Today's Tidbit... Shooting Down The Flying Wedge

The original flying wedge, Harvard’s famous formation about to attack Yale on November 10, 1892. (Parke Davis, 1911)

Lorin Deland developed the flying wedge, which Harvard showed for the first time in the 1892 Harvard-Yale game. As football was played at the time, kickoffs occurred at the start of each half and following each score. Unlike today, the team that had been scored on did the kicking, but they retained possession by kicking the ball a few inches or feet (like soccer) before picking it up and running with it (unlike soccer). Deland's innovation was to have nine of the kicker's teammates align in groups of four and five, ten yards behind the kicker, and rush forward on a signal. The team's fullback also aligned a few yards behind the kicker. The fullback delayed a moment after the signal and then started forward to receive the ball from the kicker just as his teammates slipped past him in a wedge heading downfield.

The illustration of the flying wedge is based on an interview with Percy Haughton, whose face accompanies the illustration. ('Supreme Football Strategies, Discussed by Master Coaches,' Kansas City Star,  November 22, 1924.)

Since the flying wedge led to more injuries than even 1890s footballers could justify, it led to two rule changes in 1894. One required the kicker to send the ball at least ten yards downfield, and the other made it illegal for more than three players on the team possessing the ball to mass more than five yards behind where the ball was put in play.