Today's Tidbit... 100 Years of Football: The 1880s

This is the second in a series looking back at “100 Years OF Football,” syndicated cartoons published by Jerry Brondfield and Charles Beck in 1969. Today's version covers the 1880s.

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Several fundamental changes in football’s evolution away from rugby emerged in the first half of the 1880s, initiating the year after year tweaking of football’s rules. The compounding effect has resulted in a game substantially different from rugby.

Brief notes follow each cartoon, primarily so their contents are discoverable from an indexing and search perspective.

As always, click the image to enlarge...

(Brondfield & Beck, '100 Years Of Football,' Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick), September 22, 1969.)

Football switched from the rugby scrum to the controlled scrimmage, while the snapperback used his foot to send the ball backward. Football also began spreading outside the East, with Michigan leading the effort by playing Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in 1881. Professional trainers arrived on the scene.