Post by Coach Campbell on Jul 10, 2013 15:10:45 GMT
American and Canadian football The Passing Game
In American and Canadian football, a forward pass—usually referred to simply as a pass—consists of one offensive player throwing the football towards another downfield in the direction of the opponent's goal line. This is permitted only once during a scrimmage down by the offensive team before team possession has changed, provided the pass is thrown from in or behind the neutral zone. An illegal forward pass incurs a five-yard penalty and the loss of a down, although it may be legally intercepted by the defense and advanced.
If an eligible receiver on the passing team legally catches the ball it is a complete pass and the receiver may attempt to advance the ball. If an opposing player legally catches the ball (all defensive players are eligible receivers) it is an interception. That player's team immediately gains possession of the ball and he may attempt to advance the ball toward his opponent's goal. If no player is able to legally catch the ball it is an incomplete pass and the ball becomes dead the moment it touches the ground. It will then be returned to the original line of scrimmage for the next down. If any player interferes with an eligible receiver's ability to catch the ball it is pass interference which draws a penalty of varying degree (largely depending upon the particular league's rules).
The person passing the ball must be a member of the offensive team, and the recipient of the forward pass must be an eligible receiver and must touch the passed ball before any ineligible player.
The moment that a forward pass begins is important to the game. The pass begins the moment the passer's arm begins to move forward. If the passer drops the ball before this moment it is a fumble and therefore a loose ball. In this case anybody can gain possession of the ball before or after it touches the ground. If the passer drops the ball while his arm is moving forward it is an incomplete pass (unless someone catches the ball before it hits the ground in which case it is a completed pass or an interception).
The quarterback generally either starts a few paces behind the line of scrimmage or drops back a few paces as the ball is snapped. This places him in an area called the "pocket" which is a protective region formed by the offensive blockers up front and between the tackles on each side. A quarterback who runs out of this pocket is said to be scrambling. Under NFL and NCAA rules, once the quarterback moves out of the pocket, and there is no good option for a forward pass, the ball may be legally thrown away to prevent a sack. NFHS (high school) rules do not allow for a passer to intentionally throw an incomplete forward pass to save loss of yardage or conserve time, except for a spike to conserve time after a hand to hand snap. If he throws the ball away while still in the pocket then a foul called "intentional grounding" is assessed. In Canadian football the passer must simply throw the ball across the line of scrimmage—whether he is inside or outside of the "pocket"—to avoid the foul of "intentionally grounding".
If a forward pass is caught near a sideline or endline it is a complete pass (or an interception) only if a receiver catches the ball in bounds. For a pass to be ruled in bounds, the receiver's feet must be in contact with the in bounds portion of the playing field, or, if the ball is caught in the air, either one or two feet must touch the ground within the field boundaries, after the ball is caught. In the NFL the receiver must touch the ground with both feet, but in most other codes—CFL, NCAA and high school—one foot in bounds is enough.
Common to all gridiron codes is the notion of control—a receiver must demonstrate control of the ball in order to be ruled in possession of it, while still in bounds, as defined by his code. If the receiver catches the ball but the official determines that he was still "bobbling" it prior to the end of the play, then the pass will be ruled incomplete.
History
Early illegal and experimental passes
The forward pass had been attempted at least 30 years before the play was actually made legal. Passes "had been carried out successfully but illegally several times, including the 1876 Yale—Princeton game in which Yale's Walter Camp threw forward to teammate Oliver Thompson as he was being tackled. Princeton's protest, one account said, went for naught when the referee 'tossed a coin to make his decision and allowed the touchdown to stand' ".
The University of North Carolina used the forward pass in an 1895 game against the University of Georgia. However, the play was still illegal at the time. Bob Quincy stakes Carolina's claim in his 1973 book They Made the Bell Tower Chime:
John Heisman, namesake of the Heisman Trophy, wrote 30 years later that, indeed, the Tar Heels had given birth to the forward pass against the Bulldogs (UGA). It was conceived to break a scoreless deadlock and give UNC a 6—0 win. The Carolinians were in a punting situation and a Georgia rush seemed destined to block the ball. The punter, with an impromptu dash to his right, tossed the ball and it was caught by George Stephens, who ran 70 yards for a touchdown.
In a 1905 experimental game, Washburn University and Fairmount College (what would become Wichita State) used the pass before new rules allowing the play were approved in early 1906. Credit for the first pass goes to Fairmount's Bill Davis, who completed a pass to Art Solter.
Rules changed in 1906 to allow the forward pass
1905 had been a bloody year on the gridiron; the Chicago Tribune reported 18 players had been killed and 159 seriously injured that season. There were moves to abolish the game. But President Theodore Roosevelt personally intervened and demanded that the rules of the game be reformed. In a meeting of more than 60 schools in late 1905, the commitment was made to make the game safer. This meeting was the first step toward the establishment of what would become the NCAA and was followed by several sessions to work out "the new rules."
The final meeting of the Rules Committee tasked with reshaping the game was held on April 6, 1906, at which time the forward pass officially became a legal play. The New York Times reported in September 1906 on the rationale for the changes: "The main efforts of the football reformers have been to 'open up the game'—that is to provide for the natural elimination of the so-called mass plays and bring about a game in which speed and real skill shall supersede so far as possible mere brute strength and force of weight." However the Times also reflected widespread skepticism as to whether the forward pass could be effectively integrated into the game: "There has been no team that has proved that the forward pass is anything but a doubtful, dangerous play to be used only in the last extremity." The forward pass was not allowed in Canadian football until 1929.
First legal pass
Eddie Cochems, "Father of the Forward Pass", 1907
1906 St. Louis Post-Dispatch photograph of Brad Robinson, who threw the first legal forward pass
Most sources credit St. Louis University's Bradbury Robinson from Bellevue, Ohio with throwing the first legal forward pass. On September 5, 1906, in a game against Carroll College, Robinson's first attempt at a forward pass fell incomplete and resulted in a turnover under the 1906 rules.[9] In the same game, Robinson later completed a 20-yard touchdown pass to Jack Schneider. The 1906 St. Louis University team was coached by Eddie Cochems. Football authority and College Football Hall of Fame coach David M. Nelson wrote that "E. B. Cochems is to forward passing what the Wright brothers are to aviation and Thomas Edison is to the electric light."
While St. Louis University completed the first legal forward pass in the first half of September, this accomplishment was in part because most schools did not begin their football schedule until early October.
In 1952, football coaching legend Amos Alonzo Stagg discounted accounts crediting any particular coach with being the innovator of the forward pass. Stagg noted that he had Walter Eckersall working on pass plays and saw Pomeroy Sinnock of Illinois throw many passes in 1906. Stagg summed up his view as follows: "I have seen statements giving credit to certain people originating the forward pass. The fact is that all coaches were working on it. The first season, 1906, I personally had sixty-four different forward pass patterns." In 1954, Stagg disputed Cochems' claim to have invented the forward pass:
"Eddie Cochems, who coached at St. Louis University in 1906, also claimed to have invented the pass as we know it today ... It isn't so, because after the forward pass was legalized in 1906, most of the schools commenced experimenting with it and nearly all used."
Stagg asserted that, as far back as 1894, before the rules committee even considered the forward pass, one of his players used to throw the ball "like a baseball pitcher." On the other hand, Hall of Fame coach Gus Dorais told the United Press that "Eddie Cochems of the St. Louis University team of 1906—07—08 deserves the full credit." Writing in Collier's more than 20 years earlier, Dorais' Notre Dame teammate Knute Rockne acknowledged Cochems as the early leader in the use of the pass, observing, "One would have thought that so effective a play would have been instantly copied and become the vogue. The East, however, had not learned much or cared much about Midwest and Western football. Indeed, the East scarcely realized that football existed beyond the Alleghanies ..."
In his history of the game, historian David Nelson concluded that the first forward passes were thrown on Christmas Day 1905 in a match between two small colleges in Kansas: "Although Cochems was the premier passing coach during the first year of the rule, the first forward passes were thrown at the end of the 1905 season in a game between Fairmount and Washburn colleges in Kansas." According to Nelson, Washburn completed three passes, and Fairmount completed two.
Once the 1906 season got underway, many programs began experimenting with the forward pass. On September 26, 1906, Villanova's game against the Carlisle Indians was billed as "the first real game of football under the new rules." In the first play from scrimmage after the opening kicks, Villanova completed a pass that "succeeded in gaining ten yards." Following the Villanova-Carlisle game, The New York Times described the new passing game this way:
"The passing was more of the character of that familiar in basket ball than that which has hitherto characterized football. Apparently it is the intention of football coaches to try repeatedly these frequent long and risky passes. Well executed they are undoubtedly highly spectacular, but the risk of dropping the ball is so great as to make the practice extremely hazardous and its desirability doubtful."
Another coach sometimes credited with popularizing the overhead spiral pass in 1906 is former Princeton All-American "Bosey" Reiter. Reiter claimed to have invented the overhead spiral pass while playing professional football as a player-coach for Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics of the original National Football League (1902). While playing for the Athletics, Reiter was a teammate of Hawley Pierce, a former star for the Carlisle Indian School. Pierce, a Native American, taught Reiter to throw an underhand spiral pass, but Reiter had short arms and was unable to throw for distance from an underhand delivery. Accordingly, Reiter began working on an overhand spiral pass. Reiter recalled trying to imitate the motion of a baseball catcher throwing to second base. After practice and experimentation, Reiter "discovered he could get greater distance and accuracy throwing that way." In 1906, Reiter was the head coach at Wesleyan University. In the opening game of the 1906 season against Yale, Reiter's quarterback Sammy Moore completed a forward pass to Irvin van Tassell for a thirty-yard gain. The New York Times called it "the prettiest play of the day," as Wesleyan's quarterback "deftly passed the ball past the whole Yale team to his mate Van Tassel." Van Tassel later described the historic play to the United Press:
"I was the right halfback, and on this formation played one yard back of our right tackle. The quarterback, Sam Moore, took the ball from center and faded eight or 10 yards back of our line. Our two ends angled down the field toward the sidelines as a decoy, and I slipped through the strong side of our line straight down the center and past the secondary defense. The pass worked perfectly. However, the quarterback coming up fast nailed me as I caught it. This brought the ball well into Yale territory, about the 20-yard line."[
In American and Canadian football, a forward pass—usually referred to simply as a pass—consists of one offensive player throwing the football towards another downfield in the direction of the opponent's goal line. This is permitted only once during a scrimmage down by the offensive team before team possession has changed, provided the pass is thrown from in or behind the neutral zone. An illegal forward pass incurs a five-yard penalty and the loss of a down, although it may be legally intercepted by the defense and advanced.
If an eligible receiver on the passing team legally catches the ball it is a complete pass and the receiver may attempt to advance the ball. If an opposing player legally catches the ball (all defensive players are eligible receivers) it is an interception. That player's team immediately gains possession of the ball and he may attempt to advance the ball toward his opponent's goal. If no player is able to legally catch the ball it is an incomplete pass and the ball becomes dead the moment it touches the ground. It will then be returned to the original line of scrimmage for the next down. If any player interferes with an eligible receiver's ability to catch the ball it is pass interference which draws a penalty of varying degree (largely depending upon the particular league's rules).
The person passing the ball must be a member of the offensive team, and the recipient of the forward pass must be an eligible receiver and must touch the passed ball before any ineligible player.
The moment that a forward pass begins is important to the game. The pass begins the moment the passer's arm begins to move forward. If the passer drops the ball before this moment it is a fumble and therefore a loose ball. In this case anybody can gain possession of the ball before or after it touches the ground. If the passer drops the ball while his arm is moving forward it is an incomplete pass (unless someone catches the ball before it hits the ground in which case it is a completed pass or an interception).
The quarterback generally either starts a few paces behind the line of scrimmage or drops back a few paces as the ball is snapped. This places him in an area called the "pocket" which is a protective region formed by the offensive blockers up front and between the tackles on each side. A quarterback who runs out of this pocket is said to be scrambling. Under NFL and NCAA rules, once the quarterback moves out of the pocket, and there is no good option for a forward pass, the ball may be legally thrown away to prevent a sack. NFHS (high school) rules do not allow for a passer to intentionally throw an incomplete forward pass to save loss of yardage or conserve time, except for a spike to conserve time after a hand to hand snap. If he throws the ball away while still in the pocket then a foul called "intentional grounding" is assessed. In Canadian football the passer must simply throw the ball across the line of scrimmage—whether he is inside or outside of the "pocket"—to avoid the foul of "intentionally grounding".
If a forward pass is caught near a sideline or endline it is a complete pass (or an interception) only if a receiver catches the ball in bounds. For a pass to be ruled in bounds, the receiver's feet must be in contact with the in bounds portion of the playing field, or, if the ball is caught in the air, either one or two feet must touch the ground within the field boundaries, after the ball is caught. In the NFL the receiver must touch the ground with both feet, but in most other codes—CFL, NCAA and high school—one foot in bounds is enough.
Common to all gridiron codes is the notion of control—a receiver must demonstrate control of the ball in order to be ruled in possession of it, while still in bounds, as defined by his code. If the receiver catches the ball but the official determines that he was still "bobbling" it prior to the end of the play, then the pass will be ruled incomplete.
History
Early illegal and experimental passes
The forward pass had been attempted at least 30 years before the play was actually made legal. Passes "had been carried out successfully but illegally several times, including the 1876 Yale—Princeton game in which Yale's Walter Camp threw forward to teammate Oliver Thompson as he was being tackled. Princeton's protest, one account said, went for naught when the referee 'tossed a coin to make his decision and allowed the touchdown to stand' ".
The University of North Carolina used the forward pass in an 1895 game against the University of Georgia. However, the play was still illegal at the time. Bob Quincy stakes Carolina's claim in his 1973 book They Made the Bell Tower Chime:
John Heisman, namesake of the Heisman Trophy, wrote 30 years later that, indeed, the Tar Heels had given birth to the forward pass against the Bulldogs (UGA). It was conceived to break a scoreless deadlock and give UNC a 6—0 win. The Carolinians were in a punting situation and a Georgia rush seemed destined to block the ball. The punter, with an impromptu dash to his right, tossed the ball and it was caught by George Stephens, who ran 70 yards for a touchdown.
In a 1905 experimental game, Washburn University and Fairmount College (what would become Wichita State) used the pass before new rules allowing the play were approved in early 1906. Credit for the first pass goes to Fairmount's Bill Davis, who completed a pass to Art Solter.
Rules changed in 1906 to allow the forward pass
1905 had been a bloody year on the gridiron; the Chicago Tribune reported 18 players had been killed and 159 seriously injured that season. There were moves to abolish the game. But President Theodore Roosevelt personally intervened and demanded that the rules of the game be reformed. In a meeting of more than 60 schools in late 1905, the commitment was made to make the game safer. This meeting was the first step toward the establishment of what would become the NCAA and was followed by several sessions to work out "the new rules."
The final meeting of the Rules Committee tasked with reshaping the game was held on April 6, 1906, at which time the forward pass officially became a legal play. The New York Times reported in September 1906 on the rationale for the changes: "The main efforts of the football reformers have been to 'open up the game'—that is to provide for the natural elimination of the so-called mass plays and bring about a game in which speed and real skill shall supersede so far as possible mere brute strength and force of weight." However the Times also reflected widespread skepticism as to whether the forward pass could be effectively integrated into the game: "There has been no team that has proved that the forward pass is anything but a doubtful, dangerous play to be used only in the last extremity." The forward pass was not allowed in Canadian football until 1929.
First legal pass
Eddie Cochems, "Father of the Forward Pass", 1907
1906 St. Louis Post-Dispatch photograph of Brad Robinson, who threw the first legal forward pass
Most sources credit St. Louis University's Bradbury Robinson from Bellevue, Ohio with throwing the first legal forward pass. On September 5, 1906, in a game against Carroll College, Robinson's first attempt at a forward pass fell incomplete and resulted in a turnover under the 1906 rules.[9] In the same game, Robinson later completed a 20-yard touchdown pass to Jack Schneider. The 1906 St. Louis University team was coached by Eddie Cochems. Football authority and College Football Hall of Fame coach David M. Nelson wrote that "E. B. Cochems is to forward passing what the Wright brothers are to aviation and Thomas Edison is to the electric light."
While St. Louis University completed the first legal forward pass in the first half of September, this accomplishment was in part because most schools did not begin their football schedule until early October.
In 1952, football coaching legend Amos Alonzo Stagg discounted accounts crediting any particular coach with being the innovator of the forward pass. Stagg noted that he had Walter Eckersall working on pass plays and saw Pomeroy Sinnock of Illinois throw many passes in 1906. Stagg summed up his view as follows: "I have seen statements giving credit to certain people originating the forward pass. The fact is that all coaches were working on it. The first season, 1906, I personally had sixty-four different forward pass patterns." In 1954, Stagg disputed Cochems' claim to have invented the forward pass:
"Eddie Cochems, who coached at St. Louis University in 1906, also claimed to have invented the pass as we know it today ... It isn't so, because after the forward pass was legalized in 1906, most of the schools commenced experimenting with it and nearly all used."
Stagg asserted that, as far back as 1894, before the rules committee even considered the forward pass, one of his players used to throw the ball "like a baseball pitcher." On the other hand, Hall of Fame coach Gus Dorais told the United Press that "Eddie Cochems of the St. Louis University team of 1906—07—08 deserves the full credit." Writing in Collier's more than 20 years earlier, Dorais' Notre Dame teammate Knute Rockne acknowledged Cochems as the early leader in the use of the pass, observing, "One would have thought that so effective a play would have been instantly copied and become the vogue. The East, however, had not learned much or cared much about Midwest and Western football. Indeed, the East scarcely realized that football existed beyond the Alleghanies ..."
In his history of the game, historian David Nelson concluded that the first forward passes were thrown on Christmas Day 1905 in a match between two small colleges in Kansas: "Although Cochems was the premier passing coach during the first year of the rule, the first forward passes were thrown at the end of the 1905 season in a game between Fairmount and Washburn colleges in Kansas." According to Nelson, Washburn completed three passes, and Fairmount completed two.
Once the 1906 season got underway, many programs began experimenting with the forward pass. On September 26, 1906, Villanova's game against the Carlisle Indians was billed as "the first real game of football under the new rules." In the first play from scrimmage after the opening kicks, Villanova completed a pass that "succeeded in gaining ten yards." Following the Villanova-Carlisle game, The New York Times described the new passing game this way:
"The passing was more of the character of that familiar in basket ball than that which has hitherto characterized football. Apparently it is the intention of football coaches to try repeatedly these frequent long and risky passes. Well executed they are undoubtedly highly spectacular, but the risk of dropping the ball is so great as to make the practice extremely hazardous and its desirability doubtful."
Another coach sometimes credited with popularizing the overhead spiral pass in 1906 is former Princeton All-American "Bosey" Reiter. Reiter claimed to have invented the overhead spiral pass while playing professional football as a player-coach for Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics of the original National Football League (1902). While playing for the Athletics, Reiter was a teammate of Hawley Pierce, a former star for the Carlisle Indian School. Pierce, a Native American, taught Reiter to throw an underhand spiral pass, but Reiter had short arms and was unable to throw for distance from an underhand delivery. Accordingly, Reiter began working on an overhand spiral pass. Reiter recalled trying to imitate the motion of a baseball catcher throwing to second base. After practice and experimentation, Reiter "discovered he could get greater distance and accuracy throwing that way." In 1906, Reiter was the head coach at Wesleyan University. In the opening game of the 1906 season against Yale, Reiter's quarterback Sammy Moore completed a forward pass to Irvin van Tassell for a thirty-yard gain. The New York Times called it "the prettiest play of the day," as Wesleyan's quarterback "deftly passed the ball past the whole Yale team to his mate Van Tassel." Van Tassel later described the historic play to the United Press:
"I was the right halfback, and on this formation played one yard back of our right tackle. The quarterback, Sam Moore, took the ball from center and faded eight or 10 yards back of our line. Our two ends angled down the field toward the sidelines as a decoy, and I slipped through the strong side of our line straight down the center and past the secondary defense. The pass worked perfectly. However, the quarterback coming up fast nailed me as I caught it. This brought the ball well into Yale territory, about the 20-yard line."[