Football formation

“ There are numerous offensive sets a team can employ in order to force the opposition to cover using a man-on-man coverage. When using different sets and formations, I think it is more advisable to teach all of the eligible receivers pass cuts, rather than having them classified under pass patterns which would affect the whole team. As an example, the quarterback could call a formation that would set the left halfback right and split the left end out. ”

“ Each tackle must keep his man in front of him, not permitting the offensive tackles to block them in or out. When a pass develops, the tackles must rush the passer, making certain to stay in front of the football.
Linebackers—Line up about six yards deep and at a spot opposite where the defensive end ordinarily would line up. By lining up wide, we hope to funnel the offense toward the middle of our formation. By this I mean we want them to direct their attack toward the inside and we don’t want them to turn the corner, to get outside or to kill the clock by running out-of-bounds. ”

“ We refer to this as our One-Six Formation. We want our up-backs to go downfield and take the positions of linebackers behind our six-man coverage, as illustrated in Figure 86. They must be in a position to defend against the return up the middle. We want our personal protector and punter to take halfback positions to the outside behind the one-six-two coverage formation (Figure 86) .
Figure 86
We spend a great deal of time giving our players practice in executing their assignments on blocking and covering from spread punt formation. ”

“ The students always play the association game, and it used to be the ambition of every youth to get the ball, and carry it down the field all by himself, while the audience cheered, "Bravo, bravo!" So the faculty arranged matches with the crews of visiting British warships, and from sad experience the college learned the value of side plays and frequent passes, and began to see dimly that good football is played, not with the legs and mouth alone, but with the head, and that hard team-work is better than grand stand exploits. ”

“ There is nothing else I would rather see than when our boys are in their goal line defense, and they have supreme confidence they will keep the opposition from scoring. Every boy is taking it upon himself personally to do what is necessary to stop the ball carrier from scoring. When a coach has a team thinking [13] like this, he will have a winner, and the boys will be winners when they get out of school. ”

“ If the practice is not interesting enough to burn an indelible impression of every rudiment of football into the player's working knowledge, it is wasted. The coach can best instruct his men by putting on his football suit and illustrating exactly what he wants done, not only in fundamentals, but in team play. Confidence of the members of the team, one in the other, and constant interest in how each comrade is developing will in time form a team spirit, a factor quite as potent in carrying a pig-skin as an extra hundred pounds of muscle. ”

“ It teaches the men quick starting and the use of their hands. It trains them to keep their eyes on the ball and impresses them with the fact that if they start before the ball is put in play, a penalty will follow. A fast charging line has its great value, and every coach is keen to have the forwards move fast to clear the way.
Then after the individual coaching is over, the team runs through signals, and the practice is on. Before very long the head coach announces that practice is over, and the trainer yells:
"Everybody in on the jump," and you soon find yourself back in the dressing room. ”

“ Their achievements are a distinguished part of the university's history—a part of our lives as university men—and we are ever ready now to burn incense in their honor, as we were in the old days to burn bonfires, in celebration of their deeds.
It is well now that we recall some of the men who have stood in the front line of football; in the making and preservation of the great game. Many of them have not lived to see the results of their service to the sport which they deemed to be manly and worth while. ”

“ From the opening of college in September, in all sections of the country, to its close in June, football is the most potent factor in the moulding of spirit, in the making of men, and in the bringing them together in the democracy of a common cause in the collegiate life. In the autumn, when the candidates for the team are being tried out and selected according to their worth, thousands of healthy young men take their places on the athletic field every afternoon. ”

“ While throughout the New England towns and villages at this period a "dribbling" game was being played, the American colleges naturally adopted a form of play resembling that in progress under the English Rugby rules. Running with the ball and tackling, in fact every feature which tends to make the game a vigorous one, have subconsciously moulded the game in America. College football in the United States now stands as an exemplification of the athletic instincts of its younger generation. ”

“ At the University School there are eight football elevens which practise daily, and from these very good material is to be had for the first team. At South High, on the other hand, there is a scarcity of players for a scrub team, but the men are all heavier than the University players. ”

“ The unusually large number of students at the Buffalo High-School this year seems to have bred a lively interest in football. The first team the High-School ever put into the field was in 1892, but so little interest was taken in its work by the students at large and the players themselves, that they were able to accomplish but little. ”

“ These men have carried into their new positions a knowledge of the game which has been eagerly received wherever they have gone. Every preparatory school now has one or more instructors, a regular portion of whose labors is the instruction of the pupils of the school, in football, and the development of a team which shall properly represent the school on the gridiron. By this method the game has gained myriads of friends and adherents who in their college and university courses keep up their devotion to football. ”

“ It has taken away from them the advantage of numbers, weight and power, made the game one of brains, speed and strategy—even if you please like baseball, luck,—rendered the outcome of their practice games with smaller colleges uncertain. Why should they have hastened its development? Rather it has been the smaller colleges that have found in the forward pass their opportunity, which have developed its possibilities until now the larger ones as well are turning to it as the final means of winning their big game. ”

“ But even if such application should be made, and were it accepted, as it probably would be, neither school can play upon any team it organizes any man who had any connection, either in a playing or a managing capacity, with the football eleven of last fall, except, possibly, at the special request of the head-master. ”

“ On the part of the public there is general appreciation of the spirit which these two academies have brought into the great autumn sport, a spirit which combines with football per se the color, the martial pomp, the elan of the military. The merger is a happy one, because football in its essence is a stern, grim game, a game that calls for self-sacrifice, for mental alertness and for endurance ”

“ If I had my choice of either winning the game or winning the faith of a boy, I would choose the latter. There is no greater reward for a coach than to see his players achieve their goals in life and to know he had some small part in the success of the boys’ endeavors.
Boys who participate in football, whether in high school or college, are in their formative years. It is every coach’s responsibility to see that each boy receives the necessary guidance and attention he so rightly deserves. ”

“ From the other entrance to the gridiron the visitors enter and they seem every bit as strong and fit to maintain the undefeated record which they also boast this year. Footballs are produced, the two teams form in large circles in different parts of the field and begin to toss the ovals about in rapid succession, while the enthusiasts in stands and bleachers cheer their heroes till it seems as if their throats would be insufficient for the strain which one or the other side, if not both, will have to bear through the game that is not yet begun. ”

“ But, on the other hand, if any goal-keeper made a good save of a goal, or made a plucky attempt to tackle a fellow who was charging down upon the goal, he was called for immediately to play out, and thenceforth he played out always. The footballs were made by Old Martin in Great College Street, with bladders inside, which were constantly being replaced or reblown, round balls and not very large, first-rate for 'kick-about.' They bounded true, not like those lopsided Rugby balls. You could kick one high, full volley from the hand, watch the bound, and kick up again time after time. ”

“ He comes to college fresh from his school day experiences ready to conform himself to the traditions and customs of the new school, his college choice.
The world will never again look quite so big to a boy as it did then. Entering as boys do, in the fall of the year, the uppermost thing in mind, outside of the classroom, is football. Sometimes it is the uppermost thought in the classroom. What kind of a Varsity football team are we going to have? ”

“ Our Boys Must Have the Desire to Excel
We talk about the importance of particular aspects of coaching, such as full cooperation, long contracts, and other phases connected with coaching, but in the final analysis the success or failure of your program depends on the performance of the boys on the playing field. The game is generally won by the boys with the greatest desire. The difference in winning and losing is a very slight margin in a tough ball game. The same applies to two players of equal ability, except that one is great and the other is average. ”

“ There is no game in which team work is more important than in football. Eleven boys of moderate ability and comparative light weight who can execute their plays with skill and precision can beat a team of heavier boys or superior players who may lack their skill and organization. In the case of a school team it is almost always possible to secure the services of a coach from among the graduates. If such a one has had experience on a college team so much the better. ”

“ A thorough canvass was made of the veteran football players of Harvard, Yale and Princeton and a mass of testimony was secured from team captains, college authorities, preparatory school masters, and the result was a most complete array of data, proving beyond a doubt that football is a game in which the beneficent effects far outnumber the possible drawbacks. ”

“ You’ve got to begin with the School, Myers, and work down to the team. If the School hasn’t got the right spirit, the team won’t have it. And that’s why I try to get as many fellows out for football at the beginning of the year as I can. ”

“ No doubt the organisation of school games has had a great deal to do with turning the attention of promising lads at school to football as a career. It is true that one out of a thousand schoolboy players may get signed on, but I hardly know of half a dozen. Hundreds of young men apply to clubs for a trial, and are soon convinced that they have not skill enough, but those few who are lucky should weigh the matter seriously. I know there are many who may argue that they can, after their playing days are over, get a position as trainer or manager to some club. ”

“ What did they care about the ball being fifty yards off? Not a straw, so long as they tackled and kept each other away from it. "That's not football," says one, "it is horse play." "Never mind about football in a Cup Tie," says another, "let the heaviest team win; go into the fellow." "Oh! gentlemen, gentlemen, fie, fie, Association Football is an amateur game, and as long as I play it," said the captain, "there shall be no cruelty done on either side."
Little did the spectators know the real cause of the inordinate tackling done by Bob and Charlie, but the secret soon came out. ”

“ No better evidence is found of the popularity which football has attained and the natural attractiveness and benefit which it brings, than the rapidity with which the game has swept over the preparatory and high schools of the country. From the colleges, the original homes of football, have gone out each year football players who have adopted teaching as their life work. ”

“ The Lawrence Textile School game was played just a fortnight before the date of the Mount Morris contest, and there were those a-plenty who declared that two weeks was all too short a time in which to bring the Grafton team to championship form. ”

“ It is very evident that a dullard can never play football properly. Hence it is by no means detrimental to the game to require high standings for all football men in their classroom work, as is the case in most colleges. Almost all the football players who have attained any recognized degree of success are good students. Football not only requires keen-minded men to play it but it makes its players still keener of mind. The regular exercise helps the player and makes his head clearer for study. ”