Today's Tidbit... Wasting Two Downs

(1941 Arizona yearbook)

The above image shows a Utah player diving for the ball after running for a first down and then fumbling. Utah recovered the ball and went on to a 24-0 win. But that is not why we gathered here today. Instead, our focus is on the chain gang and, specifically, the down box.

The assistant standing at the 45-yard line handles one striped pole while his counterpart at the 35-yard line is out of the picture, though we see his shadow. The guy standing just past the 40-yard line holds a down box unlike any seen before, likely because it was a silly contraption. Did the maker need to put the word DOWN on the down box? Why not increase the size of the numbers instead?

Unfortunately, the folks in Utah were not alone. Ten years later, Ohio State wasted space and attention by including the word DOWN, not THE DOWN, on its down box. The Buckeye down box was an actual box, so it presumably had a wasteful DOWN on all four sides.

(1951 Ohio State)

Sorry for THE rant.

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