi. One of their games, a contest against the Omaha YMCA team, was part o...
Pigskin Dispatch Podcast: Before Pass Interference
Pigskin Dispatch podcaster Darin Hayes and I discussed a recent TidBit about football before the game recognized the need for the pass interference penalty and the evolution of the early pass interference rules.
Click here to listen to what happened, or subscribe to Pigskin Dispatch wherever you get your podcasts.
Here’s the original Tidbit:
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