The focal point of our discussion revolves around the historical nuances of football rules, particularly the significant regulation concerning the advancement of fumbles, which was initially prohibited in college football until 1990. This episode features Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology, who elucidates the evolution of various football rules that have shaped the game we know today. We delve into the rationale behind these regulations, exploring how they aimed to enhance offensive play while mitigating risks associated with fumbles and interceptions. Furthermore, we examine the cultural and historical contexts that influenced these decisions, including the distinct differences in gameplay between college and professional football. Join us as we unearth these intriguing aspects of football history and their lasting impact on the sport.

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Sit right back and settle in with your headphones on and adjust that volume because Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology joins us tonight to talk about the history of some returns.

It's kind of an interesting discussion and where football could have went.

Tim's up in just a moment to tell us all about the details.

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 at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren.

He's of Pigskind Dispatch dot com.

Welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal deposit of football history.

And welcome to Tuesday and footballarchaeology.com.

timothy P. Brown visits us each Tuesday to tell us about one of his famous tidbits.

Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey there.

Good to chat with you.

And I'm hoping that this, our conversation picks up, if you know what I mean.

Yeah.

And I hope you get to the point.

You know, eventually here.

I'm gonna have to figure that one.

Yeah, well, the.

The title of Tim's tidbit is.

Our point of discussion tonight is the Point of no return.

Sorry, I had to remind Mr. Brown about his title that he came up with.

Just.

I did a bad dad joke on it, but that's.

That's beside the point.

But I used the word point many times there, didn't I?

Yeah.

So, Tim, what can you tell us about this article?

Yeah, so this one.

The intention here was to just.

There was a time that if you're of a certain age, you remember the days when, you know, there's always some differences between college rules and NFL rules.

And one of the differences that I just remember kind of sticking out as a kid was in the college game, you could not.

The defense could not advance a fumble in the NFL.

You could.

And so.

But that's one of those rules where it's like, why in the heck there's certain football rules where you kind of go, why did they ever have that rule?

I mean, what was.

What purpose did it serve?

You know, why.

Why did they put it.

Put it in there in the first place?

And so, you know, the.

They're trying to find ways to open up the game and Encourage more wide, basically encouraging more wide open offense play.

And so, you know, the forward pass is certainly one way that they were trying to do that and ultimately succeeded, but another way that they tried and it never really, I mean, it has worked in some ways, but not in others.

People started looking, and especially those who didn't like the forward pass, they were looking to Canada in their game, as you know, which was much more, it remained much more of a rugby style game.

And so lots more lateraling.

What we now call lateraling, they didn't have that word at the time, but, you know, so passing unplanned passes to teammates who were further wide in some kind of sweeping motion.

And so, so they were trying to do that.

And one of the things he tried to implement that kind of sweeping lateraling action and it just never, it didn't work.

He basically got, you know, fired in the next season.

But it was, you know, what they were trying to do was just encourage laterals, especially laterals beyond the line of scrimmage, right?

The old, what originally was the flea flicker and now we call the hook and lateral, that's an, that's an example of a play.

You catch the ball, you toss it to a teammate.

So that's a gamble, right?

And so you're trying to do things like that.

How do we get more lateraling in the game?

And one of the challenges with lateraling was if you drop the ball, a defender might pick that thing up and, you know, scoop and score.

And so to avoid, to, to limit the risk of lateraling, they decided to implement a rule that defense cannot advance a fumble.

And so that was their basis of introducing that whole rule.

But I'm, you know, doing this, I'm doing a lot of research on the early forward pass right now.

And there was a similar concern with the forward pass.

You know, you, you toss the ball and they were afraid of pick sixes.

And so you don't see it much anymore.

But a lot of the early pass play designs, you know, that they would show the quarterback or whoever the passer was after throwing the ball, they were instructed to run towards where the ball was thrown as a, you know, not run downfield, but run Kind of parallel to act as a safety man in case it was intercepted because there was just this, I mean, over concern about intercepted passes and being returned.

So you know, which is kind of a, you know, it's, it seems like what a crazy rule.

Makes sense, you know, given that if you think about it, just like you can't advance a fumble basically serves a very similar purpose.

But it's a rule that they considered and you know, never implemented.

But it's, it's, you know, the underlying rationale is we want to encourage forward passing, we want to encourage lateraling, but that both are risky and so here's ways to reduce the risk.

And so, you know, that was the rationale behind, you know, both, both kinds of efforts.

Yeah, I mean if you sit there and you think about it, probably the most exciting play or the biggest gut punch of, of a play, depending on which side you're on, is, you know, the pick six or the scoop and score.

And you know, they're, they're definitely a part of football that, you know, we enjoy.

And I think it's more or less the surprise of it and how it turns the momentum of a game around in a split second and I can't even imagine a game being without that.

I guess I, I was even officing in high school and I don't remember that.

But yeah, must have a.

Well, I mean another.

I was going to say, you know, as you were talking about those two, you know, to me the punt return is a, I mean it can be a wildly exciting play, which is one of the reasons I love the Canadian rules, you know, because you the, the problem with the American rules, you have so many fair catches, it's just like, okay, well that's boring.

Whereas the Canadian rules defender, the tacklers, you know, the kicking team has to have a five yard halo around the guy catching the ball so he can't fair catch, he has to return it.

And because he's got some wiggle room, you know, there's a lot of, you know, Even if it's 10, 15 yards, there's a lot of exciting punt returns in the cfl, you know, so that's a fun.

And it, so it reduces the danger of guys just getting clobbered, but it's also, I mean exciting from a Fan standpoint.

So I think it's, you know, it's actually one of my favorite parts of the Canadian game.

But it, you know.

Anyways.

Kind of a sidebar.

Yeah, yeah.

But I. I agree with you with the pun return and Canadian returns are great, and their whole kicking game, I. I really like.

I like the rouge, and I like all that.

The elements of it.

But the.

But I guess what I'm saying is there's the element of surprise.

At least we know when you're punning, you know, the other.

You know, you're turning the ball over, it's more than likely the other team's gonna get the ball.

Yeah, yeah.

But when you have the scoop and score or the pick six, you know, that's like, so surprise, you know.

You know, we were on defense, and now we're going, you know, we're going in for a score.

It's just such a turnaround and, you know, turns your stomach upside down if you're rooting for the offensive team and, you know, you're ecstatic and going bananas if you're defensive fan.

So, yeah, just a.

Just great play.

I can't imagine a game without it.

Yeah.

And, yeah, I mean, I think if you're a fan of almost any team, you can remember certain plays where either you got scored on or you scored on somebody else, and it, you know, it changed the complexion of the game or it was the, you know, winning score one way or the other.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think one of my.

You know, Ravens are driving, and Palomala picks off a pass from Flacco and goes all over the field and finally gets in the end zone to finish the game.

I was going bananas.

It was great, great play, very memorable.

But I've also remember a lot of quarterbacks, some even recently, that throw it to the other team and they take it in for the end zone.

And now you're down to score.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm glad that you dig into these things to find out why the rules were like that, because that's interesting.

That's something I didn't realize.

And, you know, like I said, you learn something new every time you read one of your tidbits.

Maybe you could share with folks where they could get this instant education of football.

Yep.

Just go to footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site, so just subscribe.

You'll get an email every time that I publish a story.

Otherwise, follow me.

You can follow me on Substack, follow me on Blue sky, or just bookmark Football Archeology and go there whenever you feel like it.

All right.

Well, Tim, we really appreciate you joining us here, preserving the football history, and we'd love to talk to you again next Tuesday.

Very good.

We'll see you soon.

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