Innovation or Oddity? The Reverse Center

Coaches have exploited loopholes in the rules to obtain a competitive advantage since football began. Other coaches saw opportunities within the rules that others had not recognized or were unwilling to implement. The two can be challenging to tell apart at the time, with some innovations, such as Fritz Crisler's platooning system, changing the course of the game. Others are little more than oddities, which the rule makers quickly outlaw.

Football Archaeology previously covered several unusual innovations of the past, including the Reverse Quarterback, the Tower Play, the 12th Man on the Field, and others but the Reverse Center has not been covered until now. The Reverse Center or Y Formation became the latest thing in 1941 when Ozzie Solem's Syracuse team implemented it, but there had been predecessors.

A whimsical cartoon illustrating the reverse center. (Powers, Jimmy, ‘Powerhouse,’ Daily News (New York), October 27, 1941.)

The reverse center is simple in concept since it involves nothing more than turning the center around, so he faces the backfield rather than the opposing defense. The rules did not require players on the line of scrimmage to face forward, though most everyone had done so. A few early football formations cocked linemen inward at a 45-degree angle, just as wings sometimes do behind the line of scrimmage. So, turning the center around was not crazy as long as the advantages outweighed the disadvantages.