Why do we call it Football

[Doc Brown]

To piss off the rest of the world.

[Don Otreply]

4 hours ago, Motorin' said:

 

This is super interesting to my inner nerd. Our football, soccer and rugby were the same game about 150 years ago. Or rather, there were as many iterations and rules of the game as there were colleges. 

 

In the US, as in England, the rules of the game were determined by the home team. One thing that was common was that all fields had soccer goals. In US college football, long before down and distance, and before the Touch Down was invented at McGill University in Montreal, the way a team scored was by running or kicking the ball down field and into the soccer goal. 

 

An oddity of the time was that there were no rules pertaining to how many players could be on the field at a time, and since there was no down or distance it was a free moving game, like soccer and rugby. So the home team was at a decided advantage. They would stash 20-30 defenders in front of the goal to make a human shield and block the net so that even if the opposing team could get the ball down field past their 200-300 man mob, it was virtually impossible to score. This seeming unfair practice resulted in the American football field goal posts that we know today. The posts were placed on the top corners of the soccer goals in order to prevent teams from blocking the goal with men. That's why you'll still see some high schools with soccer goals and field goal posts on top of them to this day. 

 

After 18 players died during the 1904 season, President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to cancel the sport unless rules and safety equipment were put in place. This lead to leather helmets, and down and distance being introduced into the game... 

 

In England, there were similar problems with differing rules. They decided to encode the "Law of Football," and enacted the oldest existing body in sports, the Footbll Association, or FA. The FA decided on rules that became English football or soccer, essentially making it illegal to tackle and stomp people. The schools that preferred the more violent aspects of the game were centered at Rugby school, and encoded the laws of Rugby Football. 

 

The British press, needing to abbreviate the two sports in the newspaper settled on RUG for Rugby football, but couldn't use ASS for Association Football. Instead, they used SOC, which lead to the slang term in England - Soccer. In America, we picked up on the English slang, while they stopped using so long ago that calling it soccer seems foreign to them...

 

In short, when college football began here in the US, there was no forward pass, the ball had to be lateraled or kicked forward, and scoring happened when the ball was kicked into a soccer goal. So it was football, for all intents and purpose. The TD only came into our game after Harvard traveled to McGill in 1874 and liked the rule so much that they incorporated it into their rules back in Cambridge. 

 

Today's soccer, rugby and American football all have common origins prior to each of the games carving out their own unique rules. 

 

 

 

 

Your just makin stuff up now....

?

2 hours ago, RocCityRoller said:

 

that's what he implied association football. RUG and SOC in the papers. So in a way the Americans are keeping an old English tradition alive by calling it soccer.

 

So the Football field goal is the relative of the traditional soccer goal, or kick in rugby. And the touchdown is the relative of the try in rugby. The difference being how the ball crosses the goal line (carried or kicked). Rugby and football have two planes, a ground level one and an elevated one.

 

So in terms of evolution it would be SOC, RUG, Football

 

SOC - no hand touching, must kick the ball over the opponents goal, kicks to advance the ball /no pass, goal is ground level, free flow

RUG - hand touching allowed, may kick or carry the ball over the opponents goal, kicks or laterals may advance the ball, goal is ground level and elevated, free flow

Football - hand touching is prioritized, may kick or carry the ball over the opponents goal, laterals and forward passes used (I think a kick still can), goal is ground level and elevated, down and distance mechanism replaces free flow

 

this ended up being an interesting post after all

 

Thank you, ?

[145B4IDIE]

there's 300 feet from EZ to EZ

[Don Otreply]

10 minutes ago, 145B4IDIE said:

there's 300 feet from EZ to EZ

 

10 minutes ago, 145B4IDIE said:

there's 300 feet from EZ to EZ

Does that include the end zones? 

 

Yah, I had too....

[BADOLBILZ]

4 hours ago, BritBill said:

  
The word “soccer” taken from shortening of the word “association”. I maybe wrong but I think this was first seen in the 1950s. 

 

 

I think "rugby" came from "rub guy" and should be changed to the more appropriate "grinder".    

[1ManRaid]

#Original420ShowerThoughts

[The Wiz]

They had to convey the name of the game to how fans felt when their team gets screwed by the refs.  "Nutshot" was too on the nose so they went with "football" instead. 

[Augie]

6 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

More irony...why do we call it a Touchdown and Rugby calls it a Try?  In Rugby the score isn’t crossing the line, it’s force-ably touching the ball down in what would be the end zone in football.  If anyone should call it a touchdown it’s Rugby.  
 

And why do we call it “Soccer”?  There’s no one out there punching girls. 

Great mysteries of our time

 

I played football growing up, but rugby in college. Now I won’t be able to sleep tonight! 

 

As for “soccer”, that’s mostly a thing for the Chiefs and Browns......so I won’t dwell on it. 

[JaCrispy]

11 hours ago, Don Otreply said:

Being that feet by and large do not come into contact with the ball, on top of that, the league is trying to get rid of the kicking aspect all together, the game is in reality “American Rugby”. Why keep a title/name that has little to nothing to do with the sport as it is played? What would you all do if the league changed the name to reflect the actual game? 

The same reason we drive on a parkway, and park on a driveway...?

[145B4IDIE]

If you put instant rice in the microwave will you go back in time?

[Livinginthepast]

9 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

More irony...why do we call it a Touchdown and Rugby calls it a Try?  In Rugby the score isn’t crossing the line, it’s force-ably touching the ball down in what would be the end zone in football.  If anyone should call it a touchdown it’s Rugby.  
 

And why do we call it “Soccer”?  There’s no one out there punching girls. 

Great mysteries of our time

In rugby in order to score a try, the ball has to be physically touched down to the ground by hand. So American "football" also stole that from rugby. What I find odd is that rugby calls it a try and not a touchdown. You are scoring, not making a "try" to score.

 

In the end they should have called it American rugby. but that ship has sailed!

[Formerly Allan in MD]

I believe the strategy in curling is to ensure the stone goes in a straight line. 

[Motorin']

5 hours ago, Livinginthepast said:

In rugby in order to score a try, the ball has to be physically touched down to the ground by hand. So American "football" also stole that from rugby. What I find odd is that rugby calls it a try and not a touchdown. You are scoring, not making a "try" to score.

 

In the end they should have called it American rugby. but that ship has sailed!

Actually, Rubgy got the touch down from our side of the pond. It was first used by McGill University, then Harvard adopted it. And you did actually have to touch the ball down to score. That part of the rule was eventually removed in the 1890's. 

 

The reason why Rugby called the touch down a try is because you had to get a touch down in order to "try" to kick a goal. They called it a try before the touch down was invented, and it didn't count as any points then. After college football in the US started using the touch down as an actual score, Rugby adopted it as a scoring play but kept the earlier name. You still get to "try" a field goal after scoring a try or touch down...

Edited January 27, 2020 by Motorin'

[Don Otreply]

10 hours ago, JaCrispy said:

The same reason we drive on a parkway, and park on a driveway...?

Hmmm, then one being a way to the park, and the other being the way to the drive... maybe, just maybe, it does not mean what we think it means....

[Charles Romes]

When the touch down was first invented it established the point from which you could make a free kick from for a goal.  You would move the ball straight back from where you crossed the goal line and you would kick from there.  So it was much better to make a touch down at the middle of the field. Touch downs were originally given very little value (1/4 of a goal).  
 

if you wanted to make the extra point really interesting you would bring back the rule where you make the succeeding kick based on where you crossed the goal line.  Then you would see teams try to score in the middle of the field rather than the sidelines to set up easy extra points.  
 

With the game is totally unrecognizable from its origins it’s amazing that a kick still follows the touchdown just like it did when the touch down was first invented. 

[frostbitmic]

On 1/26/2020 at 11:08 AM, Tenhigh said:

My Irish buddy always brings this up. He says it should bee called throwball.  

 

 

I reply that soccer should then be called kickball.  

Either that or zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzball

 

Kicking a ball around for an hour and a half without any scoring is just plain awful.

 

And these guys are doing it with a goal as wide as the English Channel.

[MAJBobby]

On 1/26/2020 at 9:32 AM, Don Otreply said:

Being that feet by and large do not come into contact with the ball, on top of that, the league is trying to get rid of the kicking aspect all together, the game is in reality “American Rugby”. Why keep a title/name that has little to nothing to do with the sport as it is played? What would you all do if the league changed the name to reflect the actual game? 

why is Hockey called Hockey. Shouldn’t is be called Stick Puck shouldn’t they name it to reflect the actual game?

[without a drought]

21 hours ago, 145B4IDIE said:

If you put instant rice in the microwave will you go back in time?

I've got some Minute Rice from 1975 if you want to give it a try.

[MAJBobby]

Why is the Ball called “Pigskin” shouldn’t it be called “Cowskin”

[Tuco]

15 hours ago, Motorin' said:

Actually, Rubgy got the touch down from our side of the pond. It was first used by McGill University, then Harvard adopted it. And you did actually have to touch the ball down to score. That part of the rule was eventually removed in the 1890's. 

 

The reason why Rugby called the touch down a try is because you had to get a touch down in order to "try" to kick a goal. They called it a try before the touch down was invented, and it didn't count as any points then. After college football in the US started using the touch down as an actual score, Rugby adopted it as a scoring play but kept the earlier name. You still get to "try" a field goal after scoring a try or touch down...

 

And something very few people know, the extra point attempt, be it 1 or 2 points, is still technically called a "try" in the NFL rule book.

 

ARTICLE 1. GENERAL RULES

 

After a touchdown, a Try is an opportunity for either team to score one or two additional points during one scrimmage down.

The Try begins when the Referee sounds the whistle for play to start. The team that scored the touchdown shall put the ball in play:

 

anywhere on or between the inbound lines;

 

15 yards from the defensive team’s goal line for a Try-kick; or

 

two yards from the defensive team’s goal line for a Try by pass or run.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Tuco