Today's Tidbit... Penalizing Incomplete Passes

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so is ugly.

For modern football fans, few plays are as exciting as a Hail Mary pass, tossed far downfield in the hope of connecting with a receiver to win or tie a game. Doug Flutie's toss against Miami is now considered one of the most exciting plays in football history. But that is the modern view of football and the forward pass, which was not shared by many of the game's top coaches and administrators back when the forward pass was a teenager.

After entering the game in 1906, the forward pass went through a teething period before emerging as a teen in the Teens, with the ball tossed downfield increasingly often. That did not sit well with traditionalists who wanted to put the foot back in football. Pop Warner, for example, wanted to ban the forward pass, though he used it as long as it remained within the rules. Many traditionalists disliked having lesser football teams come into their stadiums and employ the forward pass to compete with their power teams. They especially disliked it when beating teams in the fourth quarter of a low-scoring game, only to watch the little guy throw the ball far downfield, hoping for a lucky break. That, my good man, was not scientific football, so they began suggesting ways to take the Hail Mary out of American schools or, at least, their football stadiums.

The ball is in the air in the WashU-Iowa State game. (1924 Washington U yearbook)