Today's Tidbit... First and Five, Eight, Ten, or Fifteen

(1911 Navy Yearbook)

During the game's early years, football's rules were virtually identical to those of rugby which did not allow teams to maintain possession from one scrimmage or scrummage to another. When football went down the possession path in 1880, the rule makers assumed that teams possessing the ball would play honorably, punting when they could not advance the ball after a few scrimmages. However, Princeton had other ideas and kept the ball play and after play versus Yale in 1880 and 1881, leading to new rules requiring teams to gain five yards in three downs or turn the ball over to the opponent.

Under the 1882 rule, teams could also retain possession by losing ten yards in three downs. That changed to losing twenty yards in three downs in 1888, and the lost-yardage approach disappeared in 1904. As odd as a rule providing a new first down for losing yardage seems to us today, they viewed substantial losses of yardage as resulting from a fluke or mistake by one player, and the logic was that teams should have an opportunity to recover from the error by playing scientific, team football.

Of course, awarding first downs for gaining or losing yardage and then doubling the lost yardage requirement demonstrates the arbitrariness of the rules.