Today's Tidbit... Illegal Forward Passing Before 1906

There are periodic claims that football's first forward pass occurred before 1906, but those claims misinterpret the vocabulary of the time and tactics that were against the rules. Until the 1940s, all ball exchanges between players on offense were called passes, whether they went backward, sideways, or forward. Before the 1940s, "handoff" was synonymous with stiff arm. It did not take on its current meaning until used to describe the quarterback-running back exchange of the Modern T formation's dive play.

(Robinson, Rugby Football, 1896)

The two most prominent mentions of pre-1906 forward passes involve Walter Camp, Pop Warner, and John Heisman. The first came one week after the Intercollegiate Football Association passed its first set of rules in 1876, which prohibited the forward pass. Walter Camp was in the process of being tackled, tossed the ball forward to a Yale teammate who proceeded to cross the goal line, leading Princeton to protest the illegal play. The story goes that the referee was unclear about the week-old rules, so he ruled by flipping a coin that landed in Yale's favor.