Today's Tidbit... The Original Bunch Formation

The term "lateral" entered football's vocabulary in 1914 when Frank Hinkey visited a few Canadian Rugby teams before implementing parts of their horizontal game at Yale. His tactics failed there, but the desire to expand beyond the run-it-up-the-gut game remained.

Other coaches dreamed up schemes to get the ball into space, including a version of the lateral pass first used at West Virginia, where the article's self-congratulating author coached in 1914 and 1915. The illustration shows the quarterback faking the dive before passing to the outside man in the three-man out (now bunch) formation. The play then becomes something resembling today's bubble screen.