Going Deep on Coffin Corner, Squib and Pooch Kicks

Before the forward pass and other changes gave us modern football, the game's rules and football's collective thinking restrained the game's offenses. The combination produced a low-scoring field position game that emphasized punting. Superior punters were prized, and the ability to boot the ball contributed to more than one fullback and halfback gaining All-America honors.

Punting for distance had substantial value in the field position game, but accuracy was also important, mainly due to the era's rules. As we'll see, periodic rule changes required coaches and punters to develop new strategies, requiring new words to communicate and implement those strategies.

John Heisman wrote that punts used to pin opponents into the corner of the field date to the late 1880s or early 1890s and originated with George Brooke, who played at Swarthmore and Penn. Like today, teams valued punts that rolled out of bounds close to the opponent's goal line, but punts that died close to the sideline had more value because football did not yet have hash marks. Punts that went out of bounds could be walked in fifteen yards, while punts stopping close to the sideline stayed there, and the opponent started their possession from the spot. 

One example of George Brooke using his accurate toe occurred during the 1895 Harvard-Penn game when Penn was near midfield:

From the 50-yard line, Brooke drove the ball on a long, low punt clear to the corner of the field. Harvard was down right on her own goal line. … [After Harvard opted to punt on first down,] Brewer went clear back to the fence to punt. He was terribly slow. The big Pennsylvania rushers came through on him and he kicked the ball into them. Boyle fell on it for a touchdown. Brooke kicked the goal.

'The Gains, Yard by Yard,’ Boston Globe, November 12, 1895.

Since teams often started plays from near the sideline after punts or sweeps, every team's playbook and practices included unbalanced formation plays for use from those spots. Still, imagine starting a possession from your one-yard line and one yard from the sideline. Those were indeed n the coffin corner, a term that first appeared in 1919. While it is not clear how the name came into football, one suggestion is that it comes from the notches or insets in walls that provide clearance for longer items, including coffins carried up and down stairwells.