The UFL gives football fans something to watch in the spring and does not compete with the NFL. They are not legally tied to the NFL but help showcase borderline talent, so they function as a minor league in practice. They also been a laboratory for potential rule changes.
TLDR, they experimented with different widths, eventually settling on a width and then modified it to account for American sawmills not producing lumber longer than 24 feet.
Wilson's contributions to the game while at Wesleyan, as an advisor (who was deliberately omitted from the school's game annals), included scoring 5 points against Yale while holding them to just 29, beating arch-rival Penn and likely inventing a tactical no-huddle pre-set series of plays ..
Im aligned with you on the UFL rule, tho it is fascinating to consider if Thompson had been successful how the game would have changed. It definitely seems like the passing game succeeded in "opening" the game based on old scores compared to modern scores, but it is interesting to think of the strategy had been to kick so much more often and a TD was less important than a kick...would teams basically try to down the ball inside the five?
Yeah, it is hard to imagine what the game might be like today. The game might have returned to its no pads days, and who is to say whether or not it would have continued to be as popular.
I think Erick Dickerson said "as long as theres running, tackling and blocking it is football." He didnt include the forward pass - which today is the biggest difference between rugby codes and football, and as someone who has played and loved both, I think it is cool both exist and are different. A kicking-first football may make the name make more sense, but I think it very likely may have become treated as a local form of rugby - and in the post-war era it may have internationalized, in a way the NFL is trying to do now.
Dang this would be a crazy fun alternate history haha.
Is this UFL thing meant to be a competitor to the NFL, like how the ABA and the WHA challenged the NBA and the NHL in the '70s?
The UFL gives football fans something to watch in the spring and does not compete with the NFL. They are not legally tied to the NFL but help showcase borderline talent, so they function as a minor league in practice. They also been a laboratory for potential rule changes.
Minor league football. Nice.
What's the history behind the widths of the goal posts? They seem very specific, rather than an even 20 or 22 feet. Thanks.
I think an early article will answer your question. https://www.footballarchaeology.com/p/todays-tidbit-setting-new-standards
TLDR, they experimented with different widths, eventually settling on a width and then modified it to account for American sawmills not producing lumber longer than 24 feet.
Wilson's contributions to the game while at Wesleyan, as an advisor (who was deliberately omitted from the school's game annals), included scoring 5 points against Yale while holding them to just 29, beating arch-rival Penn and likely inventing a tactical no-huddle pre-set series of plays ..
Im aligned with you on the UFL rule, tho it is fascinating to consider if Thompson had been successful how the game would have changed. It definitely seems like the passing game succeeded in "opening" the game based on old scores compared to modern scores, but it is interesting to think of the strategy had been to kick so much more often and a TD was less important than a kick...would teams basically try to down the ball inside the five?
Yeah, it is hard to imagine what the game might be like today. The game might have returned to its no pads days, and who is to say whether or not it would have continued to be as popular.
I think Erick Dickerson said "as long as theres running, tackling and blocking it is football." He didnt include the forward pass - which today is the biggest difference between rugby codes and football, and as someone who has played and loved both, I think it is cool both exist and are different. A kicking-first football may make the name make more sense, but I think it very likely may have become treated as a local form of rugby - and in the post-war era it may have internationalized, in a way the NFL is trying to do now.
Dang this would be a crazy fun alternate history haha.