The start of offensive line play

The introduction of the scrimmage line as stated in the book, The History of American Football, Its Great Teams, Players, and Coaches (Danzig, 1956), established the principle of possession of the ball, a tremendously important principle that, more than anything else, differentiates rugby from American football. When in 1880, a new rule is formed stating at least eleven players on a side and a scrimmage line established; the latter change eliminated the rugby scrum and aligned the teams on either side of the ball.

Parke Davis wrote of the significance of this change in the 1926 Football Guide. He said, “The most important incident in the evolution of the game in the late eighteen seventies was the introduction of the modem scrimmage in the place of the rugby ‘scrum’”(p. 15). The tacticians of the period perceived the vast improvement which could be obtained if a method were established of putting the ball in play that it would give to one side its undisturbed possession and thereby permit a strategic and tactical possession and thereby permit a strategic and tactical preparation to advance it (Davis 1926).

In 1888 the rules committee established two rules categories which governed how players could block and advance the football: (1) helping runner and using body; and (2) use of hands and arms. These two categories as found in the N.C.A.A. handbook have remained unchanged since 1888 to the present day. In 1888, the rules stated that blocking with extended arms prohibited and holding on offense constitutes loss of ball to opponent.