The Washington herald., 1911-12-27
OFFERS FORWARD
PASS SOLUTION N
Parke Davis, Princeton's Rep
resentatiye, ,AdvancesIdeas.

Princeton, y. j., Dec. &c - Parke H
Davis, Princeton representative on the
intercollegiate football rules committee,
has contributed an article TO the Alumni
Weekly. in which he states that the for
ward pass has owed it's life during the
past two years to the slender majority
of two votes on the rules committee, and
points out that a change in the present
forward pass ruling is a necessity.
Under the head The Forward Pass
and the Neutral Zone" Mr.. Davis says:
Through the efforts of James H. MOf-
fat. 1900, who minutely investigated each
injury of that season, precise and &C
Curate data were obtained by the COM
mittee as to the cause of injuries These
were first. interIOCked interference: sec
ond. the recovery of forward passes. and
third, flying tackles. Interlocked inter
ference and flying tackles easily were
met by a peremptory abolition of these
plays. The subject of the forward
passes, however, engaged the commit
tee for ten days and for a large portion
of the intervening nights.
The difficulty lay in the CompleXity
OF the play, which Is not isolated like a
flying tackle or an interlocked interfer-
ence. but is inteRnixed with other plays.
For instance, If end rushes were injured
CaS many were in 1907 while attempting
to recover forward pass, it is easy 70
say that an end going down the field to
recover a forward pass ought not to be
blocked. The query, however, instantly
arises, as it arose before the rules COM
mittee, how is it to he known, before
the pass actually is delivered? He may
he going down the field to cover a punt
or recover an Onside kick or, more i'm
pOrtant STILL he may be going down to
interfere for 4 run. following a fake for
ward pass.
The only solution of the situation,
therefore. was the establishment of q
zone within which offensive players 60
ing down the field should not be blocked
except where acting as interferers in an
attempt to advance the ball by a rush
Hence the forward pass zone was estab-
lished and fixed at twenty yards. Now
what have been the results? Injuries have
been surprisingly lessened. At Princeton
with five times as many men playing
football as baseball in 1911. the accidents
on the gridlrOn notwithstanding have
been less than those on the diamond. But
football tactics have been revolutioniZed
With the abolition of interlocked inter-
ference evenly matched teams no longer
can advance the ball by rushing plays in
series OF first downs, and with the
establishment of the five and twenty yard
restrictions upon the forward pass the
game has become, so some persons al
lege, intolerably complicated.
The rushing game can be re-estab-
lished simply by the number of downs or
by decreasing the yardage. but with this
chance also must return the continuous
line-pounding attack. The solution of the
problem of the complicated forward pass
conditions has not been suggested. This
play has owed its being during the past
two years to the slender majority of two
votes on the rules committee. A new
composition or a new alignment OF the
committee OF 1912 quickly and easily re-
move the problem of the forward pass
beyond the necessity of further consid-
era tfon."