1884-1894 - Mass Momentum Plays And Brutality Bring Football to Edge of Extinction -Football History

[@CornNation]

Note that I have created a new channel dedicated to college football history. Join me there! youtube.com/@hardcorecollegefootballhistory

[@tobymichaels8171]

Now I can't wait for the release of Madden 1894!

[@CornNation]

That is a rather cool idea!

[@gordons-alive4940]

That's a great idea. If they did that, I might actually buy it!

[@765-n6j]

@@tobymichaels8171 If Madden hadn’t gotten a monopoly on the NFL license, we might have gotten that by today. How great would it to play classic games with old rules, hell, even 2K football did that to a degree. Madden is 🗑️

[@rocketmanVA703]

This series is fantastic! I am a former member of the Pro Football Historians Association and I am learning things I did not know! You presentation is excellent, sir!

[@CornNation]

I have moved most of this over to a channel focused on college football history. youtube.com/@hardcorecollegefootballhistory

[@goodmaro]

Tackling below the waist was legalized in Rugby Union only slightly later than it was in American rules. It was Canadian football that this change came to the last. (It's hard to generalize about Canadian football in the early decades because of the proliferation of rules sets in various local and provincial unions.)

[@Pacmon0]

Imagine: Ivy League powerhouses of extremely violent football. Mass momentum football, so dangerous Service academies don't play, and Ivy League powerhouses. Multiple broken noses, broken legs, broken collar bones, from an Ivy League game. Incredible.

[@jfowler53]

I've been telling people the tush push is football in its rawest form. It a has a similar description of some of these old time plays

[@michaelhaslam3496]

I LIKE what you're doing ! Yes, more visuals and animation would be great. I am a Huge Fan of Canadian Football. I think it is a very dynamic , action-packed game. Very interesting that Harvard played McGill University from Montreal in 1975 that featured 3 Downs. The Canadian Game went its own way staying with 3 Downs, 12 players and a bigger field. Over the decades the two types of North American Football have had an interesting relationship, with many subtle modifications of the Rules. I look forward to more of your videos.

[@CornNation]

So you know.... I have created a new channel focused on college football history. There are more history videos available over there. youtube.com/@hardcorecollegefootballhistory

[@tgambogi]

I’m loving these college football history videos please keep it up

[@CornNation]

I have moved the history videos to another channel called "Hardcore College Football History." www.youtube.com/@CollegeFootballHistory

[@2500BC]

Love these - ive wished ken burns do a detailed history of football - your videos provide the history ive been looking for

[@BelichickPATS8384]

Mass momentum wasn't new. It came from Rugby Football who had been doing it for decades already

[@edmowrey9755]

Show more photos, even if they're not directly related to what you're saying! LOL Putting a pic up on one half of the screen works. Your level of detailed research is excellent! You are presenting the results of your research, not trying to offer mindless entertainment. Keep it up.

[@jimmartin2548]

Awesome series! Can't wait to see how much crazier it gets!

[@tom_fitz]

This is truly some of the best content on youtube. Unbelievable. Thank you sir, for the excellent series.

[@CornNation]

I have created a new channel focused on college football history. There are more history videos available over there. youtube.com/@hardcorecollegefootballhistory

[@noahanderson6710]

Exactly what I was looking for! Love the in depth analysis into the history for the sport. I love the headers for the dates and names since I often loose track and can easily look down and know when we are talking about it. Also love the old play diagrams

[@robertmuncaster3510]

When I was at school in the sixties we were taught to tackle around the legs playing rugby, few could do it to perfection.

[@jeremiahmuhammad4722]

I love this series.

[@CornNation]

I have created a new channel focused on college football history. There are more history videos available over there. youtube.com/@hardcorecollegefootballhistory

[@scott6828]

Simply fascinating! I've always been interested in this extremely obscure history of the formation and early rules of american football.

[@joegroessel9018]

Thank you for this fascinating detailed account of football

[@CornNation]

There is a playlist that covers the years 1869 to the creation of “modern” football in 1912. kzbin.info/aero/PLAti6r2hzjA0txdecWJeMou5YvFMS24T7 Note that playlist is on a different channel, focused on college football history. There are more history videos available over there. If you liked this history video, please like and subscribe on the new channnel! youtube.com/@hardcorecollegefootballhistory

[@huskerchuck9212]

LOL Bovine Scatology.....I love these informative and interesting videos about early American football. Keep up the good work, Jon! I look forward to the next episode and thank you for your time-consuming research! One note: I think early it was 3 downs to get 5 yards, before becoming 4 downs to get 10.

[@CornNation]

Yeah, I am really trying to get used to using a teleprompter and using a script instead of ad-libbing everything.

[@themanusandoval]

Great videos! One recommendation: Number the series in the title of the videos so people can easily watch them in the correct order. Keep up the great work!

[@joe_zeay]

Amazing series. Simply fascinating. Perhaps some quiet music in the background would make these videos legendary! Cheers🎉

[@spacelemur7955]

No to the music, unless it is music from the appropriate era. Modern music ruins most historical videos.

[@stevolopez]

Yeah like some low volume old college band fight songs would be cool. Or some John Phillip Souza band music.

[@rjsweda]

i love this time in football history. you make great entertaining informative videos on this. awesome. thanks.

[@djholmes1072]

This is great stuff John!! I had no idea how tough these guys were.

[@dustyhills8911]

Love the history stuff! Keep it up!

[@howrogers]

You are very good at describing things. I enjoy history and I love football. Thank you for giving me insight on how it all began and all the difficulties and successes of football when it all began. I look forward to other videos you have...as I have recently subscribed to your channel...but sorry...I am a Badgers fan 😂

[@highlandergunn9240]

I'm really enjoying this series of videos your doing Jon, keep up the good work.

[@matts1072]

Thank you for these videos. Very helpful information for some writing that I'm doing. You being a Husker is a bonus. Former Lincoln/Friend, NE resident and lifelong Sooner fan. That rivalry is one of the things that I'm trying to talk about.

[@paulyguitary7651]

It’s crazy that in my lifetime kickoffs were very reminiscent of some of these plays.

[@lindawilkins6075]

Good Stuff Jon really enjoyed. Looking forward to the next video.

[@fite-4-ever876]

As a historian who loves football this was made for me!

[@CornNation]

So you know, I have created a new channel focused on college football history. There are more history videos available over there. youtube.com/@hardcorecollegefootballhistory

[@edmowrey9755]

love the photos

[@goodmaro]

5:04 You may not be aware of this, but the wedge is still legal in NCAA and Federation rules, provided the blockers don't use their arms to wrap their teammates. Such a wedge (without the use of the arms) is still a fairly common tactic in children's football, and indeed the best way to stop it is to crab across the apex player, bringing the formation down as described. I coach it.

[@robertvavra414]

Excellent. Looking forward to when the Bugeaters become the Cornhuskers!

[@Azalis1701]

25:30 when you say "The biggest thing about this" my brain immediately goes to "wait, there was a 12-4 score in a football game?"

[@advancedchiropractic667]

You have done a great job! I am subscribing.

[@CornNation]

Note that I have created a new channel focused on college football history. There are more history videos available over there. youtube.com/@hardcorecollegefootballhistory There is an entire playlist on the base history of college football. studio.kzbin.infoPLAti6r2hzjA0txdecWJeMou5YvFMS24T7/edit

[@kujaneck]

This is great stuff!

[@ryanvannice7878]

A couple of your videos popped up this weekend. I no longer follow football, but found them interesting. To me, the most interesting is today's press talking about today's controversy like it's so new or unique. Football's always had controversy, it's just the details that change. Sounds like even the basic themes haven't really changed that much in 150 or so years either.

[@SnagglieFang]

I like it! It's good!

[@keeponballin6094]

THANKS BRUH GOOD STUFF

[@levin448]

Flying wedge with no helmets or pads and forward motion before the snap. What possibly could go wrong?

[@calvinr.johnsonjr.9076]

Everything. Lmaoo

[@markotto9855]

I LOVE Football So fascinating

[@kujaneck]

We want the flying wedge animation!

[@calvinr.johnsonjr.9076]

Look up Thomas Edison football video. He recorded it.

[@CornNation]

He doesn't have the flying wedge recorded. He has some mass plays, and there's only about 6 minutes of football.

[@calvinr.johnsonjr.9076]

@@CornNation the one I seen was broken into two vids of the 1903 game between Michigan and Chicago. One of the plays looked like a mass play so I thought it was the wedge.

[@calvinr.johnsonjr.9076]

@@CornNation there was a nasty injury in that game that was caught on camera

[@spacelemur7955]

Here's a tip. Talk to some high school or college players or wannabes and coach them how to run these plays. Of course, go with modern safety equipment whenever contact occurs. Set up some cameras where the defensive players would have been so that we could see the wedge arriving in full strength. You duplicate all the plays from each stage of the game, and I am sure retro football would catch on again for a while, like early baseball did.

[@fuckcensorship69]

Fun idea. I would also like to see a game that is version of what we called the Oklahoma drill (people refer to drastically different drills as "Oklahoma"). 3 offensive linemen vs 3 defensive linemen. 1 Running Back . 1 Linebacker. Field is only 5 yards wide. Walls instead of sidelines would be fun.

[@Green3Eagle]

Oh, yeah. I can't wait to see what develops next in the history of collegiate football.

[@Reglar_Cat]

Now we know why there is no football equivalent to old fashioned base ball exhibition games! 😉

[@plumtiger1]

We ran the wedge on kickoff return in high school. Very effective!

[@calvinr.johnsonjr.9076]

Not that kind of wedge. But somewhat close

[@matthewkeaneone]

Interesting topic of discussion

[@dowpman1]

flying wedge sounds like a kickoff

[@CornNation]

It does a little bit, but it's not because it was also a play run from scrimmage. There is a playlist that covers the years 1869 to the creation of “modern” football in 1912. kzbin.info/aero/PLAti6r2hzjA0txdecWJeMou5YvFMS24T7 Note that playlist is on a different channel, focused on college football history. There are more history videos available over there. If you liked this history video, please like and subscribe on the new channnel! youtube.com/@hardcorecollegefootballhistory

[@GeorgeHalas1985]

So Heffelfinger is the 19th century version of Troy Polamalu jumping the line of scrimmage 🤣

[@EmmanuelGoldstein3]

I wonder how the families of the severely injured or killed players reacted. These are, after all, the most elite universities in the country, so all of the students who go there are from wealthy well-connected families. I can't imagine that they'd be happy about having their sons coming home from the fancy Ivy League institution in a pine box. So you'd think that some of them would have tried to do something about it.

[@calvinr.johnsonjr.9076]

You make an interesting point.

[@jayhershey7525]

There was (probably still is) a Popeye cartoon made in the thirties wherein Bluto's team forms a "flying wedge." Since this was illustrated close to the time when the flying wedge was legal, the cartoon may have historical relevance.

[@CornNation]

Thank you! I'll look around! BTW, I have created a new channel focused on college football history. There are more history videos available over there. youtube.com/@hardcorecollegefootballhistory

[@wsbill14224]

Remember cities like Buffalo and Cleveland won championships back then.

[@LOTLore]

1:09 And now here we are in 2024 where they have basically made tackling below the waist illegal again. What are we doing? Trying to go back to rugby?

[@RoyalHabsburg]

Rugby is tackling below the waist only, not above. You got it backwards

[@calvinr.johnsonjr.9076]

Hey look up thomas Edison. He recorded the 1903 Princeton vs Yale

[@gen.barnakey__]

Is the Tush-Push not a mass play?

[@CornNation]

It's as close as we get these days, BUT - they have to keep seven guys on the line, so that's the key between then and now. So you know, I have created a new channel focused on college football history. There are more history videos available over there. youtube.com/@hardcorecollegefootballhistory

[@gen.barnakey__]

@@CornNation Maybe the formation is legal but the execution feels like an antique mass play with other players pushing and pulling to create momentum for the ball carrier. jmho but seems like it should be outlawed.

[@christopherbataluk8148]

All of these plays seem less outlandish if you are familiar with rugby scrums.

[@eddiekulp1241]

NFL should play a few games with 1890 rules, with helmets of course

[@calvinr.johnsonjr.9076]

Lime included? Lol

[@SKi4o5]

A dude getting KO'd for 5hrs is INSANE

[@springinfialta106]

So football started out using Newtonian Physics (F = mA, Football = mass times Aggression). Now football uses Quantum Mechanics where the defense doesn't know whether it's going to be a run or pass until the ball goes over the line of scrimmage.

[@goodmaro]

When you say rule changes have come about to make sure that the American game was different from rugby, that can be taken two ways. One is simply that the rule changes made the game distinct. The other way is saying that the rule changes were deliberately undertaken to differentiate the game. I assure you that the latter was not the case. The only example I can think of where there was an effort to distinguish a national type of football on purpose was the slightly later one by the GAA to make Gaelic football deliberately stand out as non-British. And it was *three* downs to advance 5 yards or to take it backwards 10 -- or by the time in question, take it back 20 yards.

[@markdaniel8740]

Vinatieri, not 'o' and where did you get the pronunciation for Esiason?

[@goodmaro]

Spectator revulsion against mass plays was far from universal. There were plenty of approving fans who enjoyed the concentrated application of force, bodies on bodies, as long as it didn't have to include themselves. Others objected only to a steady diet of mass plays and just wanted to see more variety.

[@HangTogether2]

The geometry of football has always been as much a bug as a feature. Still is today.

[@epone3488]

NOTE: World rugby tackle rules reference nothing higher than the shoulders (although Aussie rugby is trialing sternum height this year 2024). proper tackleing techniques as trained here in Aus' is to aim at the waist hips on the run in. Stiff arms have been ruled improper but the deciding line in refereeing is ambiguous ( a push off with a 'not-totally-straight-arm' is not a 'straight arm' thought that could technique be called a breech of play). You cant "ankle-tap" in Rugby i.e. interfere with the lower legs or swipe the feet. The tackle target is therefore from the shoulders/chest to the lower legs providing its with two hands/arms. One of the main differences in tackling style between Rugby and US-Football is Rugby places less emphasis on inches of forward progress so head on tackles are far less prominent in Rugby and can constitute a breech of play. This leads to tackles coming more often, from an oblique angle much more so then fully head on. BTW - Love your content on the birth of the game keep it coming.

[@-GloryGloryToOlGeorgia]

I honestly believe football befor the invention of the forward pass was one of the worst team sports ever played.

[@laidback81100]

I see alot of broken bones and beat up people.

[@areguapiri]

I prefer the NFL from the 1970s and 80s. Roger Staubach, Kenny Anderson, Walter Payton, Danny Marino, John Riggins, Jim Plunkett, Marcus Allen.......

[@basilfawlty241]

Good stuff here. Well done sir. However, you lost me when you started discussing how much better and more fun the NFL is today over 15 years ago. This is just a terrible opinion.

[@sgabig]

26:32 Seems evenly divided : Yale Bulldogs: 🐶 Murphy 🤕 Jerrems 🦾 Butterworth 🏴‍☠ Harvard 🦃 Hallowell 👃 Wrightington 🩹 Brewer 🦿

[@freddyjefferson5164]

Flying wedgy!!!

[@helbitkelbit1790]

College players were dying right and left

[@bemore1134]

Colleges in the 1890s using players that aren't actually college students. What goes around comes around lol.

[@carlosnabor7183]

You don't know what you are talking about. The scoring at this time is less than ,10 years ago. Montana, Brady, Marino. The MVP this year threw 25 TDs. Are you kidding. You are a fan... Not a coach keep looking into history. Today's game is not even close to 10-15 years ago.

[@Paul-u4z2j]

love your content sir! However, the NFL and college is controled by money. Best real football is high school football. True grit and sportsmanship. Kind of like the 1800s. God bless and like your historical analysis, but please encourage true amatuer football.

[@mikebronicki8264]

Division 3 has no scholarships, so it is basically HS football with college aged players.

[@helbitkelbit1790]

God bless Tom Osbourne

[@kingnicholas6790]

you sound bored. v

[@BarryGoldberg-wr2bf]

Offside. No s

[@josephkolozi9364]

Better than what we have now.

[@CornNation]

Is it really? Why?

[@mackdeen7021]

Tackling below the waste is not allowed i Rugby? Umm what? Always been legal in rugby and in fact is the preferred style of tackling! Lmfao.

[@tomwilko7841]

No, the American version allowed it slightly before rugby did

[@anthonywarfield7348]

With all due respect sir, I disagree that the NFL is better now than 15 years ago. Today's game is legislating defense out and because of that the games are less entertaining due to being less competitive. If every offense scores touchdowns and the winner will be the last team with the ball, how is this more fun than watching 11 guys on defense give their heart and soul to stopping the offense and being successful at times. Yes, there will be more injuries but your coming across as being dishonest by saying everyone played the same a decade or more ago. You sound like a college professor telling his students how woke culture is superior without allowing any counter arguments that let them decide for themselves. Shameful tactics.

[@paulhelman2376]

A mass play has reappeared in the NFL this year.

[@laiika511]

I don’t think the woke comparison is either apt or necessary. I do agree, however, the modern defense is being neutered and something should be done about that. However, that’s not the point in the video. He’s comparing the dynamic role of many modern QB’s vs the traditional passer.

[@chriskule4663]

Moving formation is conceptually developed in Naval warfare and the tactics on a maneuvering board. As an OC we learned the syllabus of the Naval War College, our neighboring stitution in Newport, RI. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_board#:~:text=A%20maneuvering%20board%20is%20an,time%2Fspeed%2Fdistance%20nomogram.