Fielding Yost and the First Fake Field Goal

There is nothing new under football's sun. Many plays, techniques, and concepts are borrowed, recycled, adapted, or reinvented by those unaware someone else already rolled out that invention. Still, everything borrowed or recycled had a beginning, a first use, so the trick is to identify when an idea hatched.

Finding the hatching point is made more difficult by those who mistake the first time they see something with the first time anyone saw that something. That was the case in 1913 when a writer credited Michigan coach Fielding H. "Hurry Up" Yost with devising the fake field goal when the Wolverines ran it against Penn. In the weeks following the game, an anonymously-written article appeared in newspapers across the country extolling Yost's brilliance in designing and calling the play.

'Greatest Play By Greatest Coach,' Cincinnati Post, November 20, 1913.

As the article describes, Michigan lined up to attempt a field goal with their quarterback on one knee and his hands outstretched to receive the ball from the center while the kicker lined up behind him. At the snap, the kicker moved forward and swung his leg as if to kick the ball, but the quarterback never placed the ball on the ground. Instead, he jumped up and ran the ball around the left end for the score.

Here is the enlarged play diagram from the article above.