History of american college football Heisman memories
"Line charging? Very little scientific thought had been put on that department of play before the dawn of the present century. Nearly all linesmen, as a rule, lined up squarely against those who played the same positions on the opposing team. They didn't crouch or squat or play low. They mostly stood bolt upright and fought it out with each other hammer and tongs, tooth and nail, fist and feet. Fact is, you didn't stand much chance of making the line those days unless you were a good wrestler and fair boxer.
"Certain ingenious plays featured early-day sport that were quite as startling and unique as is the forward pass of today. First was the flying wedge, invented in 1892 and brought out by Harvard. The play was promptly copied by almost every team in the country. "Today we start the game with a kick-off, but in those days it was a fake kick, the center merely touching the ball to his toe and then tossing it back to a team-mate who ran with it while the rest of the team gave him what interference it could.
"In the flying wedge, however, 9 of the players of the team withdrew about 20 yards from mid-field and at a signal these 9, in two lanes, started simultaneously and at full speed, converging on a point indicated by the ball. By the time they arrived at the ball, they had worked up a stupendous mass momentum, and the interference they gave for the runner was something wonderful to behold, and terrible to stop.
"In 1894 Coach Woodruff, at Penn, drafted the principle of the flying wedge for his famous flying interference, which could be put into operation by the team that had the ball in every scrimmage down. This consisted in starting the tackle and end ahead of the snapping of the ball. They swung back together, between their line and the backfield, and then kept on to reinforce the work of their companion tackle and end, on the other side of the ball. Just before they hit the defensive line the ball went into play, and the results were again almost as disastrous to the defense as was the flying wedge. These 2 plays were quite as spectacular and thrilling as any that the modern game has produced. So unstoppable were they, however, that the Rules Committee was forced to legislate them out of existence within a few years in order to preserve the proper balance between offense and defense.
