A Little History of American Style Football

Advancing a ball while being opposed by a team working to advance that ball in the opposite direction goes back a long way. According to legend, the first time this took place Britain was after the defeat of a Danish Prince. After decapitating the Prince, they decided to kick around his head.

A stylized version of this celebration became Mob football. By the 8th century, a good portion of the British Isles were playing it.

The aptly named “mob football” had an indeterminate number of players, almost no rules, and wasn’t even played on a field. Hundreds of players, usually members of two neighboring villages, would attempt to get the ball into the designated area by any means necessary during matches that could last all day.

The most well preserved version of mob football is probably Calcio Storico “historic football” played annually in Florance Italy. In Calcio Storico two teams of 27 players head-butt, punch, elbow, and basically bare knuckle brawl the opposition while trying to score. Due to often fatal injuries, sucker punches and kicks to the head are now banned.  Also, all the fighting must be one on one. It is against the rules for more than one player to attack an opponent.

For the rest of the world, more rules against outright violence were enacted and the game took different forms depending on the rules. A version of mob football was played at American colleges in the 1800’s with schools choosing from a grab bag of rugby-style rules depending on their preference. On November 6, 1869, players from Princeton and Rutgers held the first intercollegiate football game in New Brunswick, New Jersey, playing a soccer-style game with rules adapted from the London Football Association. In order to make traveling to other colleges to play worthwhile, a more widely agreed upon set of rules was required.  That void was filled by a guy named Walter Camp.

As a Yale undergraduate and medical student from 1876 to 1881, Camp played halfback and served as team captain, equivalent to head coach at the time. Even more importantly, he was the guiding force on the rules board of the newly formed Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA).

Thanks to Camp, the IFA made two key innovations to the fledgling game: It did away with the opening “scrummage” or “scrum” and introduced the requirement that a team give up the ball after failing to move down the field a specified yardage in a certain number of “downs.” Among the other innovations Camp introduced were the 11-man team, the quarterback position, the line of scrimmage, offensive signal-calling and the scoring scale used in football today. In addition to his work with the rules board, Camp coached the Yale team to a 67-2 record from 1888 to 1892—all while working as an executive at a watch-manufacturing firm.

GO BIRDS!