Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-03-16
The Football Rules.

This is hardly the football season,
but it is the season when the schedules
of games for next fall are being ar
ranged and when proposed changes in
the rules are being talked over. The
attack on the game by Professor Hell
lis, chairman of the Harvard athletic
committee. and particularly his
proposition that the annual game with
Yale be given up, has aroused a lively
and widespread discussion. There can
be no doubt that football has. become
the most popular branch OF intercol-
legate sport, both with undergradu-
ates and with the general public, and
it will survive this attack as it has
many others. About every decade a
reaction against football is due, if we
may judge by the past. 1t was in 1884
or 1885 that q great hue and cry was
made against it as too rough Il sport,
and the game was outlawed by tie
Harvard authorities. Ten years later
there was a second wave of disap-
prevail and criticism. and the great
Harvard-Yale game was given up for
two or three years. The 10 year cycle
is about up. and another reaction
against the game seems at hand.
The general complaint is made that
IL. H. tnn ctr &c
and dangerous-thi complaint is not
made by players, by the way'-and
there is a strong feeling that the game
should be more open and spectacular
from the spectators point of view. = he
elimination of the mass play" is the
thing mainly desired, and many of the
best friends of the game would be
glad if this could be done. Kew would
want to see the game made as open as
the English style of football which is
more haphazard than skill or strategy
or Drawn, and which can hardly thrill
the blood like the American game, but
too much close playing, as has been
the tendency of our game, makes the
meaningless melee of a dirty mob that
would be very dull We're it not for the
excitement that any physical contest
arouses.
How is the game to be made more
open? We believe there has been no
better suggestion made than the simple
| remedy proposed by Caspar Whitney.
He proposes that the rules be changed
| to increase the distance which must
| be gained in four downs from five to
| ten yards. Thirty feet is a long dis
lance on a football field; it could rare
ly be gained by the present pushing;
| tactics. AS Mr.. Whitney says, when Il
team, as frequently happens, fails to
sain ground in the first attempt, "a
| kick or some brilliant open play would,
| beyond doubt, be necessary to make
| the required ten yards To incor-
porate Mr.. Whitneys suggestion into
| the playing rules would do much to re-
store the beautiful open game of fifteen
years ago, and the need of some sucl
reform grows more pressing every year.
a natural and a necessary pendent to
such a rule would be to require all
seven 'rushers" to keep their positions
until the ball is in motion. In order to
break up the flying wedges consisting
| of an entire team. it was ruled in 1897
that not more than six men should play
behind the line. But this still allows
two burly rushers to be brought behind
the line to make. with the backs, a
crushing formation" Four is the
normal number Of men to play behind
the line, and no more should be al
lowed.