The discussion centers on the evolution of offensive formations in American football, with a particular focus on the significant formations of 1955. Timothy P. Brown, an esteemed contributor from Football Archaeology, tells of that era's football strategies, highlighting formations such as the single wing, the Notre Dame box, and the modern T.

This conversation comes from one of Tim's recent Tidbits titled: Offensive Formations in 1955 .

We delve into the transitional nature of offensive strategies during this period, examining how the game began to shift from traditional direct snap offenses to those employing a quarterback under center. This exploration not only provides insights into the historical context of football formations but also reflects on the cyclical nature of the game's evolution, where contemporary strategies echo the past. As we navigate these historical nuances, we invite listeners to appreciate the rich tapestry of football history and its enduring impact on the modern game.

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You know, besides looking at what the players are wearing, one great way to tell what era of football game you're watching is by the offensive formations and how the defensive formations react to it.

Tim's up in just a moment to.

Tell us all about it.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes, is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another Tuesday where we get to talk with Timothy p. Brown of footballarchaeology.com fame.

And Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Darren.

Looking forward to chatting.

I'm hoping that this podcast is highly informative.

That's a song by Prince.

Wasn't something like that.

Yeah.

I'm not sure.

Well, okay, whatever.

It wouldn't be the year I'd pick.

But.

Yeah.

Can you tell us about this?

Well, so, first of all, so when I published this story, I, you know, it.

It comes about because I recently bought a little publication called Everybody's Football.

It was a.

A giveaway, an advertising premium from the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company.

And then after I wrote the first two stories in this sequence, then I went back and I looked at.

I said, I gotta figure out who wrote this thing because it really doesn't have a lot of author information and who illustrated.

Because it's got all these really cool.

I mean, if you're into commercial art and period commercial art, it's got some great imagery in it.

And.

And I think a lot of the people who are reading it are reading it for the visuals, you know, for what I have to say.

But anyways, so, like, the Playboy for the football fan is what you're saying?

That's right.

Okay.

Yeah, it's Playboy.

It's well, it might even be Penthouse.

Okay, all right.

For the.

For the graphic artist among football fans this one time in college.

Anyways, let's not go there.

So the.

So the story.

So anyways, then, like, the third story in the sequence, I basically went back and figured out who these people were who wrote the thing.

And.

And the.

And so, sure enough, you know, it's.

This is published by a guy who was the line coach at Georgetown University, then a sports writer in Washington, and then the.

The illustrator is a commercial artist who probably is most famous for creating the Notre Dame Leprechaun.

That's the surprise in story number three.

Oh, okay.

So anyway, but.

So this first one just says, okay.

When they laid out the.

The offenses that were used in 55, they basically identified the single wing, the Notre Dame box or shift, the double wing, then the modern T, the split T, and the wing team.

More coverage anyways.

But so the cool thing just, I mean, just from a pure football standpoint and looking at those six offenses is that, you know, you had the original, you know, the original traditional tee, where, you know, it's basically the same positioning as the modern tee, but the, you know, the quarterback was offset from center and he got the snap and then he pitched it, you know, or handed it off to one of his teammates.

But the single wing, the Notre Dame box, and the double wing all were direct snap offenses, you know, so we went from an off.

We went from the original offense where you're snapping to the quarterback, who then had to pitch it or at least hand it off or pitch it to somebody else.

Right.

We got rid of the checkerboard field and Those associated rules.

So now with the direct snap, you know, those three are all direct snap offenses and basically you're, you're snapping the ball directly to your dominant back, you know, in the wing T or in the, in the single wing, it's, you know, Carlisle with Jim Thorpe, you know, at the tailback.

Notre Dame is a little bit more mixed up because they, you know, they kind of balanced comp, you know, it was kind of, it helped you complement, you know, the, your different players.

And then in 41, you had got Don Ferro at Missouri with the split T and then you had, you know, the boys from, from Delaware.

Now I'm blanking on his name.

But anyways, you know, with the, with the wing tea, that was more like late 40s, early 50s, but there you're, you know, you got a quarterback under center and you know, the, the and then, and the offenses start spreading out a bit.

They become a little, you know, more passing oriented, passing friendly.

You know, you got men in motion, you got wings, you know, you got split ends.

You know, so it's just one of those things where it's just kind of, it's, it's interesting that, you know, this was a real transition point, you know, 47, they were still in transition from the direct snap offenses to the quarterback under center offenses and then.

But each of those had variations, right?

You know, again, direct snapped, single wing, Notre Dame and double wing.

And then the quarterback understanding, you got the modern tee, you got the, the split T and you've got the, the wing T, you know, and then obviously there's been, you know, a million different variations since then, but it was just, it's kind of, it's kind of a cool period.

Look at what the offensive formations were at it just at a moment in time, right.

You know, now, today.

But what's kind of cool now is just that we're, you know, in a lot of ways we've gone back to the direct snap offenses, right.

You know, kind of starting with the shotgun and then we get to the read option and you know, whatever we're doing now with the read options and, and RPOs and whatnot you know, but, but it's a much more passing oriented, you know, direct snap as opposed to running oriented direct snap.

So, you know, it's.

It's one of these, you know, history repeats itself or rhymes or whatever.

Right?

But, you know, it's, it's.

It's interesting how, you know, how now we're so spread out, you know, horizontally on the football field and it's there, you know, if you want to spread all the receivers out, there aren't many left to be in the backfield anymore.

You know, they're out there wide.

And so then you direct snap it and you got, you know, either an empty backfield or you have one, one guy.

And you know, but that's, you know, the, the old days are.

Are gone other than when people do specialty, you know, trickeration specialty plays.

Right?

And those are fun, you know, those are fun because they bring, they bring back something old and it surprises, you know, defenses that aren't built to defend them.

It makes you almost kind of wonder what, you know, innovators like Amos, Alonzo Stagg and Pop Warner would think about if they, they see those empty backfields sets that we have now.

You know, they're probably, what the heck's going on here?

Yeah, you know, so, I mean, it's one of those things that like, so, you know, college football for a long time had a rule that said everybody had to be within 15 yards of the center.

So like some of the split ends that we have now you couldn't do legally.

But, you know, they, they.

I don't even know when they put that in.

They were all across the field.

And so it wasn't like people, you know, there were here and there.

There were people who imagined really different, you know, radical ways of spreading the field.

But for the most part, everybody kind of maintained the.

These five guys are the interior lineman.

They're going to stay real close to one another.

And, and yes, sometimes we'll split the end like three yards or something like that.

So it was more like people did things by.

It was the norm.

That was just kind of the nature of the game.

And it wasn't because you had to do it that way.

It would kind of be like, well, now they've instituted rules, but it's.

It'd be kind of like, you know, shifting the outfield.

In baseball, you know, for a long time, everybody just kept their people in, you know, same old spots or shifting a little bit they didn't do the radical shift.

And then all of a sudden somebody said, oh, why not?

You know, so they started doing it.

So there's things like that.

It's, it's the norm.

You know, the pace of play is another good example of that.

You know, do you know the ball, somebody's down, boom.

You get back, line up, boom.

Call an, explain, go.

So, you know, now like our pace of play, I mean, we got hurry up offenses, but you know, they're not, they're not as hurry up as hurry up used to run them, you know, back at Michigan and early days of, you know, the, you know, 20th century.

So, you know, it's just, I don't know, it's an interesting, it's always interesting, like what do people do based on norms and tradition versus what they do, you know, versus based on the rules.

So it's the culture versus rules kind of, you know, arguments.

Yeah.

And it's, it's nice and so refreshing that what you do in these tidbits of yours that you're, you're talking about the tradition of football, you're bringing those traditions of, you know, early football back to us and reminding of us of what this game was like and what these players were facing and the strategies.

And it's also interesting, it's like you said, it's a totally different game than what we are used to watching in our lifetime.

And that really makes it quite interesting to know the evolution.

And you do this, you do this a lot in your tidbits and maybe you could share with the listeners where they can take in some of these.

Sure.

Go to footballarchaeology.com It's a substack site, so either subscribe, in which case you'll get an email every time I publish a story or you know, bookmark it, go there whenever you want, or I'm also on Blue sky.

So, you know, if you want to follow me there, you know, have at it because I, I put out the, I publish it on Blue sky every time as well.

So kind of whatever floats your boat.

All right.

Well, Tim, we really appreciate you coming on here and sharing with us today.

Hope everybody enjoys the games this weekend that are up because we're in the football season and talk to you about it next week.

Very good.

Looking forward to it.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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